Growing while Becoming Greener
Georgia Tech has been serious about sustainability for over a decade. We have also experienced tremendous growth. We are very proud of the level of passion and seriousness of our students, faculty, researchers and staff who want sustainability immediately, if not sooner.
Our progress has been steady, implemented in an organized comprehensive approach of building new buildings according to LEED green building standards while also upgrading and retrofiting our beautiful historic campus. Our alumni and Foundation, as well as the Board of Regents, City and State have provided ongoing support and inspiration. With their continued support and innovation we will meet our sustainability goals sooner rather than later.
As a public research institution, we have used our Mission Statement, Strategic Plan, Campus Master Plan and Landscape Master Plan to guide and time our actions in sustainability while we have grown our campus Gross square footage by 76 percent over the past ten
years and 34 percent in the past five years. It presently totals
more than 13 million GSF.New facilities are built according to Silver or Gold LEED (Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, and
the campus is being reshaped according to environmental
principles. The interdisciplinary design of new academic facilities has been
recognized by Nature magazine as a leading approach. New facilities such as Technology Square (a five-building complex)
and the Campus Recreation Center have won numerous
awards, both local and national. Technology Square was
recognized by the Urban Land Institute in 2003 as one of the
nation’s top ten transformative projects.
Additionally, Georgia Tech recently signed the President’s Climate Commitment to further support integrated sustainable design ideologies and to further commit Georgia Tech as a leader in our community and the higher education marketplace.
Most of the important problems facing the world today are broad and call for the
participation of interdisciplinary teams to solve. Energy, for example. Political volatility
in the Middle East, growing energy demands from large, emerging nations such as
China and India, and deepening concern about global warming have made energy a
priority issue for the nation and the world. Our response has been to create the
Strategic Energy Institute to bring together researchers from areas of policy,
engineering, science, and earth and atmospheric sciences to craft a comprehensive,
sustainable approach to the problems.
For example, the combination of global warming and rising fuel prices has focused
national attention on biofuels. Georgia Tech is a partner in a new $125 million biofuels
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research center led by Oak Ridge National Lab, and has a $12 million partnership with
Chevron to develop biofuels and hydrogen as alternatives for transportation.
We are also creating new green energy sources, from more powerful solar cells to a
tiny nano-scale generator that harvests energy that is available in the environment
around it, so it does not need a designated power source. And we have not neglected
new approaches to nuclear energy, for which demand is growing.
But energy issues do not exist in a vacuum. They are intertwined with climate change
and environmental sustainability. Studies on how the earth’s climate is changing by
Civil Engineer Peter Webster and Judy Curry in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences have
provided new insights into how this occurs and propelled Georgia Tech into the
national spotlight. SEI researchers like Bill Koros and Ron Chance are among the
national leaders in developing solutions to address the seminal carbon issue with
capture and sequestration. Given the growth in world energy demands, there is no
question that carbon-based fuels will continue to be used, and Georgia Tech will be
among the leaders in developing technologies for carbon capture and sequestration.
The SEI approach also recognizes the importance of public policy. New faculty member
Marilyn Brown is nationally recognized for her work on the policy underlying bigpicture
energy, climate and sustainability issues.
Our students are not hesitant about getting into this picture.
Georgia Tech's College of Management building in the Tech Square portion of Georgia Tech's campus was the 13th LEED certified building in the U.S. In its opening day ceremony, President Clough stated: "Sustainable buildings become symbolic of international education, world citizens, working in a global econmy, and across a sustainable world".
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's top research universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology.
