by jbs040910 b3 — April 12, 2010—The national organization Second Nature announced in March that it has awarded Green Building 101 Technical Assistance Grants to 15 colleges and universities. These grants of up to $2,000 each will provide building professionals working on campus facilities projects with training in “green building.” Located throughout the U.S., the recipients are at under-resourced colleges and universities, including community colleges and minority-serving institutions.
Workshops, webinars, online courses and other activities will provide building professionals who work with the schools with an overview of the benefits of green building and retrofits, case studies of campus green building projects, an introduction to third-party certification, and exposure to innovations in the field. Suggested workshops, organized by various organizations nationwide, include: “How to Benchmark Energy Performance,” “Introduction to Sustainable Design” and “The Sustainable Building Series: Retrofits.”
Grant awardees were chosen based on a Second Nature committee’s assessment of the institution’s level of need, statement of interest, and campus sustainability capacity. The purpose of these grants is to boost the capacity of the schools, many of which rely heavily on local and regional building contractors to carry out green building projects, so they are better able to plan and carry out sustainable building projects themselves.
