Big Blue Goes Green - Building Design and Local Foods
posted by John Johnson on October 19th, 2007 Go to comments
Email This Post 
The Lexington AASHE staff took a day this week (October 17) to attend the University of Kentucky’s “Big Blue Goes Green” conference. As an AASHE staff member I know about all kinds of efforts and initiatives in sustainability on campuses all over North America, but I didn’t know a lot about many of the sustainability initiatives around the campus where I’m attending.
I attended a session that highlighted 3 of UK’s buildings currently under construction – the Student Health Center, a new in-patient care facility and a new College of Pharmacy building. These 3 buildings are part of a 20 year, $2.5 billion dollar expansion of the health care and medical research capabilities of our campus. These buildings will not be LEED certified buildings, but I was pleased to see that the architects who are working on the design of these buildings are committed to sustainable design principles and have implemented many of the LEED principles in these buildings such as maximizing natural lighting and using ceramic glazing and other shading to reduce solar heat. The landscaping will make use of native species to reduce or eliminate the need for irrigation and the construction procedures will reduce water runoff and the final landscape design will make use of landscaping areas that will reduce and delay storm sewer runoff. At least one of the construction companies involved is experienced in waste reduction which will dramatically reduce the waste that goes to landfills. The Student Health Center is being built on a very small piece of land that takes advantage of other infrastructure and nearby laboratory facilities, making good use of the LEED sustainable site principle. The designers have also given serious thought to indoor air quality and will be using low VOC paints, adhesives and Interface Carpet.
I also attended a session that highlighted some of the sustainability efforts with campus dining. The University is using vegetables and fruits grown locally for part of its food procurement. Campus dining (Uk has its own dining service) has also renovated a large café, installing a new dishwasher and replacing disposable dishes with real plates, bowls and silverware. The plastic “to go” containers have also been replaced with corn based containers that are biodegradable.
There was an exhibits showcase that allowed student groups, departments and other related organizations to show what they were doing in sustainability. It was quite impressive. One of the coolest displays was that of some entomology graduate students who have started an initiative to recycle the waste from laboratories that throw away large volumes of plastic containers that are not currently recyclable through Lexington’s recycling system. There was also a solar car in the showcase, which Niles has a picture of in his recent blog post.
It was really great to learn about all of the great things going on at UK in relation to sustainability and it left me with two thoughts. First, UK, like many schools around the country, is doing a horrible job of communicating some of the great things going on with regard to sustainability. This is common and a theme that Tom addresses often in his talks when he addresses campuses around the country. Schools need to tell their stories and communicate across campus the efforts and successes to spur more change. Second, even though we have a long way to go in addressing sustainability in many different areas, UK is in about the same place that many colleges and universities across the country are in: taking small steps in the areas they know how to address and branching out to new areas with a lot of growth potential. I’m happy to celebrate good building design, efforts to buy local food and make the campus more energy efficient while looking for more dramatic efforts in months to come.