Maintaining Sustainability for Green Schools

In an effort to stay on top of preventive maintenance, education institutions should develop a maintenance plan that starts with collection of accurate data about a facility and its systems.

The promise of sustainably designed school facilities is that they will operate more efficiently and last longer than buildings constructed in more traditional ways. But that promise comes with a big if. The payoff is delivered only if the facility managers operate and maintain the buildings in ways that adhere to sustainable strategies called for in the design.

American School & University's October issue features an article by Staff Writer Mike Kennedy that maintains that a good maintenance program will enable a sustainable design to deliver on its promise. Kennedy advises to make a plan and monitor building data to continually achieve sustainability.

For buildings designed to be sustainable, such a program is especially important because the payoffs—in better energy efficiency, lower operating costs and longer-lasting facilities—are likely to be greater. To verify that a school facility is continuing to operate in an environmentally friendly way and provide the energy savings envisioned when it was designed, education institutions should consider commissioning or, when upgrades and repairs are carried out, recommissioning, he writes.