Earth Equity News

Colleges Take Lead in Building Green. By Tiffany Hsu, LATimes, July 7, 2008. "This spring, East Los Angeles College unveiled 5,952 solar panels that generate nearly half of the college's energy... At Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, the library is cooled by vertical perforated solar fins... And in Iowa, geothermal wells drilled 120 feet below the parking lot at Grinnell College's Conrad Environmental Research Area help heat and cool the buildings... At the 10 University of California campuses, a 2004 policy mandating that all new or renovated buildings be eco-friendly has saved the system nearly $5 million, officials say... Conventional buildings account for 36% of the country's total greenhouse gas emissions and 39% of its total carbon dioxide emissions, according to the U.S. Green Building Council... The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education is developing a system to judge campuswide sustainability, based on the country's most prominent rating system, the Green Building Council's certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, known as LEED. In 2001, there were 42 LEED projects in the higher education sector. Between 2006 and 2007, the number nearly doubled from 769 to 1,412. As of June, 1,497 buildings were seeking certification."