LC Blog
Benefits of Sustainable School Design
January 25, 2012 at 4:43 PM by Dr. Robert Davis
When it comes to school design and construction, the communities involved are always very concerned with costs. Since residents are usually bearing the burden of paying for the new school through increased taxes, everyone watches carefully as the project unfolds. As the design team works toward sustainable design goals, the construction costs are usually higher than if they settled for a simple code-compliant building.
Is it worth the extra cost to implement sustainable design principles? Will the students, teachers and community derive any benefit from a school designed with sustainability in mind? A growing body of evidence seems to provide convincing proof that yes, the benefits will outweigh the costs. Some of the benefits are very tangible and easy to quantify – sustainable schools use less energy and less water, and those savings alone can justify the increased costs. For a more detailed discussion of the potential energy savings for lighting in schools, see our whitepaper, Energy savings in schools, which summarizes several research projects that documented energy savings from various lighting and control strategies.
Other sustainable design benefits are more difficult to quantify but are arguably more important to the community. For example, several studies have shown that student tests scores are higher, absentee rates are lower, and that teacher retention rates are higher in schools that meet sustainable design goals. In other words, the educational process is more effective in these schools. How do we put a price tag on that? If education is an investment in our future, then building sustainable schools helps to ensure a great return on our investment.
I review some of the supporting evidence for these benefits from recent research in a short video clip titled Sustainable School Lighting - Benefits in our video library, taken from our AIA Sustainable Lighting for Schools seminar. You can register and take the entire one-hour seminar for free at The Continuing Architect. For a general overview of sustainable school lighting, read our whitepaper, Five questions to answer about sustainable school lighting. And to read a discussion about how sustainable design goals for schools can be defined, read my earlier blog on that topic here.
