As energy costs continue to climb, OU is set to conduct energy audits that will measure the efficiency of campus buildings and recommend ways the university can shrink its carbon footprint.

The university has already begun incorporating environmentally-friendly features like water-free urinals and motion-sensor lighting into its buildings, and it hopes to soon have at least one campus building earn the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest award, a LEED certification.

On Sept. 10, the OU Board of Regents approved OU’s request to negotiate with Johnson Controls, a building efficiency company.

The university hopes to finish negotiating a contract with Johnson Controls by the end of the month according to Jay Doyle, press secretary and special assistant to OU President David L. Boren.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification was established in 1998, and it soon developed into the standard for environmentally sustainable construction, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Although high up-front costs used to keep some organizations from going green with their buildings, soaring energy costs have made LEED-certified building more financially feasible.

“The energy costs are accelerating the need for LEED certification,” architecture professor Jay Yowell said. “There are many benefits to having a LEED-certified building. It essentially makes the building be designed in a sustainable manner, which benefits the users of the building, the maintenance of the building and the environmental impacts the building has.”

Yowell teaches a class on LEED certification. His students research the best ways to improve OU’s energy-conservation efforts and present their findings to OU officials at the end of the semester.

This spring, the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History was the first building on the OU campus to be submitted for LEED certification.

It will be the first existing, not newly-constructed, building in the state to earn LEED certification, Doyle said.

“It’s a very time-consuming process; there are a lot of steps involved,” said Linda Coldwell, public relations and marketing specialist for the museum.

During the certification process, buildings are awarded points based on criteria including site selection, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality and water efficiency.

“The more points you get, the higher the certification level,” Yowell said.

Buildings can be LEED-certified as gold-, silver- or platinum-level.

The process of earning a LEED certification is not only tedious, it’s expensive.

“LEED certification does tend to raise construction costs,” said Danny Turlip, a member of the student conservation group OUr Earth. “But the savings from energy conservation easily covers the elevated costs.”

Turlip said designers who have their buildings LEED-certified are making a statement about their priorities, because LEED is a prestigious certification.

“Having them on a college campus shows the students that the university is serious about its commitment to the environment,” Yowell said. “Many other schools are doing this, so the natural competitiveness of the students comes out and they want their school to be doing the same.”

How to ‘LEED’

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Certification System is a nationally recognized benchmark for design, construction and operation of environmentally friendly buildings.

LEED criteria:

• Site selection

• Energy and atmosphere

• Materials and resources

• Indoor environmental quality

• Water efficiency

Source: www.usgbc.org