Evolving Penn State Sustainability Policy for the Built Environment

Description

Pennsylvania and the global community with a vision to integrate sustainability throughout its campuses. At PSU the Office of Physical Plant (OPP) stewards approximately 32 million square feet of buildings providing facility services and safety programs in support of the university’s threefold mission of teaching, research and services.

OPP, in collaboration with PSU’s Department of Architectural Engineering is working to evolve PSU’s Sustainability Policy for the build environment to reflect a dynamic based process that encourages the engagement of OPP teams in the earliest stages of a project, Build the policy to reflect the unique place and needs of PSU’s campuses and communities. As part of these exchanges the initiative aims to grow the sustainable capacities and knowledge of OPP teams. This process has also given the AE department’s students the chance to learn with cultivated learned lessons from actual sustainability projects and grows their understanding of existing sustainable rating systems. By encouraging and initiating reciprocity and mutually beneficial interaction among stakeholders throughout the different stages of the lifecycle of the building, OPP hopes to develop more sustainable campuses.

This project aims to lead the transformation of the design and construction practices at PSU to be more sustainable while providing engaged scholarship opportunities for the students.

Sponsor

– The Office of Physical Plant (OPP)

Timeline

2017 – Current

Products Developed

Implementation Guides: PSU LEED V4 Policy 2018 Update

For Further Information

Contact Yumna Kurdi at ybk5012@psu.edu

Team Participants

Pricipal Investigator: Yumna Kurdi
Advisor: Dr. Somayeh Asadi
Industry Advisor: John Bechtel, Assistant Director, Design and Construction