Green Building Initiatives

  • The Campus Sustainability Explorer maps ALL aspects of campus sustainability including important projects and programs, infrastructure features, and advocacy and research groups.
  • Building commissioning (Cx) is a method of risk reduction for new construction and major renovation projects to ensure that building systems meet their design intent. When the commissioning process is applied to existing buildings to optimize their performance, it is called retro-commissioning (RCx).
  • The Green Building Committee hosted a lecture series during the fall of 2011 titled “Solving Old Problems with New Ideas.”
  • The guidelines were developed to present the University's preferences and criteria for the design and construction of campus facilities and landscape. The goal of the design guidelines is to improve the overall aesthetic character and visual unity of the Amherst campus as a whole. They represent the University's commitment for future buildings to create a more cohesive, attractive, productive and sustainable campus environment.
  • Physical Plant Custodial Services is currently developing a Green Cleaning program for all academic and administration facilities on the UMA campus. The program is being piloted in the brand-new CNS Research & Education Greenhouse and will continue to be rolled out to the rest of campus over the coming years. This is the first step in institutionalizing sustainable operations and maintenance of our buildings.
  • Existing buildings will be audited to improve performance.
  • Our project focuses on evaluating existing building annual energy performance across multiple metrics.