Advancing Green Building in Higher Education
Second Nature has launched a capacity-building program, Advancing Green Building in Higher Education, focused on addressing some of the challenges faced by under-resourced colleges and universities to ‘build green’ on their campuses. With a $1,242,000 three-year grant from the Kresge Foundation, Second Nature is helping under-resourced schools learn about and use the financial and technical resources available to construct and renovate campus buildings in ways that save money, reduce environmental and health impacts, serve as educational tools, and increase student enrollment.
The built environment accounts for an estimated 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to global climate disruption. Given the environmental and health problems exacerbated by the construction and use of campus buildings, hundreds of institutions of higher learning are building high-performance, healthy facilities that reduce or eliminate harmful emissions and waste and increase quality of life and productivity for their occupants. However, many public universities, religious, community, and technical colleges, and institutions that serve financially disadvantaged and minority students have fewer resources to spend on bricks and mortar projects, less in-house knowledge about green building, and a limited opportunity to learn from similar schools that have excelled in green building. Many are unaware that green building will result in 10-20% annual energy savings over the long-term.
Kresge Foundation announces new Higher Green Building Standards for Challenge-grant applicants in Higher Education
Please click HERE and go to the Kresge Foundations' website for more information on this program.
Fellowships for University and College Senior Managers
As part of the program, Second Nature will award fellowships to 40 university executives who will learn the skills and technical information they need to be effective champions for green building at their own under-resourced campuses. University campus planners, facilities directors, or vice presidents of finance and business will be eligible for the fellowships through which they will take part in learning and networking opportunities, such as the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment Leadership Summit and Greenbuild 2009. For more information about the fellowship program, please click on the link above.
Part of the grant funds will be put toward providing to 100 under-resourced schools 60% membership discounts to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), a network of more than 800 colleges and universities working to advance sustainability in higher education. For more information about applying for the AASHE membership discount, visit here.
In November, 2009 Second Nature launched the Campus Green Builder web portal. The portal is the first of its kind in the higher education sector, providing hundreds of links to green building-related web sites, directories of experts, and resources for training and funding opportunities. The site is relevant to all higher education institutions but is particularly geared towards community colleges, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, tribal colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions, religiously-affiliated institutions, and other schools that in many cases have fewer resources and growing interest in ‘green building.’ To read the full news release regarding the Campus Green Builder launch, click here.
For more information about the Advancing Green Building program, contact Program Director Amy Seif Hattan or Program Manager Ashka Naik.
For information about Advancing Green Building internship opportunities for graduate students and college seniors, please visit the Employment Opportunitiessection.