Should an initiative among universities, corporations and the federal government prove successful, going green could be as good as gold.
MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon joined President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and others Friday in Washington, D.C., to launch the Better Buildings Challenge, aimed to promote energy efficiency in buildings across the country.
Partners within the challenge agree to analyze their buildings, demonstrate work to save energy, be transparent to the government in terms of publicizing savings and show how the community is benefiting from the program, said Maria Vargas, director of the challenge with the Department of Energy.
“Educational leaders (have) tremendous opportunities to be leaders in this,” she said. “It’s an investment that keeps paying back.”
MSU officials have committed 20 million square feet of building space for the challenge with the hope to reduce overall energy consumption 20 percent by 2020, said Jennifer Battle, assistant director of campus sustainability.
MSU is the only university in the Big Ten to commit to the challenge so far, joining corporations and communities across the U.S.
The university already has a retro-commissioning program in place in which older building heating and cooling systems are replaced and tuned up for performance and energy savings.
Erickson Hall was the first building on campus to be maintained in this manner in 2009. Battle said the energy savings have been significant — there was a 32 percent reduction in energy use.
“Obviously, we’re going to continue,” Battle said. “(The challenge) sets a tone, and I think MSU wants to be at the forefront.”
Although some might balk at the expensive idea of upgrading building energy systems for the sake of being new, the potential savings of 20 to 30 percent off the current cost of energy bills and creating the capability to create jobs should be motivation to promote energy efficiency, Vargas said
“It’s not only about buying things,” she said. “It’s about making sure people are organized [and] are managing buildings in a way that makes them efficient and investing in technologies to replace old ones.”
Supply chain management senior Michael Celentino said he’s glad MSU is participating in a challenge of this magnitude but expressed a concern about renovating older buildings because of their historic value.
If the insides of buildings can be upgraded with minimum impact to their facade, then benefits could outweigh costs, Celentino said.
“I’m all for saving money with tuition going up,” he said.
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