Plant Operations Sustainability Team Is Hard at Work


The Plant Operations Sustainability Team, which has representation from both Facilities Management and Facilities Planning and Construction, met this week and provided updates on departmental sustainability initiatives currently underway.

Low flow shower heads — More than 130 low flow shower heads were installed in Moody Towers with an expected payback in water savings of 2.8 months.

Repairs to Cullen reflecting pond — Facilities Management has been working on improving water retention issues in the Cullen reflecting pond. The most recent actions included an assessment of the additional underground leakage points, including damaged perimeter masonry.

Addition of campus recycling locations — New to the campus recycling station sites will be Law Center. Facilities Management is building and installing one new recycling station that will hold four 96-gallon containers.

Chemicals used for cleaning buildings — One of the university’s new custodial vendors has installed cleaning chemical mixing stations. Additionally, the vendor is using “green” chemicals.

Campus design guidelines — A team of university design professionals have been reviewing the university’s environmentally responsible design guidelines. The proposed guidelines will provide additional sustainability initiatives to become incorporated within the university design standards. Features of the revised guidelines will include but are not limited to integrated pest management, storm water management techniques, increased campus tree canopy shade density, recycling or salvage of construction waste, installation of carbon dioxide monitoring devices, and new LED lighting. View the complete revised guidelines.

Student teams — Facilities Management is working with several faculty members and student teams in the areas of Central Plant optimization, Big Data, building optimization systems, portable building control apps, and Raspberry Pi applications.

For more information, contact Facilities Management Assistant Director and Sustainability Lead Michael Burriello at mlburrie@central.uh.edu, or follow him on Twitter @mlburrie.

 

Sustainability Profile Publication