When considering this topic, my first thoughts were about inspiring my own children and how to get them thinking about their individual impact on the environment. At home, we talk a lot about conservation and recycling, we grow our own veggies and have eggs from our own chickens. Whenever possible, we buy locally produced goods to support our friends and neighbors. At school, they discuss the environment as well with regard to planting trees,  recycling, and reuse. My oldest is a freshman in high school and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that environmental agriculture and biotechnology courses are part of their curriculum. I thought this was very progressive for a small rural community. As it turns out, this is becoming the norm across the country as well as internationally. Colleges and universities are promoting their efforts in sustainability and green technology in order to attract students.  Sustainability is a future-oriented concern, and our most potent resource for achieving sustainability is our youth.

The internet and social networking play a big role in the lives of our youth today. It’s not surprising that this issue is among the topics of discussion in many blogs and chat rooms. There are many organizations inspiring greener, sustainably initiatives, some have been established by youth who are committed to the cause and looking to inspire others. Here are a few of the sites I found interesting:

SustainUS – US Youth for Sustainable Development
SustainUS is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization of young people advancing sustainable development and youth empowerment in the United States. Through proactive education, research, and advocacy at the policy-making and grassroots levels, we are building a future in which all people recognize the inherent equality and interdependence of social, economic, and environmental sustainability.

Impossible2Possible
“The mission of impossible2Possible(i2P) is to encourage youth to reach beyond their perceived limits, and to use adventure as a medium to educate, inspire and empower our global community to make positive change in the world. i2P aims to equip today’s youth with the understanding and belief that they have the power to change the world. We envision a world of achievers that believe in their hearts that nothing is out of the realm of possibility!”

Do It Green, Burnaby 2011 (Canada)
Formally established under this name in 2010, the Burnaby Youth Sustainability Network (BYSN) is a student-driven umbrella organization that, with the support of the Burnaby School Board, fosters and promotes local environmental stewardship throughout the districts schools.

Earth Day Network
For over 40 years, Earth Day—April 22—has inspired and mobilized individuals and organizations worldwide to demonstrate their commitment to environmental protection and sustainability.  Earth Day Network’s year-round mission is to broaden, diversify and activate the environmental movement worldwide, through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer campaigns.

UN Department of Economic and Social affairs – Division of Sustainable Development
“Youth comprise nearly 30 per cent of the world’s population. The involvement of today’s youth in environment and development decision-making and in the implementation of programs is critical to the long-term success…”

As I searched through the various internet websites, I realized that maybe the right title for this piece should have been “Inspiration from our Youth – Sustaining Sustainability.”

An interesting article was published through the online version of Sustainable Plant, titled “Energy Monitoring Instrumentation Should Be Simple and Inexpensive.” I am a huge fan of all things that are simple and inexpensive, and I have worked with instrumentation for many years, so I had to check it out.

The overall point of the article is that instrumentation is essential to detect energy waste, but buying the more expensive measurement methods may defeat the overall goal of saving money. In order to effectively save money, we need to look at how the information will be used to select the device for energy measurement. Perhaps the building operator only needs to know that a large item is operating when it should be off. Maybe we don’t always need to know within a few pennies of what an item costs to operate every day; however, knowing within a few dollars is a good idea. 

Regardless the economic trends, saving money is always desirable.  Selecting effective instrumentation with the best return on investment requires application of common sense and an understanding of how the collected data will be used.

I browsed through some clipart, looking for something to accompany this blog entry.  I wanted a dollar sign, and I wanted to show something related to energy.  This picture really drove the point home to me.  Here is some poor guy stressing out to fix the gears, when gears in that alignment cannot turn.  Go ahead; trace the clockwise and counter-clockwise directions the gears would drive each other.  You might already know that the gears in the upper part will obstruct each other.  Wrenching on it will solve nothing.  However, I am not sure the creator of this clip art knows that.

While some details are necessary – it’s the big picture that is really important.

Tucked towards the back of the LEED reference guide there are two credits that are often overlooked and are typically more expensive to implement than other credits in most building types. These two credits are not based on new technologies, but rather historic building features that were necessary before innovations in energy. These two credits, commonly referred to as the daylight and views credits, were vital to buildings before we harnessed electricity for interior lighting. So why are we going backwards with technology? What’s the point?

If you walk into a new(er) Walmart store today and look up, over the aisles piled high with merchandise, you will see large skylights providing nearly all of the ambient lighting during the day. A few years ago, Walmart did a study that proved they sold more product, no matter what it was, underneath natural daylight than the underneath artificial light. So they started building all of their stores with skylights. Beyond the immediate savings of being able to turn the lights off for most of the day, the theory was that they would sell more under the skylights.

More and more building owners are conducting similar experiments which are producing similar results. Here are links to a few case studies:

http://www.energydesignresources.com/media/2359/EDR_CaseStudies_homebase.pdf

http://www.energydesignresources.com/media/2347/EDR_CaseStudies_capo.pdf

http://www.energydesignresources.com/media/2350/EDR_CaseStudies_cod.pdf

Retailers, manufacturers, educators, physicians, librarians, building owners, etc. are realizing spaces that are lit with natural daylight and provide more views to the outdoors are simply better spaces.  Something changes in the attitudes and perceptions of people who interact with those spaces, increasing their sense of well being, productivity, and even their overall health. This begs the question, what happens to building occupants if we don’t provide this?

So “ancient” design methods are still viable today. Utilizing natural daylight can help us reduce our carbon footprint and create overall better working, learning, and shopping environments.

Want to know how SSOE can help you achieve these credits? Check out our website: http://www.ssoe.com/techpower to see how we leverage our knowledge to implement this technology.

Two years ago at the 2009 USGBC Greenbuild conference in Phoenix, Arizona, I attended a seminar that introduced a sister rating system similar to LEED called STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment & Rating System), a program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). STARS is a rating system specifically for colleges and universities in the US and Canada. Unlike LEED, where a building or portion of a building is being scored, STARS judges the sustainability efforts of the entire campus.  

At the time of the seminar, STARS had not yet been officially launched, rather it was going through a testing phase in which 66 institutions were involved. STARS 1.0 was officially launched in January of 2010. Now being a little over a year since the launch, I was intrigued to check the programs expansion and growth. I was curious to know if universities would be willing to make the effort, to not only track their sustainability efforts through LEED, but also through another sustainability assessment system. Will the STARS program evolve to the status and magnitude of LEED in the higher education world? 

In sifting through the website, I was pleased to notice that 243 colleges and universities are now registered with STARS. However, only 40 of them have put in the effort to complete the process to achieve an official rating. With that, I began to ask myself, are universities and colleges registering with STARS out of curiosity and/or to get there name out there, or are they truly on the path to incorporate this new system into their campuses? I am interested to know if anyone out there has heard of STARS or has an opinion on the rating system. If you are not familiar with STARS, check it out at https://stars.aashe.org/ and let us know your thoughts and opinions.