As the University's physical campus expands at a rapid pace, the plans for new buildings are energy efficient but do not necessarily meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council.
The Sidney Frank Hall for Life Sciences will be Brown's first LEED-certified building - the building, which opened in 2006, is currently going through the certification process - but the University's dedication to constructing energy efficient buildings predated the widespread adoption of LEED as a standard, said Kurt Teichert, Environmental Stewardship Initiatives manager.
LEED, the widely accepted benchmark for high-performance green buildings, has four certification levels - certified, silver, gold and platinum - which represent how many "points" a LEED project has earned for meeting standards such as sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. New and existing buildings, building shells, schools and homes may all be registered for LEED certification.
In Sidney Frank Hall, for example, energy efficiency measures focused on electronic control systems. The building's cooling system uses the most efficient non-ozone depleting chiller plant technology available, Teichert said. Sidney Frank Hall also serves as a chilled water "core plant," which feeds a number of buildings in that area, saving effort and energy.
"Free cooling" in Sidney Frank Hall allows outside air that is already the appropriate temperature to flow through the ventilation system without being heated or cooled, Teichert said.
Additionally, lighting occupancy sensors were set up to control the heating and ventilation systems. "When the room is unoccupied, it sends a message to the system to scale back the temperature," Teichert said.
In general, with features like Sidney Frank Hall's, Brown makes good use of sustainable design principles, said Julia Beamesderfer '09, an organizer of the student environmental group emPOWER. "Brown standards and objectives have been very close to a lot of those LEED guidelines," Teichert said, "particularly around indoor environmental quality and energy and environment. It's just a matter of going through the process."
So if the University's building requirements are so similar to LEED standards, why aren't more of Brown's buildings certified?
"I think that LEED's ratings system provides a really good set of goals and guidelines for developers in the sustainable design process, but as far as after you construct the green building, actually applying for the LEED certification is pretty costly," Beamesderfer said.
Though implementing LEED strategies is expensive, the University is often willing to make expenditures for energy efficient measures that are cost-saving in the long run, sources said. But gaining LEED certification requires an up-front application fee and consultant fees between $25,000 and $100,000, wrote Vice President for Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi in an e-mail to The Herald.
Keeping track of LEED points and guidelines also takes time and effort away from the actual construction effort. "The general number is that there's about 150 hours involved in paperwork that you wouldn't otherwise be doing if you weren't actually submitting for the standards," Teichert said. In short, applying for actual LEED certification may not be worth the cost of registration and upkeep, Beamesderfer said.
"I tend to wonder what the benefits are of getting a building officially certified," she said. "Some concern is, 'Is that money being well spent? And could it be better spent by using it to further the building?' "
Also, if LEED certification is the ultimate goal in constructing a building, other aspects of sustainable building may suffer, Teichert said. "If LEED is used as the objective, and there isn't specific attention paid to the energy aspects of the building, you can create a LEED-certified building but not do much to control energy emissions," he added.
In place of LEED standards, Facilities Management followed and continues to observe a set of design guidelines related to high performance building for all projects, Maiorisi said.
"MacMillan Hall was one of the buildings in the '90s where we were very aggressive in energy and environmental design," Teichert said, noting that the Urban Environmental Lab and some newer dorms also use energy efficient heating and cooling systems or lighting. The UEL, for example, uses superinsulation, passive solar heating and includes a solar greenhouse. "We adopted a lot of those principles before LEED was even used," Teichert added.
The University's design guidelines - which include using certified-sustainable wood products when possible and a daylight dimming compensation system to dim lights when sufficient natural light is available - typically lower energy consumption 30 percent below code requirements, according to Maiorisi. The Energy and Environment Advisory Committee, comprised of students, faculty and administrators, recently recommended that high performance buildings be "up to 50 percent better than code if financially viable," said Chris Powell, director of sustainable energy and environmental initiatives .
Though many University buildings lack LEED certification, Brown's own energy efficiency standards are solid, Teichert said.
Beemsderfer noted the inevitable importance of sustainable design in terms of the University's future.
"Places like Brown are constantly growing, and if we don't take (sustainable design) into account, it's going to be really harmful to us in the long run," Beemsderfer said. "I think sustainable design in general is going to play a huge part."
