(Mission Times Courier, San Diego, Ca)  The San Diego Community College District's newest 'green' campus, a gymnasium lighting retrofit, and a college urban farm program were honored recently in the 2009 Higher Education Energy Efficiency Partnership Program Best Practices Competition.  The competition was held concurrently with the 8th annual UC/CSU/CCC Sustainability Conference, highlighting best practices and innovations in sustainability in campus operations, planning, design, curriculum, and research within the California State University (CSU), California Community College (CCC) and University of California (UC) systems.  The conference promotes collaboration between higher-ed campuses, their students, government, business, and non-profit entities.

The three awards included:
Best Practice - Lighting Design/Retrofit:  Harry West Gym, San Diego City College
As part of a districtwide effort to reduce energy consumption and protect natural resources, a daylighting retrofit project for the Harry West Gym involved replacing High Intensity Discharge (HID) light fixtures with daylight harvesting fixtures, and incorporating high output T-5 light fixtures for the evening hours.  The advantages are:
•    Savings of between $17-18K annual in electricity costs
•    Additional savings on A/C costs as daylighting produces less heat than electrical lighting
•    Reduction of replacement costs for materials and labor by approximately 50%
•    Significantly improved lighting levels during daylight hours, improving lighting from a footcandle reading of 18 to an average of 76 with the daylighting fixtures alone
•    Reduction of CO2 emissions of more than 261,000 lbs. annually - the equivalent of removing 22 cars off of San Diego roadways
•    Ability to take advantage of incentive rebates offered by SDG&E for this energy-efficient solution

Best Practice - Student Sustainability Program:  Urban Farm, San Diego City College
The idea was simple but revolutionary: convert an under-utilized, water- and chemical-intensive lawn into a productive, organic, educational mini-farm right on the City College campus, the first-ever college urban farm in San Diego County. The benefits of the urban farm were immediate:
•    It uses 1/10th as much water as the lawn
•    It uses none of the chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides
•    It has drastically reduced fossil-fuel consumption and our carbon footprint - no mowing or trucking away clippings means fewer greenhouse-gasses; our plantings fix more CO2
•    Volunteers learned the principles of sustainable agriculture
The Urban Farm is the only source of fresh produce in downtown San Diego. Its farmer's market stand feeds more than 50 families each week, and serves as a site for weekly workshops on transplanting, composting, nutrition and more.

Honorable Mention - Best Overall Design:  West City Campus, Continuing Education
The $18 million West City Campus, serving as San Diego Continuing Education's Campus of Excellence for Hospitality and Consumer Science, is a model of smart construction and energy efficiency, reducing utility and maintenance costs substantially compared to a standard building. The project includes a number of sustainable features, incorporates several recycled materials, such as fencing made of recycled plastic, countertops made of recycled newsprint, a play area surface made from recycled tires, and carpeting with a high volume of recycled content.

Quality of life for the building users is enhanced by better connections to the outside environment, and reduction of materials and systems contributing to indoor pollution.   The use of sustainable materials or those with a high volume of recycled content is proving to have an aesthetic value as well, prompting users to learn more about these materials and see the benefits of including these materials in their learning and working environment.

The West City Campus has been recognized by San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) as a Sustainable Communities Champion, and was built as part of the $1.555 Propositions S and N construction bond program, providing for new instructional facilities, major renovations and campus wide infrastructure projects at City, Mesa and Miramar Colleges, and six Continuing Education campuses. For additional information, please visit www.sdccdprops-n.com.

By Ursula Kroemer, San Diego Community College District