The Green and Sustainable Schools virtual event is part of the Green Building Expo online event series, and delivers 4 hours of educational content for and by green building and design professionals. The event went live on August 25th and is now available on-demand throughout the year.

During the 4 hour virtual event, attendees engaged in real-time discussions with sustainable design experts and thought leaders in the Green Building Expo virtual event center, and participated in live webcast sessions on the topic of green and sustainable schools.

The event began with a keynote panel discussion led by Patrick Egan, Publisher of the Green Building Journal, who was joined by a number of thought leaders including:

• Lisa Gelfand, Principal of Gelfand Partners Architects
• Nick Semon, Technical Coordinator at the Collaborative for High Performance Schools
• Ian Hadden, Sustainable Design & Marketing Liaison at Fanning Howey
• Marc Roper, Vice President at Tioga Energy
• Jeffrey Bruce, Owner of Jeffrey L. Bruce & Company (JBC)

The discussion began by introducing each speaker and their background. Then the hour long presentation was led by questions from the audience directed towards the group and individual panelists.

After the panel discussion we shifted to our first presentation with Lisa Gelfand titled Daylighting - The Foundation of a Sustainable School. Here Lisa discussed the top strategies for daylighting design.

Daylighting is the foundation of a sustainable school.  This practice, which admits the controlled light of the sun and sky into occupied spaces and supplements with appropriate electrical illumination, can save up to 60% of the typical school electricity bill. Daylighting has also been shown to improve the learning environment and contribute to higher student test scores and satisfaction on the part of both students and teachers. When incorporated in integrated design strategies it adds very little incremental cost.

The top strategies for designing daylighting include proper orientation and shading of openings, lighting surfaces in rooms to reduce glare requirements for high concentrations of electric fill light, and coordination of electric lighting design. In addition to the daylighting strategy itself, integration of openings into ventilation and building envelope decisions as well as reduction in the waste heat of electric lighting can contribute to additional energy savings. Given that schools are predominantly daytime uses, daylighting is the natural place to start a sustainable design.

After a short break, the discussion moved to Greg Kats’ presentation on Our Buildings and Communities: The Costs & Benefits of Going Green. In this presentation Greg focused on his study, Greening Our Built World: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies, as well as introduced his work, Green Buildings and Communities: Costs and Benefits. Based on findings in the 2006 study, Mr. Kats demonstrated that the total fiscal benefits of green schools can be twenty times as great as the initial cost. Schools can save money while reaping the benefits of high performance buildings, from improved test scores to a lower carbon footprint.

Henry Kelly, the president of the American Federation of Scientists wrote: “This carefully documented study conclusively demonstrates the financial, environmental, and other benefits of using green technologies in schools. In fact, failure to invest in green technologies is not financially responsible for school systems.”

The final presentation of the day assured us that Your Next Green School is Already Built.

Nick Semon explained how existing school buildings present major opportunities to create high performance facilities for all students. Learn about tools available to assess and improve your existing schools, including the new Operations Report Card (ORC), a web-based program that guides school staff on how to conduct yearly assessments in energy, air quality, thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics. Schools can use the ORC to benchmark the performance of both high- and low-performance schools and to get recommendations for improvement.  You'll hear from CHPS staff about top strategies for successful modernizations and how to meet tough prerequisites within a small project scope.

The Green Building Expo Online Event Series features regular multi-hour virtual events focused on a specific topic within the Green Building and Design industry. Each virtual event will deliver panel discussions and presentations by industry thought leaders targeted to the focus of the event. The online event series is available online at http://www.greenbuildingpro.com/events/online-event-series.