Two Iowa colleges are following national sustainability trends and becoming greener. Coe College and Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids have both implemented sustainability initiatives to conserve energy, according to the Gazette.
Coe College is implementing a major energy reduction program that is aimed at reducing the college’s electricity use by 25 percent and its natural gas consumption by nearly 50 percent. The school expects to save $220,000 in energy and operations costs each year and cut the college’s carbon footprint in half.
Cedar Rapids based-Kirkwood has locations across the region, has 675,000 square feet of building space that uses geothermal heating and cooling, 27 kilowatts of solar panels, a commingled recycling program that diverts about 80 percent of trash from the landfill, and a wind turbine that offsets about 25 percent of the institution’s electrical consumption.
Kirkwood received an environmental excellence award from the governor’s office as a result of its conservation efforts, including the installation of solar panels, geothermal heating and cooling, and wind turbines.
