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As this column was being written, Senate and House conferees were ironing out the final version of the stimulus bill. An unresolved issue is funding for school construction and related technology improvements -- the House bill provided $21 billion, $15 billion of it for grades K-12; the Senate provided no funding.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine was one of the senators who called for axing school construction from the stimulus bill, calling it a worthwhile objective but saying that building and renovating schools didn't create jobs and was misplaced in the economic recovery measure. I often admire Senator Collins, but not this time. School construction carries a significant jobs impact. First, school construction spending is disseminated broadly throughout the U.S. Second, school construction creates jobs in the building sector, which has borne the brunt of American job losses since 2007 and is suffering double-digit unemployment. Further, school construction spending creates jobs not only in the construction trades, but also in architecture, interior design, engineering and landscaping. And many of these jobs are green-an increasing number of schools are being certified under the LEED for Schools protocol and designed and developed under green schools initiatives sponsored by the Alliance to Save Energy, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, the Green Schools Alliance and others.
But job creation isn't the only benefit from green schools construction. Recent national metrics on the costs and benefits of green schools are extremely positive. The October 2006 report, "Greening America's Schools: Costs and Benefits," evaluated the green building experiences of 30 schools in 10 states from 2001-2006. Positive outcomes associated with green schools include:
• Energy Savings. The 30 schools evaluated reported a 33.4 percent average annual energy savings from going green.
• Water Savings. The 30 schools reported an average annual reduction in water usage by 32.1 percent.
• Reductions in Climate Change Emissions. Greening America's Schools estimated that a green school building, on average, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 587,500 pounds (293.5 tons) per year, as well as reducing emissions of smog-causing particulate matter by 150 pounds per year.
• Student, Faculty and Staff Health Benefits. A growing body of evidence suggests that green buildings reduce absenteeism from such common maladies as asthma, colds and flu. Case studies cited by Greening America's Schools put reductions in the 15 percent range. Carnegie Mellon University's review of 5 national workplace studies put green-building related asthma reduction at 38.5 percent. One of ten children in the U.S. suffers asthma. A broader review of 17 studies by Carnegie Mellon found an average occupant health improvement of 41 percent in green buildings.
• Student, Faculty and Staff Productivity Benefits. Green buildings have also been associated with heightened teacher retention (up 5 percent in a Washington State study). Improved student attendance (reported improvements of 15 percent in Oregon and Washington State case studies) and test scores (3 percent-4 percent in Washington, D.C. and Chicago; 19 percent in Clearview, Pennsylvania) also have been associated with green schools. In Statesville, North Carolina, the percentage of elementary school children reading at grade level increased from 60 percent to over 80 percent after the children were placed in a new, green school.
All told, Greening America's Schools found that energy and water savings over a presumed 20 year holding period had an average net present value of $9.84 per square foot, more than three times the $3 per square foot average cost premium to build green. The energy and water savings alone were paid back within six years.
These investment metrics are compelling: New school construction is a good bet for job creation and student achievement, and green school construction is even better. Let's hope that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle catch on sooner rather than later.
Leanne Tobias is founder and principal of Malachite LLC, an advisory firm that specializes in the development, leasing, management, financing and certification of sustainable or green real estate on a global basis. Write to Leanne about your thoughts on jumpstarting the economy at greenstimulus@malachitellc.com. She'll share the best ideas in future posts.
Something is missing in the thinking behind Green Schools
Energy efficiency and insulation etc are all well and good for reducing lifetime CO2 emissions, but what about the methane emissions from lifetime food waste from a school going to landfill?
Methane produced from a schools food waste rotting in landfill is 20 times as much on a CO2 equivalency.
Reducing CO2 emissions from schools is a fantastic idea for future proofing buildings in the education but that MUST be combined with on-site food waste recycling into compost.
This will remove around 40% of the CO2 emissions generated by waste collections as around 40% of the waste will not need to be collected.
The food waste can be turned into compost in around 14 days through a Rocket Composter (www.quickcompost.co.uk) and the resulting compost can be used on a kitchen garden or around the grounds of the school for landscaping. Reducing CO2 emissions from transporting either food into the school or bringing in landscaping materials.
The children can be involved in the process too and learn about their own waste habits AND the natural food cycle.
If every school in the US had a Rocket Composter methane emissions from landfill sites would reduce, and the CO2 equivelancy would be reduced.
Response to the response
I did indicate that green schools are wonderful.
And I'm very much against Federal or State subsidies for schools. Our own town got a State subsidy and built an ugly monstrosity of a public performance building associated with the school. It's so expensive to run that few if any local groups can afford to rent it out. All because they got "free money".
