By Arah Schuur, Director, Energy Efficient Building Retrofit Program, Clinton Climate Initiative

The Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) and the ACUPCC have partnered to support ACUPCC signatories in reducing the energy use of campus buildings by executing large-scale building retrofit projects. CCI and ACUPCC have created and published an energy services performance contract (EPC) toolkit for higher education that helps signatories understand and prepare for large-scale building retrofit projects. Signatories of the ACUPCC can access the benefits of CCI’s Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program, including best practices contracting terms and advantageous pricing for energy efficient building technologies. For schools that have made the decision to take action and have internal capacity to support a project, CCI can provide pro bono support in planning, designing and implementing an energy efficient building retrofit project. In the upcoming months, CCI and the ACUPCC will engage with at least ten ACUPCC signatories in and around five U.S. cities (Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Houston) on large-scale projects.

Several signatory schools have already begun to implement projects under this partnership. For example, Lee College, a public community college in Baytown, Texas is currently working with CCI on upgrading its entire 35 building campus using a best practices EPC method. When completed at the beginning of 2010, this project will reduce the college’s annual energy costs by 32% and will reduce CO2 emissions by 4,434 tons per year.

Lee College signed the Presidents’ Climate Commitment in the fall of 2007. The college intended to address energy use in its campus buildings through a series of incremental improvements funded from its operating budget, a plan that would take years and significant financial resources. Through its work with CCI, Lee College embraced the idea of executing a single large integrated retrofit project that could be self-funded through the use of EPC. The college designated the internal resources, including procurement, legal and financial decision-makers, and set a schedule to understand and carry out the project quickly. This allowed Lee College to take the project from initial concept to construction in just over a year, minimizing the cost of delay and achieving significant cost savings and CO2 reductions that represent progress toward their ACUPCC commitments.

Further details about the ACUPCC / CCI partnership, the EPC toolkit, and the Lee College project can be found at:
http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/resources/eebrp

More information about CCI’s Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program and how to work with CCI on a building retrofit project can be found at:
http://clintonfoundation.org/what-we-do/clinton-climate-initiative/our-approach/cities/building-retrofit