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Cool Planner Winner
St. Andrews Environmental Stewards
2013 Cool Congregation Challenge
Student-led Energy Audit
The students and staff of the St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Middletown, Delaware, guided an impressive energy audit on half of its school buildings in an effort to reduce its carbon footprint by 18%. The school is presently implementing 4 of the 16 energy efficiency upgrades with available funds. The planning team proposes setting up a unique "Green Revolving Loan Fund" to use electricity cost savings from implemented upgrades to fund future upgrades.
The planning team, called the Green Council, consists of all key stakeholders in the school community, including students. The plan includes establishing a student-drafted climate action plan with the hope of making the case for reaching carbon neutrality at a school by 2020. The students are a driving force behind all of our sustainability initiatives to push forward for the health of the St. Andrew's community and the world at large.
St. Andrew's planning team is working in 2014 with the Delaware Valley Green Building Council and the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility as part of the Green Schools Pathway Program to conduct an energy audit on a portion of the remaining half of its school buildings.
Delaware's Energy Efficiency Investment Fund awarded St. Andrew's with a $6,000 grant to help with approximately $20,000 worth of energy efficiency work recommended in the School's recent energy audit. The grant will help with the costs of a new high efficiency water heater in two dorms and new LED lighting retrofits for outdoor lighting around campus and in the school's Forbes Theater.
The U.S. Department of Education named St. Andrew's a Green Ribbon School in 2013, one of only three boarding schools in the country to receive the recognition. Among many of the ongoing smaller improvements around campus, St. Andrew's is also home to the state-of-the-art Sipprelle Field House, the first LEED Gold certified school building in Delaware.
Read St. Andrew's sustainability news.