|
By Racquel Palmese
Bill Orr is the new executive director of the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, the organization that developed the original rating system for green schools construction and operation in California. But he’s not new to the organization or to building a more sustainable California. After almost 30 years working for the State, mainly with the California Integrated Waste Management Board, Orr was also a founding member of CHPS. He has now taken the reins at CHPS full time with a goal of making it a national organization. His ultimate aim is to see every child in America attending a high performance school – a goal which he feels is attainable and very possible. In this Q & A with Green Technology magazine, he discusses the importance of green schools in a time of severe budget cutbacks |
Congratulations on becoming executive director of CHPS. How did you wind up in this position?
I worked for the state of California for 29 years. Around 2000, some folks from the California Energy Commission told us about a program they were working on called the Bright Schools Program, which still exists and was designed to help schools by doing energy audits. We started talking about working together, and the collaboration led to my involvement in what ultimately became the Collaborative for High Performance Schools. It was incorporated back in 2002; I was on the board of directors and chair of the CHPS technical committee until 2007.
CHPS' mission is to make schools better places to learn. In 2000, there was an emphasis on the school bonds that were at that point being passed both at the state and local levels. We were trying to influence the next generation of schools to become “high performance” schools.
I think that we're at a critical place in terms of school construction, and what we do right now will set the footprint for school construction for the next 50 years.
I'm excited to devote my full time attention and efforts at working with CHPS staff and board and stakeholders to really ensuring that as many of the schools we're building right now as possible are high performance schools. These schools leave behind a legacy of energy performance, health and sustainability that will last well beyond the next 50 years.
You are taking over in tough economic times. What are you doing to ensure that the focus stays on creating more high performance schools?
I've got a three-point plan that I developed coming in. The first point is to complete the transition from a regional organization into a national program. CHPS was formed in California, but about two years ago the CHPS board voted to go national. We already have a CHPS presence in the states of Washington, Texas, Colorado, New York, Massachusetts and the other New England states. We're working with our CHPS states to expand our collaboration. Probably the most exciting thing right now is that there will be a Colorado adaptation of the CHPS Criteria released in September.
The second point in my three-point plan is to ensure that CHPS technical resources continue at the forefront of green building science.
The third goal is to facilitate meeting the state high performance school construction goals for each of the CHPS states and essentially roll those up at the national level to represent what we're looking at in terms of the number of high performance schools to be constructed using the CHPS Criteria and their adaptation in each state.
How far are you hoping to spread enthusiasm for high performance schools?
The general goal that we have is that all schools will one day be high performance schools. That's our end point goal, but in terms of our target for the next year or two, CHPS being kind of a collaborative-based organization, we're looking to cull that information from our partner states. I've been calling each of the champions in the CHPS states around the country to get a better handle on what their goals are in their particular state. Those will be rolled up into a national target a far as how many high performance schools to we expect to be built in the next year or two. I should have that number in time for the Green California Schools Summit in December.
Are there mandates that require school construction to be green?
Different states have different approaches to high performance schools. Some states actually require high performance schools and some have various types of incentive programs. In the state of New York there's a group called NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority), which has a program that provides more funding for the schools that go high performance, actually paying for the third party verification. In Washington, beginning in June 2009 all new schools and major modernizations receiving state funds are required to be high performance.
In California we're also currently using an incentive approach. In the last bond issue, Proposition 1D, there was $100 million set aside for incentivizing high performance schools. Schools get a percentage (from 2 – 11 percent) of their construction costs paid by Prop 1D funds, depending on how many points they score using the CHPS Criteria.
There's still a lot of that 1D money left, isn't there?
Definitely. I was just talking to some officials from the State Architect's office and from the Office of Public School Construction (OPSC). They were telling me that a certain amount has already been approved and a certain amount has been approved but has not been yet funded. Beyond this, there are a number of schools that are in the review pipeline at the State Architect’s. OPSC has the exact figures. The important point is that there is still significant money available for schools that want to become high performance schools.
Why do you suppose there's still so much of the funding left?
There are groups that have been convened and are meeting to talk about that. The Coalition for Adequate School Housing (CASH) has created a group to take a look at that issue. OPSC has convened a group as well.
Definitely it's a high priority of CHPS to get the remaining bond funds efficiently spent. In particular, there's an interest in looking at major modernizations and renovations and ensuring that money goes in that direction as well.
Are renovations of existing schools a priority?
Since its inception, CHPS has been focused on ensuring that all schools and all children have the opportunity to go to high performance schools. Initially, most of the emphasis was on new school construction. Beginning in 2006, however, CHPS took a special look at developing a rating system that would apply to major renovations and modernizations. We're looking at trying to encourage folks to use that more.
The number of schools already out there is vast compared to new schools that are being built. So one of the areas that CHPS is focusing on, not only through its rating system, but also through other tools that are available, is existing schools.
