Greening University Campus Buildings to Reduce Consumption and Emission while Fostering Hands-on Inquiry-based Education

This paper describes a method of greening university campus buildings that normally contribute to a large amount of energy and water consumption, air pollution, and resource depletions. The University of Arizona became engaged in the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment emphasizing those university campuses must exercise leadership in their communities and throughout society by modeling ways to minimize global warming emissions, and by providing their graduates the knowledge and education to achieve climate neutrality.The “House Energy Doctor” (HED) program is an education, research, and community outreach program at the University of Arizona's (UA) College of Architecture, planning and Landscape Architecture (CAPLA). During the last three years, and through a multiyear agreement between HED and the UA, Level III energy audits have been conducted on nine major campus buildings to identify energy efficiency opportunities that will contribute to the greening of campus. Some important findings focused on inefficient windows, external insulation, shading of critical building elements, energy-saving light fixtures, and envelope solar reflectance in summer. Strategies for mechanical systems propose changes to current thermostat set points, run periods, replacement of old components with higher efficiency units, and water harvesting of condensates for landscape use.The first three years of the “Greening of Campus” project demonstrated that the nine buildings total area of 1,081,512 ft2 consumed an annual average 75,970,411 KBtu (70.2 KBtu/ft2) at the cost of $2,186,264 per year. The implementation of the House Energy Doctor recommendations for the nine buildings will yield an annual energy savings of 9,542,106 KBtu and operating cost saving of $265,318 (12.1%). This energy saving will help the environment by a reduction of 2,915 Metric tons of CO2 emission. The campus will also be saving 10.9 million gallons of water. In addition, two of nine buildings “Arizona- Sonora” and “La Aldea” have been successfully certified for Energy Star Designation. The method can be replicated in different units around campus and as a model for implementation in other university campuses around the world.