Since 2007

OUR PROGRAM

Sustainable Schools has worked with school boards across Canada to build the knowledge and practice of energy efficiency in schools. This ground-breaking initiative goes beyond energy reporting and benchmarking to establish best practice energy targets for individual schools, and thus how much energy each school and school board can save. This knowledge of conservation potential provides the foundation and direction for effective conservation action.

Over the past decade Sustainable Schools has analyzed the actual energy performance of Ontario’s 5,000 K-12 schools along with data from reputed high-performance schools across North America. The program publishes annual reports recognizing the most energy efficient school boards in Ontario, based on publicly reported data. The success of these boards has much to do with outstanding management practices which is the focus of future research.

The program also undertakes extensive applied research, with topics including:

• Strategic Energy Management for school board portfolios
• High Efficiency Rooftop HVAC Unit Replacements research
• Application of geoexchange to K-12 schools: research into system design, conditions, and operations
• Portable classroom energy use: advanced control strategies for optimizing operations
• Characteristics of high-performing and most improved boards: policies, resources, and management practices