New Initiatives Support Healthy, Sustainable U.S. Schools

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) debuted two new initiatives to strengthen its Center for Green Schools program, which has a 15-year history working to ensure every U.S. school district is equipped to build safe, healthy schools for all students and educators.

The Center for Green Schools at USGBC has been instrumental in building the green schools movement, inspiring over 2,500 LEED-certified schools and cultivating a new job class—the K-12 school district sustainability director—which now includes over 700 individuals serving 9.3 million students in more than 250 school systems nationwide. The Center for Green Schools at USGBC has recently expanded its work to reach smaller and more rural communities across the country, providing training and support to staff to build healthier, more resilient schools in underserved communities.

To bolster this rich legacy and latest expansion of support for school districts across the country, the Center for Green Schools has announced that the nonprofit Collaborative for High Performance Schools, commonly known as CHPS, is now a part of USGBC. Founded in 1999 as a catalyst for California’s state agencies and major utilities to address energy efficiency in schools and help reduce energy costs in K-12 U.S. education facilities, CHPS has since expanded its work to address all aspects of high-performance school design, construction, and operation nationwide. The organization has worked to improve student and staff performance, reduce operating costs, and enhance environmental stewardship.

“Schools are critical community infrastructure, and one-sixth of the U.S. population, including students, teachers, administrators and parents, spends time inside public school buildings on a near-daily basis,” said Anisa Heming, Center for Green Schools at USGBC director.

The Center for Green Schools at USGBC also announced a call for input and partnership to develop a new collaborative for school design excellence to support a growing movement to improve school infrastructure—which reached a critical milestone in 2024 when U.S. school districts passed the largest amount of bond funding in recent history. A 2020 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) study shows that about half of school districts nationwide need to update or replace multiple systems, including heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) or plumbing, in over half of their schools.

The new collaborative will leverage the expertise and shared history of USGBC and CHPS to increase access to resources, accelerate the development of school-focused solutions, and incentivize action in local school districts.

“K-12 schools sit at the heart of their communities, and intentional design that maximizes efficiency and wellbeing contributes directly to their success in educating students,” said Peter Templeton, USGBC president and CEO. “The union of USGBC and CHPS strengthens our ability to transform learning environments around the globe and further our shared vision for healthy, green schools for all students and teachers.”

The Center for Green Schools invites nonprofits, companies, school professionals, and other individuals to contribute their expertise to the work of the new collaborative. Interested parties should reach out to USGBC through this form.