Regardless of our people’s greatest efforts our schools remain heavy consumers of energy and are constructed employing materials that can potentially be harmful to children in the lengthy run. The government has been slow in upgrading the facilities that shape our future generation and appears to be indifferent to the school’s rabid consumption of energy and in turn other resources as well. It is clear that our government rather cut salaries and benefits for teachers in order to balance the budget as opposed to taking a proactive approach to achieving sustainable reductions in school’s energy costs. Nonetheless, spending income now to save money in the future was never the governments forte and upgrading our schools will surely cost millions. There is trigger for concern when the schools’ energy expenses far exceed the cost of books and other school supplies.

The good news is that the government is finally recognizing the substantial advantages that can be derived from constructing green schools and other public facilities. Aside from the obvious advantages to the environment, green schools can save the tax payers billions in future energy expenses and sadly that is the only thing that matters to the government. Several new school developments are now constructed using green architecture principals that harness thermal, solar, and solar thermal energy and making use of it to heat or cool the structure accordingly. Such creating tactics are not new and the use of hollow core slabs and precast concrete has been around for years and has seen real success in decreasing energy costs without sacrificing the energy quality. Green homes consume much less energy but do they in fact meet the cooling and heating needs of the residents? The answer is yes. In spite of some bad practices of some green builders that resulted in poor performance, the vast majority of intelligent homes deliver results in both performance and energy savings.

Constructing new schools green is all well and very good but upgrading older schools to be green can price a lot much more. When it comes to upgrading older facilities the government takes the “If it aint broke don’t fix it” approach. The problem with that is that it is truth that even though the old schools can still function they deliver poor performance when it comes to energy usage. It’s the equivalent of employing an old mobile phone when one can be utilizing an iPhone. There are some actions being taken in parts of North America to greenify older schools, even so, there requirements to be a stronger emphasis from the government to truly drive this forward. It is the job of parents to put pressure on school districts, who in turn will put pressure on the national government, to start developing towards a greener future. Greener is greater.