As seen in the Washington Independent.

The sixth-graders in Marti Goldstone’s science class at Horace Mann Elementary are working on a project that could save their D.C. public school a lot of money. They are conducting an energy audit of their entire school. They calculate how much energy each classroom, gym, cafeteria, office, etc. uses, how much electricity each item in a room consumes, which appliances eat up too much electricity and what adjustments can be made to save energy.Goldstone is one of about 100 teachers nationwide who have teamed up with the conservation group the Alliance to Save Energy in an effort to make schools greener by identifying wasteful practices and adopting more energy-efficient measures to replace them. The group’s energy-audit exercise is part of its Green Schools program. For public school teachers like Goldstone, the energy-audit lesson is a great opportunity for students to use math, science and social studies in pursuit of an important environmental goal. For superintendents of school districts, the project is worthwhile for another reason — it can save them money.


Many schools spend thousands of dollars a month on energy bills, said Emily Curley, who runs the Green Schools program at the Alliance to Save Energy. Even such simple no-cost acts as turning off classroom lights and computers and adjusting thermostat settings can save schools between 5 percent to 15 percent of their energy bills, she said. “That’s pretty significant, especially for public schools that might not have the upfront funding for big [green] renovations.” Still, some public school districts have spent money to conform new construction, or retrofit existing buildings, to green standards. A few districts are required by law to make their campuses more energy efficient. Montgomery County in Maryland, for one, passed a measure requiring all its public schools achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. LEED, which is administered by the U.S. Green Building Council, is the most widely used green-building rating system in the nation.

The Green Schools Initiative, a nonprofit organization based in Berkeley, Calif., calculates that that while the cost premium for green construction is around $3 a square foot, the return on the initial investment can be about $70 a square foot. For example, the upfront costs of building a highly durable wall could be offset exponentially by future savings on heating and air-conditioning bills. Retrofitting existing buildings to confirm to green standards can more than pay for itself too. Deborah Moore, executive director of the Green Schools Initiative, estimates that the costs in terms of energy savings can be recouped between one to three years.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Rockville, Md., invests $500,000 a year in a green schools program, which yields annual energy savings of $5 million, according to Moore. The effort includes a green building program. And Murrieta Valley Unified School District in Murrieta, Calif., saved $145,000 in energy costs over a span of nine months from energy-efficiency investments, according to the Green Schools Initiative.

While the environmental and economic benefits of greening schools are clear, it isn’t easy for public school districts to adopt such policies because they usually require increased funding up front. “School districts are perpetually strapped for money,” Moore said. “To come up with anything extra, they have to justify it to taxpayers who don’t want to pay anything extra.” But Curley of the Alliance to Save Energy says that the payoff for public school districts from greening their campuses can be big. Because their school buildings tend to be older and less energy efficient, no-cost and low-cost steps to bring them up to greener standards can have an immediate effect, with big savings. When it comes to green buildings, though, public schools don’t always have the money that some private schools do to achieve LEED certification. Yet, public school districts do have cheaper options for green building. They can simply adopt green standards of their own choosing, ignoring LEED rules altogether, or, they can meet LEED standards without going through the costly process of becoming certified.