Green is the new Brown

As well as renewing and extending its accommodation and teaching areas, Brown University is delivering “green” initiatives in its building management programs, Ruari McCallion learns from Stephen Maiorisi and Chris Powell.

The demand for higher skills and qualifications means that pressure on universities to provide degree-level education to more and more students is continuous. But accommodating greater numbers means that the colleges need more lecture halls, study and library areas, teaching halls, scientific and medical laboratories, more faculty accommodation, and so on.

And none of it comes cheap. Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, has come up with innovative ways of funding much-needed building and renovation work and, at the same time, enhancing its environmental credentials.

“We’re changing the way facilities are built and managed,” says Stephen Maiorisi, vice president, facilities, at the Ivy League university. They certainly are. He and Chris Powell, director of sustainable energy and environmental initiatives, are responsible for implementing the idea of borrowing money to build and renovate on the Brown campus, focusing on environmentally sustainable procedures to construct buildings that would work more efficiently. The savings on utility costs would be used to repay the money.

“We’ve undertaken a pilot project over the past two years. We initially borrowed around $2 million for mainly lighting projects. We scheduled payback over five years, but the savings have been such that we achieved full payback in two and a half years. We’re showing annual savings of around $450,000,” he says. “We’re looking to borrow around $25 million over the next five years, which will fund our major ongoing building program and help us achieve budget savings of around $3.5 million, year on year.”

Brown committed to sustainability with a program named “Brown is Green” in the early 1990s—before LEED or similar initiatives saw the light of day. But it was in 2004 that Ruth Simmons, the president of the university, determined to add more tangibility to its green initiatives (which had covered issues like recycling) and established an environmental task force. Its brief extended to cover both sustainable building and energy efficiency, with the objective of exceeding government guidelines by 25 to 30 percent. The building and renovation program managed by Maiorisi and Powell is not only self-financing; the energy efficiencies delivered mean that the university will continue to benefit indefinitely. The value of the projects is already achieving over and above their projected budget advantages, as the savings were calculated on then-current utility prices, which have risen sharply since then.

In addition to the targeted energy conservation projects, “we have around 200 current active projects, with investments ranging from $50,000 upward,” Maiorisi says. “One of our major projects is the replacement of our 40- to 50-year-old utility infrastructure. We’re replacing high-temperature hot water (HTHW) lines, central heat plant boilers are being upgraded, electrical infrastructure upgrades (we have our own electrical grid on our campus) and creating chilled water districts, which serve several buildings.” As a long-established university, Brown has quite a few venerable buildings that may have been state of the art in their time but have fallen well behind the times.

“We’re going through the LEED process with our architects. The Pembroke Building, for example, is being converted from a single- to a double-glazed window system, and we’re ensuring that it’s properly insulated. The roofing system is being renewed, and new lights and mechanical controls are being installed,” he says. It’s not quite as mammoth an undertaking as may be thought. “Some of the older buildings are relatively small, compared with buildings erected in the 1960s and ’70s, which also need updating. Our newer buildings are much more efficient, of course.”

Currently in design are a new fitness center, a swim center, a mind/brain behavior center, and a creative arts building. Renovation programs are planned or under way for the student services building (scheduled completion August 2008), the renovation of Pembroke Hall for the Cogut Humanities Center and the Center for Teaching and Research on Women.

“The capital plan over the next five years will involve expenditure of approximately $500 million,” says Maiorisi. “One of the unique facets of the $25 million loan toward the cost of building renovation is that support is able to go further than originally envisioned, because of the savings we’ve delivered.” The savings aren’t achieved through breakthrough technologies; if anything, Brown has been conservative in the way it has gone about its efficiency business. So there’s plenty of room for further improvement.

“Going forward, we are looking at some newer, but proven, technologies,” says Powell. “For example, the Environmental Studies department is evaluating the use of evacuated solar tubes (solar thermal power) for heating and cooling. Most of our savings so far have been straightforward. It isn’t about technological widgets or magic bullets; it’s simple things and paying attention to detail. We’ve been more traditional than, for example, solar photovoltaic or geothermal heat pumps.” The team is also looking at “air balancing”: the university’s labs require air changes as often as 15 times per hour in some rooms. Ensuring window frames provide effective seals both eliminates infiltration and makes the best use of the air balancing system.

Once a project is completed, the university doesn’t rely on the new systems to deliver on their own. “Continual recommissioning” is a key element. It involves going back to recently completed projects and ensuring they’re working as they should. Outside contractors have been used for the initial work, and consultant RD Kimball has carried out some of the initial retro commissioning work.

“The contractors we use are familiar with the technologies,” says Maiorisi. That’s an additional advantage of using the tried and tested. “It’s not an issue of whether they can build it, rather of how to ensure they put in what is required. We have guidelines and standards we require contractors to use, and the project management team holds them accountable. We have to push the envelope to achieve 25–50 percent reduction, so we use the tools to enable contractors to analyze life-cycle costs and effectively quote and tender for them.” Brown has established itself as a real “LEEDer” when it comes to green.