Yes, I would speak out against taking Government aid - because we should have never sent the money to the government in the first place.
Roosevelt's economic policies were an utter train wreck. Roosevelt drove the country into unheard of debt while barely making a dint into unemployment figures.
Now we have the Obama/Pelosi team, with no economic credentials except Geithner ("the Geithner nomination fiasco") who helped bail out AIG, promising to spend trillions and trillions on bailouts.
So much money is being created we'll soon need wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of break (remember the Weimer Republic in Germany after World War I?)
It would be laughable if not the tragic turn this new Obama/Pelosi team is leading us towards.
Already gold is heading back to $1,000 an ounce - which is a general sign that investors are losing trust in the almighty greenback.
A friend of mine is worried about taking out extra insurance on his bank accounts. May I mention Zimbabwe has such high inflation, they regularly announce to their public to subtract two zeros from their notes then later it was five zeros. I warned him that it's not totally improbable that the Government will issue a "revision" to our currency where they'll ask us to subtract a few zeros. This has already happened in Zimbabwe and we're moving in that direction. So I warn anyone with large bank deposit - don't think the FDIC will help you if inflation wipes out your life savings.
Many people are starting to move their investments into tangible assets like gold and property. The smart people already see the writing on the wall. The Obama/Pelosi team is heading our country towards a financial train wreck.
However there's good news. There is a growing number of people out there that realize borrowing or printing mountains of green notes is not the answer to our problems. The answer to our problems is saving and producing, not borrowing and consuming. The quicker we move in that direction, the faster we'll get out of the mess we're in. Even if it means some town's green school doesn't get a Government hand out.
Stimulus Update on February 12
Posting herein to link you to the Washington Post's February 12 update on the stimulus:
While school construction is not in as a designated program, an enhanced program of aid to states ($54 billion) could reportedly be used for school construction.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR200902...
The Post article also notes that Caterpillar, the heavy equipment manufacturer that recently cut 20,000 jobs, has announced that it expects to rehire many of these workers if the stimulus bill becomes law.
Response from Leanne Tobias: Who Should Fund Green Schools
Hard for me, even in my wildest imaginings, to see how monies spent on school construction, renovation and technology could be harmful. But if it is, I hope that my reader will persuade his/her town to eschew the acceptance of any federal monies for this purpose. Town governments-- especially in towns which hold town meetings-- are wonderful laboratories for democracy and I hope that my reader will take advantage. Too, I hope that my reader will let us know how his/her friends and neighbors react to the suggestion that the monies be turned down.
As for the "fantasy track": the global economy is in the throes of an unprecedented downturn. Decades of macroeconomic policy interventions around the world demonstrate that a temporary increase in public spending is the most prudent way to proceed, especially when monetary policy has failed to do the trick (as has been the case in this instance, sadly.)
The non-interventionist approach that my reader advocates was applied regularly through 1932. The result was a series of debilitating panics (witness the last decades of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th) and, in the early 1930s, the tent and shanty towns that came to be known as Hoovervilles. Pretending that national intervention can only result in disaster is the real fantasy track-- unless, of course, one appreciates the return of the dole, the poorhouse and the wholesale elimination of wide swaths of productive capacity.
Who should fund green schools
If green schools are such a good deal, then towns should justify the cost benefit and spend the money themselves to build them.
By asking the Federal Government to fund them (actually, the Federal Government has no funds - their broke),, the request is to have someone else pay for that town's green school by coercive taxation.
If my town wants a green school, then they will make a case to the taxpayers to take on debts or tax overrides to pay for it. Asking the Federal Government to provide subsidies is akin to asking someone else in another town to pay for my town's school - without their permission of course.
Ms. Tobias suggests that the Federal Government is "funding" these expenditures. Let's be clear - the Federal Government has not said how it was going to raise the money for the most recent bailout. The Federal Government is going to "fund" this bailout with only a few damaging choices::
1) Borrow the money and expect the next generation to pay it off. The demand for credit will likely raise interest rates and crowd out business and individual's ability to borrow - thus prolonging the depression.
2) Print the money, which will cause a damaging inflation later on (a hidden tax).
3) Raise taxes, thus sucking the lifeblood from the private economy.
Although I applaud Ms. Tobias' interest in building green schools, I believe it is very misguided to the think it's a great idea for the Federal Government to "fund" these expenditures. The Federal Government has no pot of gold waiting somewhere to spend on these schools. Let's get the conversation off the fantasy track and back to reality. Funding of schools should be a local issue.