Land-Use and Buildings Sub- Committee Report

May 14, 2004

Our committee has met twice, and we will have another meeting before the end of May. Our initial goal was to educate ourselves about current trends in sustainable building practices and to assess where the university might be in relation to other institutions. We felt that the university might be doing well in certain areas and that we needed to do a better job of letting the community know about existing initiatives. The committee felt that the university should have an environmental audit prepared in order to determine where to focus our efforts. In regard to making the public aware of the university’s commitment to sustainable design we felt it was important to utilize a design standard that is well recognized. Consequently we feel that pursuing LEED certification for selected new building projects is important.

We are considering a number of short-term recommendations for inclusion in the UK Sustainability Plan as follows:

• Conduct an environmental audit utilizing both in-house resources and consultants. Towards this end we have a proposal from Ayers Saint Gross to assist in the management of an environmental audit. Seek the help of established university experts like Dr. Don Colliver and Richard Levine to help us with this effort.
  
• Visit with other institutions ( Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies @ Oberlin College) that have completed a successful sustainable building in order to learn more about the process and the commitment necessary for success.

• Identify emerging projects that could be LEED certified. Ben Crutcher, Director of Housing, has indicated that the next residence hall built by the university should be a model for sustainable design. The proposed expansion of the student center is another project that could demonstrate sustainable design techniques.

• Encourage LEED training for key university employees to create necessary resource base to support our goal of building a LEED certified facility.

• Encourage and support applied research of sustainability design practices (i.e. College of Design project to design and build a sustainable living unit on property owned by the University of Kentucky).

• Promote sustainable design measures that have an immediate impact/payback like low flow shower heads, the use of fly ash in making concrete, water-efficient landscape design, grey water reclamation systems and green roofs.

Long term recommendations for inclusion in the UK Sustainability Plan are as follows:

• Develop sustainability standards unique to the University of Kentucky based on the LEED certification experience.
  
• Apply sustainability standards to all university related capital projects.
  
• Make Building Commissioning a requirement for all major capital projects.
  
• Integrate sustainability concepts with student life.