Planning to Incorporate Energy Conservation Practices, Renewable Energy Production Systems, and Eco-friendly Building Design Practices to Support Sustainability in US Public Schools

As the earth’s climate changes, the costs to communities in terms of energy consumption and related financial expenses continue to increase. Improving the United States’ overall environmental and energy sustainability can be supported by focusing on public schools as energy conservation and generation sites. Successful implementations of sustainable schools are an opportunity to model sustainable communities for the world. The purpose of this chapter is to model potential environmental and financial gains that may be expected to contribute to improved sustainability that come from using rooftops and other potentially unused public school community land. When coupled with sustainability practices such as aquaculture and permaculture, we will demonstrate how this approach could generate needed energy to fund facilities in the face of rising costs to schools due to environmental factors, as well as local and state budget priorities. With an increased need in schools both to use less energy and to become more self-sufficient, it is important to find new sources of energy production and efficiency savings, coupled with possible revenue streams and new, systemic approaches to rethinking how school buildings and properties are designed.