September 28, 2007

Green, LEED-certified schools offer learning advantages

Our speech is littered with clichéd slogans that we spout without thinking. “Our customers are our most valuable asset.” Sure. But just try to get customer service. “Our employees are our most valuable asset.” Sure. But just try to get a grievance heard without risking your job. “Our children are our most valuable asset.” Sure. But how many school boards demand that new schools qualify for LEED certification?

Now, in the United States, there is LEED for Schools, introduced earlier this year. Incorporating LEED credits I think is ingenious.

Construction Corner

Korky Koroluk

The U.S. Green Building Council felt some political pressure as it developed LEED for Schools. The U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents more than 1,100 mayors, passed a resolution strongly supportive of green schools.

Mayor Franklin Cownie of Des Moines, Ia., sponsored the resolution, and cited studies showing that “children in green schools are healthier and more productive because of improved indoor air quality, lower levels of chemical emissions and a generous provision of natural daylighting.The benefits of cleaner indoor air quality, a key emphasis of green schools, have been linked to lower asthma rates, fewer allergies, (and) reduced absenteeism.”

I don’t want to give the impression LEED for Schools was developed because of political pressure. It wasn’t. The USGBC had, back in 2004, made a commitment to a program aimed specifically at schools. It felt there was a need to teach children about sustainability, and sending kids to class in a green school was one way to help achieve that.

The new rating system takes into account the complex spaces in a school, often spaces with different occupants and needs. Classrooms, offices, a library, a gymnasium, a cafeteria, an auditorium, all under one roof, can result in some ambiguity in how the existing LEED for New Construction might apply.

And Cownie’s concerns are reflected in the requirements for building on non-contaminated sites and more stringent requirements for material emissions. It also offers a new credit for incorporating a strategy for the prevention of mould.

Sounds good. So when it is coming to Canada?

Well, it isn’t, at least as a separate rating system. But we are likely to get a form of it, although not for a while.

Since we’re in a much smaller market, we can’t expect the Canada Green Building Council to develop LEED standards for all the things the U.S. Green Building Council does. Instead, CaGBC is involved in the early planning stages for something called LEED Canada Complete, which is to incorporate other LEED systems, including Neighbourhood Development, Retail, Laboratories and Health Care.

The idea is that LEED Canada Complete will be a comprehensive, web-based database of LEED prerequisites and credits which you would select depending on your project, location, occupancy type and state of development.

In the meantime, Canadian school boards wanting LEED certification will have to follow the LEED Canada-NC rating system.

People are still wary about the possibility of increased costs that might accompany LEED. But when LEED for Schools was being developed, a study was done under the sponsorship groups representing teachers, architects and scientists, plus the American Lung Association and the USGBC.

It found that green schools cost “less than two per cent more than conventional schools” but “provide financial benefits that are 20 times as large.”

The study report then documented economic, health and learning advantages to be gained through building green schools, as well as the usual environmental benefits: using 30 per cent less energy, 30 to 50 per cent less water, and emitting 40 per cent less carbon dioxide.

Little wonder the concept of LEED has grown so quickly.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com

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