Green Building Projects

There are currently many projects in the works to make UMass Amherst a more sustainable place in the future. Some examples are:

• The North Energy Exchange Center (NEEC) project, which uses a regional ground source heat exchange well field for seasonal energy storage and a thermal energy storage (TES) tank for short-term chilled water storage.
• The College of Engineering's Sustainable Engineering Laboratories (78,000 square feet), which recently won the grand prize in the "New Construction" category of the Embodied Carbon Reduction Challenge.
• The Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences’ new Computer Science Laboratories building (90,000 square feet), which utilizes mass timber construction, an on-site solar array, and the EEC energy system to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

When you explore our campus, you'll find we're blending historic preservation with low-carbon, state-of-the-art building materials and technologies. That includes renovations like the ones to Old Chapel and South College, as well as the cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure of the Olver Design Building. Through these projects, we're celebrating our agricultural school roots while embracing the modern, sustainable design of today and the future.

Rain gardens on the UMass campus, like this one at the Olver Design Building, capture runoff from rooftops and other hard surfaces, absorb stormwater, remove harmful pollutants, and reduce erosion, flooding, and the need for irrigation. Native plants create wildlife habitats for pollinators like birds, butterflies, and bees.