Green building consultant, author and keynote speaker, Jerry Yudelson publishes a new white paper revealing that sustainable management, design and operations are rapidly growing practices at American universities, leading to 3000 LEED-registered projects.
Based on a study of the LEED project database, Yudelson Associates today released a new white paper, Green Building Trends in Higher Education, covering green building on campus. The White Paper can be downloaded immediately from Yudelson Associates’ website Free Resources section: http://www.greenbuildconsult.com/books/#new .
Leading green building consultant, Jerry Yudelson, principal of Yudelson Associates and author of 12 green building books, said that American campuses now host more than 3000 LEED-registered projects, about 15 percent of the total of all LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects. Moreover, with nearly 600 LEED-certified projects, American colleges and universities have found a practical and highly visible way to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practices.
According to the new Yudelson Associates white paper, based on end-of-2009 data from the U.S. Green Building Council, the four leading campuses for LEED project registrations are, in order, the University of Florida, Harvard University, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Washington. The rapid growth in LEED registrations at leading campuses has come from their adoption of LEED as a way of certifying the sustainability of campus operations.
LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance (LEED EBOM) project registrations have become increasingly popular over the past several years.
Going beyond the LEED rating system, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) recently released its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). This new campus sustainability rating system incorporates a number of criteria that evaluate green building achievements.
It’s so important to know what different classes of users are doing to promote green building. In this White Paper, we review the status of sustainable construction and operations on campus.
Yudelson noted, “LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance (LEED EBOM) project registrations have become increasingly popular over the past several years.” In the view of Yudelson Associates, this is a promising change, as almost all of the building stock on college campuses already exists in any given two- to five-year period. Reducing the impacts of existing buildings is critical to meeting carbon emission reduction and green building goals.
Jaimie Galayda, PhD, research director at Yudelson Associates assisted Jerry Yudelson in the preparation of this white paper. Galayda says that there is more going on at the campuses than just LEED certification. “Going beyond the LEED rating system, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) recently released its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS). This new campus sustainability rating system incorporates a number of criteria that evaluate green building achievements.”
In addition, the new White Paper notes that the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s (SEI) Green Report Card ranks campuses according to their sustainable achievements. Several of their criteria address green buildings specifically. The growing popularity of these rating and ranking systems is putting more pressure on campuses to build green, along with their interest in saving money by operating buildings more efficiently.
About Jerry Yudelson
Since 2005, Jerry Yudelson has written 12 books on green building, green development and water conservation, more than any other authority in the field. Yudelson also offers a unique perspective from his work providing green development consulting to national and international clients, including a major American university. Yudelson says, “It’s so important to know what different classes of users are doing to promote green building. In this White Paper, we review the status of sustainable construction and operations on campus.”
About Yudelson Associates
Yudelson Associates is a leading international firm in sustainability planning and green building consulting. The founder, Jerry Yudelson, is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading green building and sustainability consultants. He is the author of 12 green building books, including the forthcoming Dry Run: Preventing the Next Urban Water Crisis (New Society Publishers, 2010), and served for two years as Research Scholar for Retail Real Estate Sustainability for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a 70,000-member international trade organization. He is a frequent green building speaker at industry and professional conferences and has chaired the industry’s largest annual show, Greenbuild, for the past six years, from 2004 through 2009.
To learn more, visit http://www.greenbuildconsult.com/ or contact Jerry Yudelson, president of Yudelson Associates at 520-207-9759.