US mayors, USGBC join forces to green schools - sort of
Posted October 21, 2008 in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably
There is a story on the GreenerBuildings website that the US Conference of Mayors has formed the Mayors' Alliance for Green Schools, which will work with the US Green Building Council toward the goal of making the nation's schools environmentally friendly within a generation. No one can argue with that goal.
The story goes on to mention green roofs, solar gardens, recycling programs, green jobs and infrastructure, and improving the environmental quality of facilities. It cites with approval various existing programs, including those by the USGBC, the Clinton Climate Initiative, and Ecomedia.
I don't want to rain on their parade too much, because these are all good things. But what bugs me is the claim to "greenness" when neither the new initiative nor any of the programs they cite do anything whatever to address school sprawl (see my previous posts here and here), where automobile-dependent mega-campuses do more environmental damage than any building-centric focus can ever overcome. In fact, USGBC is quoted in the story as bragging about the vast acreage of campus space it has certified in its programs as green, as if the vast acreage itself were something to celebrate. It isn't.
In addition, by focusing its work on city mayors, the new initiative overlooks the considerable problems in the suburbs and beyond, where the worst damage occurs. Yes, it's a start. But let's call it that, and for once acknowledge that it won't get to some of the most serious environmental problems associated with schools.
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Bronwyn Beistle — Oct 22 2008 11:20 AM
We had a discussion about this issue in the Montgomery County Sustainability Working Group. Part way into the meeting a realtor said that we were placing too much emphasis on "greening" buildings without enough thought given to the buildings' contexts--issues of sprawl, transportation, etc. I guess my feeling is that not every organization can do everything, and USGBC is probably doing good work here--but it's fundamentally incomplete work until they start working *with* groups expert in transport, so that at least their initiative could decrease the number of people driving cars to the campus. As for fixing the underlying issue of how much acreage the buildings are taking up--that's a tough one. At that point, I guess you have to start considering whether a Van Jones-style "deconstruction" of the buildings is an option, with an eye toward re-designing the campus with a smaller footprint. Even if it is, I'm sure it would be an option that's tough to sell.
Bronwyn Beistle — Oct 22 2008 11:27 AM
What's even tougher is the issue of campus location itself--not just campuses taking up a lot of acreage but being a part of urban sprawl themselves, essentially a big development out in the middle of nowhere. How to deal with *that* without pulling the buildings down--carefully (grin)--and rebuilding the campus closer in I don't know. The best I can come up with is investing money is some kind of super-speedy European-style Metro from nearby towns to the campus--but that doesn't begin to cover the problem.
Kaid @ NRDC — Oct 22 2008 11:28 AM
Thanks so much for sharing your experience and insight, Bronwyn. I agree that there may be little we can do about the location and form of existing schools, except perhaps to attempt to place more walkable development nearby, and provide good connections to the school, improving the context if not the school itself.
But there's a lot we can do as we design and locate new schools, and as we design and locate new neighborhood development with schools. Fortunately, the National Trust and some other very good people are working on it.
Bronwyn Beistle — Oct 22 2008 11:38 AM
Glad to be part of the discussion, Kaid (I'm a new intern, so this is all still pretty cool to me). You're absolutely right about designing new schools--I'm afraid my head is so stuck in retrofitting these days that I tend to just assume that's what everybody's talking about, but it's just my particular obsession. :-) The work of dealing with the already-built landscape just preoccupies my mind. There's too darned much of it.