With Penn Connects, the University committed to the design of high-performance buildings using the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program as a guide. These principals were further embodied in the Climate Action Plan, which established LEED Silver Certification as a minimum standard for new construction and major renovations. As a result, in this past year we have either opened or broken ground on an array of new buildings that are achieving LEED® standards.

• The School of Arts and Sciences’ Music Building epitomizes the old adage that the greenest building is the one you don’t have to build. The preservation of this 1870s structure surpassed its LEED Silver target to achieve LEED Gold.
• Joe’s Café, which recently opened in the Wharton School’s Steinberg-Dietrich Hall, has achieved LEED Gold for Commercial Interiors. It is the first Penn building to achieve LEED certification for its operational practices including sustainable food service, recycling, composting, and chemical-free cleaning methods.
• These buildings join the LEED Silver Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine and the Morris Arboretum Horticulture Center, which earlier this year achieved a LEED Platinum rating, the highest possible, and one of only two such designations in the Commonwealth.

A key element of Penn Connects will debut in September when Penn Park opens. The park will increase Penn’s green space by 20 percent and incorporate features that support our Climate Action Plan goals. The park will use an innovative stormwater drainage system to capture and reuse water, and will reintroduce native species and plant life to an area that was industrial for over 100 years.  It will include new waste and recyclable receptacles to help us meet our target of increasing Penn’s diversion rate to 40 percent by 2014, and will feature a multitude of pedestrian and bike paths to support our sustainable transportation goals.

The vision of Penn Connects is to link the University to the City and the City to the University, a linkage that is also being achieved through our carbon reduction efforts. With the help of the Penn Green Campus Partnership, the University supported an initiative by Mayor Nutter to make Philadelphia the greenest city in America. This past week we sponsored a pilot program to distribute more than 300 trees, for free, to Penn employees who reside in the city.  By creating this canopy in partnership with Parks and Recreation, we are helping Philadelphia reach its goal of planting 300,000 new trees.

As you read through this edition of On College Green, I invite you to learn more about the myriad of ways, large and small, that Penn’s campus planning and carbon reduction strategies are improving our campus and city for generations to come.

Craig Carnaroli
Executive Vice President