Establish common ground around green schools
When you look at many of our schools today, you see outdated buildings in need of repairs, burdened with unsafe toxins, dwindling budgets and outdated resources. The picture isn’t pretty.
But USGBC has a better vision: green schools for everyone within this generation. By promoting the design and construction of green schools, and by greening the operations and maintenance of existing schools, we can make a tremendous impact on student health, school operational costs and the environment.
That’s why we launched the Center for Green Schools.
The Center for Green Schools at USGBC is helping to engage educators in creating sustainable learning environments for their students and using solid research to inform leadership — from school boards to college presidents — about the benefits of healthy, high-performing schools.
We are working with state and local governments to draft smart, practical policies. And we are providing trainings and helpful resources to those who need it most — K-12 schools serving lower-income families, under-resourced institutions and community colleges.
We are also disseminating advocacy tools to support USGBC student groups and our nationwide network of more than 1,000 Green School Committee volunteers. We want to inspire innovation that can be replicated and deployed at lightning speed to every school and every college and university campus in this country and beyond.
We are driving the transformation of all schools into sustainable and healthy places to live, learn, work and play. We believe that everyone — from the kindergartner entering the classroom to the PhD student performing research in a lab — should have the opportunity to learn in green buildings.