Head of School's Blogs

Big Building, Big Award

by Bill Gerritz 13 December, 2010

Me, I love awards. I especially love them if they required effort over time with large obstacles along the path.  ISB received a big one recently. Starting four years ago, the U.S. Green Building Council began awarding certificates for new structures that met rigorous standards for “greenness.”  They are called LEED Awards.  They have become the international benchmarks for environmental sustainability in new construction.

In planning our new Cultural Center, The Board of Trustees believed that we should spend the extra time and money required to try for the award. The main argument was that we should be modeling responsible behavior for our students. We all know that young people pay way more attention to what adults do than what they say.

We learned a bit ago that the Council has awarded ISB the Gold Award. We are the first school in Southeast Asia to receive it. The Cultural Center is also the first Gold Award building of any kind in Thailand.

The Award process is strictly monitored including on-site inspection by a team from the U.S. The criteria include:

·      Water Efficiency

·      Energy and Atmosphere

·      Materials and Resources,

·      Innovation in the Design Process

·      Indoor Environmental Quality.

·      Sustainable Sites

Dr. Ugo Costessi, Deputy Head of School for Finance and Operations,  guided the planning and building process.  He even called in an LEED consulting group from Australia to make sure we did the right things in the right way. He would tell  you he walked a challenging path to achieve the necessary 45 points, innovating many features previously unseen in this part of the world.  For example, the building has a solar reflective roof.  Lights turn off if no one is in room. Rain water is harvested. The building has a state of the art system to monitor energy consumption.

As part of the Clinton Climate initiative, 2 years ago we replaced all the lighting and aircos in the old buildings, reducing our carbon footprint by 30 percent. I wonder what we will do next so that our children can see the school’s commitment to a greener world?

Comment on this post

Your comment:

Name: * You did not fill name

Email: * You did not fill email

Comment: * You did not fill comment

Security code: *

Try a different image

You did not fill security code

Submit Reset