In a breezy Casey Academic Center Forum, interested students and faculty joined the Green Club for a discussion with Mark Bundy, member of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Green Building Initiative Program.
A member of the DNR for 27 years, Bundy received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in resource economics. He received a job in the DNR helping with its Smart Growth Program, and eventually ended up heading the Green Building Initiative, a program designed to promote the use of green buildings in the state and across the country.
"It seemed to me that green building was just the thing for the DNR ... from a natural resource protection standpoint, how you build is just as important as where," Bundy said in his hour-and-a-half long lecture.
Green buildings are structures designed to make the most of the environment.
They are to be more conservative in the amount of energy needed to run them, and the money needed to sustain them. Bundy said this addresses the wasteful problem most modern buildings present to the environment, as "40% of the world's energy is used up" by modern structures."You can't solve a problem using the same thinking that caused it," Bundy said, quoting Albert Einstein in order to stress the use of the new technology of green buildings to solve the problems of our current technology.
Bundy said the goal is to fix what he sees as a "problem that our children will have to solve for their children," the rapid consumption of the earth's limited resources when such overuse is not necessary. "We need to begin to gather these resources and change our relationships with the environment and ourselves ... for future generations to not have to deal with these problems," he said.
Green buildings exemplify the new pattern of thinking that is needed to accomplish this goal. This includes cyclical rather than linear manufacturing systems that are "not constantly taking from limited resources," using solar or hydrogen gas-driven electricity instead of fossil fuels, and changing the industrial, commercial, and residential processes so that they can be "more benign to the environment."
"Technology takes us away from natural design," he said. "We can use basic materials and natural designs [to create] these sustainable buildings."
A recent and local example of a green building is the state's new Chesapeake Bay Foundation building, which is not only the first green building in the state but also the first to achieve a platinum rating under the national Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria. It set off the recent state legislation "that will require all new state construction to be green."
A building meeting LEED criteria must exhibit such things as proper water efficiency, energy and atmosphere conservation, and high indoor air quality.
Maryland, in addition to a few other examples of acceptance of green buildings, proves to be the exception to the rule when it comes to green building legislation. "The building codes and local governments have not kept up with the industry. A lot more work has to be done with a lot of our local force," Bundy said.
As for WC, Bundy closed his talk with some suggestions to help make the campus more green. "You need to essentially get a copy of LEED criteria and start going down the list, seeing what you can change," he said.
"There is a good opportunity in landscaping to help water control."Bundy said a few alterations can help foster plant growth as well as eliminate run-off.
He also praised the campus for in-place structural designs, like the large amount of day lighting and functional windows. Other suggestions included use of low-energy florescent lighting, recycled materials in the classroom, new buildings, soy-based inks, and basic waste reduction, including recycling and better material management.
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