What are some of these tools?
CHPS has several new resources that are coming down the pipeline that are very exciting for high performance schools, including existing schools. One of those that is under development is called an Operations Report Card, which should become available after the first of next year. It will provide a tool to identify various attributes about your school and how healthy it is, how it rates in terms of energy performance and so on.
The other exciting tool that we are getting ready to debut next month is the High Performance Product Database. It has actually been under development for a couple of years. It will replace one of the products that CHPS has had for quite a while called the Low Emitting Materials Table. It will identify what products are available that can be specified in a high performance school to obtain various credits under the CHPS criteria. You can take a look at the low emitting credits, or the recycled content or environmentally preferable products or the furniture specs and you can take look at what products are actually out there that meet those criteria.
This would be listed by product names and manufacturers?
Absolutely. This is a really exciting tool. It should go live in about a month's time. There will be a process where product manufacturers can simply fill out an online form and supply the required information. Depending on what attributes they're applying for, they will be asked to provide whatever documentation is called for, whether it is laboratory testing or recycled content documentation - whatever it is will be specific to that particular attribute.
What about LEED for schools? Is CHPS a completely different sort of rating program?
I was on the committee that created the national LEED for Schools program, so I'm pretty well versed in it. I think all the people that I was on the committee with have high performance schools as their primary goal.
A lot of people have looked at point-by-point comparisons between the two. I don't think that's all that important at this point. What is important is that CHPS has a variety of tools. It's more than just a rating system. The things we've mentioned in terms of the products database, the benchmarking tool, our Best Practices Manual - those are all things that make up CHPS. That's one thing. The other is we've really developed this state-by-state approach to high performance schools.
One of the things I've found over the years is that states fund and construct schools very differently in terms their approval process, their funding process, the level of state oversight and the level of state versus local construction funding. What CHPS has emphasized is working with states utilizing the process in that state, and also taking into account the state priorities, to come up with a system that makes sense for that particular state. That's the approach that we take.
What is the value of a green school in this economic climate?
We’ve been working for about ten years to get this paradigm shift in green school construction, with the recognition that there would be a wave of new schools and that what we do now is going to be that legacy for schools for the next fifty years.
Schools are still being constructed, and with the cuts in the budgets it's very important to get as many of those schools to be high performance schools as possible. They are going to bridge the divide between capital and operations budgets. If we can reduce the utilities and other costs for operating and maintaining schools as a result of building high performance schools, those savings are going to accrue throughout the life of the school. I think that's the first thing.
I've heard people say, "This isn't the time to be green." I've heard people say, "I'm too busy to be green right now. Come back when I'm less busy." Actually, now is the time to go green. In addition to the obvious savings, CHPS has also focused, through its criteria, developing schemes that would help contribute to global climate change reduction.
For a time, the construction marketplace was escalating at a really rapid rate. Now we should be seeing the availability of contractors to be increasing, and this provides another opportunity for school construction to be more competitive, with lower construction costs than you might have seen a few years ago.
The bottom line is we need to think about schools with a long-term view. You can be penny wise and pound foolish if you build a conventional school instead of a high performance school. You’re going to be paying for that for many years to come.
Would you explain what you mean by green schools bridging the divide between capital and operating budgets?
In most of state government, much of local government and many school districts there are two pots of money. One of those pots is the capital budget and the other is the operating budget. School construction funds come from the capital budget, and operations and maintenance of schools are paid for out of the operations budget.
One of the conventional wisdoms is that the savings that occur in high performance schools as a result of energy efficiency, for example, can go towards the operating budget and not the capital budget. Both at the state and the local level, we need relief at the operating level and will for some time to come.
If you take a long term view, by building a high performance school you will accrue savings that can go to the operating budget.
CHPS is not holding an annual conference and trade show this year, but there will be the Green California Schools Summit. Why is it important for school districts to send operations and other staff to this event?
Fortunately, this conference is in Southern California, and there are a lot of school districts that are within striking distance, so travel expense for them can be kept to a minimum. Teachers and district staff are greatly challenged as far as their travel budgets go, but I attended the green schools conference in 2007 in Pasadena, and in a short period of time it provided an opportunity to get the latest information on green schools in one place.
Is there anything else you'd like to offer?
I have an Einstein quote that I like to use in terms of the paradigm shift: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." I think that really applies to green schools and the paradigm shift that we're looking at. We're in a key transition point to where we have the opportunity to make high performance how every school in the state, and the country, is designed, constructed and operated.
Now is the best time because the schools that we construct today can give us the opportunity to save money now and for the future.
Let's say that this current situation continues for the next year or two, even five years. That still means that those schools will be around for another 40 or 50 years. If you've got the money and you're building schools now, you don't want to mortgage your future.
Thank you.
|
