June 29, 2009

Push for Greener Buildings Gains Advocates, but When Is Green Really Green?

Push for Greener Buildings Gains Advocates, but When Is Green Really Green? 1

Photo by Joe Angeles

The Living Learning Center at Washington University in St. Louis meets one of the most demanding green-building rating systems in the world by being both net-zero energy and net-zero water.

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close Push for Greener Buildings Gains Advocates, but When Is Green Really Green? 1

Photo by Joe Angeles

The Living Learning Center at Washington University in St. Louis meets one of the most demanding green-building rating systems in the world by being both net-zero energy and net-zero water.

By Scott Carlson

The greenest building, so the saying goes, is no building at all. But few colleges are planning to stop campus construction entirely. So if colleges plan to reduce their energy use—and, in hundreds of cases, meet their pledges for climate neutrality—green building will have to get much more ambitious.

For years, college administrators would pat themselves on the back if they earned a silver rating in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, the leading

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