CleanEdison

by Robert Gluck

Joining the ever-increasing global ‘go green’ team is the MySpacing & E-texting college youth.

We all know how savvy and opinionated today’s youngsters are; well, they display their maturity and responsibility by combining their efforts in turning dorms across the nation into green residences.

Fertilizing flowers with watermelon rinds, going vegan with food choices and taking applaud-able earth-friendly steps like paying up to $10.50 a quarter to buy renewable electricity are just some of the ways that portray the involvement of college youth in “going green” and sticking to it.

According to an article titled “Eco In the Halls of Academe”, written by Lini Kadaba and published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, across all regions and the country, the green movement has taken up residence on college campuses.

Kadaba reports that new or renovated dorms have organic suites at Drexel University, green roofs at Princeton, geothermal cooling and heating at West Chester, and eco-friendly furniture at Villanova.

Known as green dorms, they are building in popularity as economics make more sense and eco-wise collegians expect and demand it.

This is also immensely important as college youth can move onto ‘green jobs’ from here and get ‘green jobs training’ too.

In her piece Kadaba quotes Paul Rowland, executive director of the Lexington, Kentucky-based Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

“More and more students are saying, ‘We want to know how green the campus is before we come there,’ “ Rowland told Kadaba.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), which gives its seal of approval, LEED, to new buildings that meet its standards, has certified 76 dorm projects since it first offered the rating in 2000. An additional 307 are registered to pursue certification.

“Since 2006, the number of green dorms that have registered for LEED certification has doubled each year. In 2008, a record 127 projects applied. Through August of this year, 87 more projects had been submitted,” Kadaba writes. “The data doesn’t reflect renovations, popular with colleges and arguably more environmentally conscious.”

Also quoted in Kadaba’s piece is Amy Seif Hattan, director of the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education program at Second Nature, a Boston-based organization.

“In most cases, a dorm is just a shell in which to throw your stuff and sleep,” Hattan told Kadaba. “A green building is an ecosystem. It’s a pleasant place, it promotes health, it encourages dialogue.”

While environmentally conscious housing can trim the campus energy bill, it also offers less prosaic advantages, Kadaba writes.

“Green dorms expose students to the science of sustainability in practical ways and instill a way of life.”

“You’re getting a generation of kids who will be green natives,” Marie Coleman, a communications associate for the USGBC told Kadaba. “It’s what they know.”

Examples of what the students are up to at the dorms include timed showers with a 10-minute maximum, composting food scraps, hanging laundry to dry, and using lights with certain stinginess.

A green meter installed in a common room displays real-time consumption of electricity while another device shows water usage.

All college students interested in sustainability and energy efficiency can surely benefit from the wide array of “green” courses offered at Cleanedison.com.

They have a variety of options so that they choose whatever interests their ‘green-focused’ individuality – Energy Audit Training, LEED AP Certification, solar training, Nabcep Certification, BPI certification and many more.

We can all do with many more ‘green’ professionals.

So the ‘green-minded’ college youth will now be keeping their phone chargers unplugged and computers and electronics when not in use – switched off and lights turned off when they leave the place.

These precious but slight efforts will go a long way in ensuring a ‘green’ future for the times to come.