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UGA Taking Steps To Integrate Sustainable Design Into Campus Plan

by Joanna Turner
04/10/2007

"Think beyond next week's test. Ten years down the road, we are really going to be regretting our lack of concern for our environment."

Tom Lawrence, a professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Georgia, speaks passionately about improving environmental conditions through sustainable design. He is a biological and agricultural engineer whose field is "building green" or "sustainable building."

"You would be surprised at how many people have never even heard of sustainable design," Lawrence said.

Sustainable design is the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use energy, water and materials. Its goal is to reduce building impacts on human health and the environment through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance and removal — the complete building life cycle.

"It sounds a lot more confusing than it is," Lawrence said. "It's basically just taking advantage of renewable resources and using solar power."

Green buildings are gaining popularity around the world in hopes of preserving energy use. In the United States, buildings account for 39 percent of total energy use, 12 percent of the total water consumption, 68 percent of total electricity consumption and 38 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions. These percentages have only been growing over the past decades.

The potential benefits of building green include enhancing and protecting biodiversity and ecosystems, improving air and water quality, reducing waste streams and conserving and restoring natural resources.

When it comes to costs, Lawrence said that they aren't much higher than that of regular buildings and in the long run are actually lower. Some economic benefits are reducing operating costs, creating, expanding and shaping markets for green products and services, improving occupant productivity and optimizing life-cycle economic performance.

For a building to be considered sustainable it has to meet certain regulations. These regulations are decided on and ranked by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental and Design (LEED). LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. It provides building owners and operators the tools they need to design their buildings. There are five key areas LEED looks at for human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Sustainable design is a concept still in the development stage, and hopes are that it will continue to gain popularity. Spreading the word about sustainable design is a major concern for environmentalists, architects, and engineers.

"You can't make people be made aware," said Lawrence. "You just have to talk about the issues and spread the word and then hope people will listen."

The University of Georgia has several buildings and landscape sites on campus that have sustainable features.

The Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Science, Student Learning Center, Old College, Lamar Dodd School of Art PVAC Corridor, D.W. Brooks Mall, UGA Memorial Garden and Lumpkin Street Drainage improvements are the sites on campus considered "green." The Coverdell Center and the Student Learning Center were both built with indigenous and recycled building materials, low-emitting finishes and materials and 100-year building construction on previous parking lots, just to name a few features.

The Lumpkin Street Drainage improvements include 15 bi-orientation areas (or rain gardens), a settling pond, enhanced swales, treatment of "first-flush" polluted roadway runoff, improved water quality and increased storm water infiltration, native landscaping and improved downstream health of Tanyard Creek.

All of these buildings and landscape sites are aimed to cut energy costs.

When you ask people around campus about sustainable design they have no or little knowledge on the subject. Students around campus are not only unaware of what green buildings are, they are also unaware that the majority of them have classes in at least one green building or walk through a sustainable landscape site on campus.

Cassie Mishrick, a junior exercise science major from New York, considers herself very environmental friendly but is unaware of what sustainable design means.

"I've never heard of the term, but I am aware of buildings being built with the idea of being environmentally friendly," Mishrick said. "I never knew exactly how they were made that way, and I definitely did not know we have buildings like that on campus."

This was a common theme around campus. Ailsa Von Dobeneck, an international affairs major from Virginia, had also heard the term green buildings, but knew little about the subject.

"Green buildings are suppose to help the environment," Von Dobeneck said. "I think all buildings should be made environmentally friendly. I don't even know what green buildings are exactly, but anything that is going to help our environment and fight global warming is a good cause."

Last semester there was a petition going around UGA's campus to make the new Tate II Student Center a LEED-certified building, but the building permit and plans had already been passed so the petition failed. UGA hopes to continue renovations to make old buildings and sites on campus sustainable and to take sustainable design into consideration when planning new construction.

"We've learned so much in the last decade and already made so much progress," Lawrence said. "We need to keep moving forward, spread knowledge on the subject and begin to change the future of our environment."