by Amy Seif Hattan, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Second Nature and Gina Coplon-Newfield, Communications Director, Second Nature

This week, Second Nature launched a new free, interactive web site, the Campus Green Builder, to help universities and colleges build and renovate sustainably on their campuses. This large web portal is specifically focused on green building in the higher education sector, providing numerous links to green building-related web sites, directories of experts, and resources for training and funding opportunities.

The site is relevant to all higher education institutions but is particularly geared towards community and technical colleges, minority-serving institutions, religiously-affiliated institutions, and other under-resourced colleges and universities. The site was created in order to help build internal capacity at schools with fewer resources to spend on bricks and mortar projects, less in-house knowledge about green building, and limited opportunities to learn from peer schools that have excelled in this arena.

As a “portal” to the many excellent – but sometimes hard to find – resources spread throughout cyberspace, this web site is a one-stop shop for information on campus green building. Visitors to the site will learn about financing bricks and mortar projects, workshops and other current events, news on green building, hiring the right green contractor, and other topics critical to the campus green building process. In addition, the site presents new, comprehensive case studies of green building at under-resourced schools and an interactive format enabling visitors to contribute information about their schools’ green building projects. A blog allows for visitors to ask questions and share lessons learned with peers.

Under-resourced schools that visit the Campus Green Builder site will learn about special discounted offers to access the BuildingGreen Suite, an online database of resources for green building that has been compiled by Building Green, LLC, the publishers of Environmental Building News, and for membership in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). They will also access information on how to participate in the other activities offered by Second Nature.

The development of Campus Green Builder is part of the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education initiative launched by Second Nature in 2009 and made possible by a $1.2 million grant from The Kresge Foundation. The goals of the initiative are to make green building at colleges and universities “business as usual,” to level the playing field for all institutions of higher education to access funding and technical resources for green building, and to encourage schools to commit to climate neutrality through the ACUPCC. In addition to the web portal, the Advancing Green Building in Higher Education initiative also provides green building fellowships for senior college and university managers, regional institutes for minority-serving institutions, and strategic direction for green building education in collaboration with the US Green Building Council.

Buildings account for an estimated 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, a major contributor to global climate change. In the higher education arena, more and more institutions are constructing high-performance, healthy facilities that reduce or eliminate harmful emissions and waste. Green building is an integral part of many institutions’ climate action plans, and this site provides an abundance of resources to assist their efforts in this area, including information on expert assistance, models to guide decision-making, and funding resources.