Canada: UBC goes green

By generating electricity, purifying rainwater

PNG / Alberto Cayuela, associate director of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, stands outside a building under construction on UBC's campus. Photograph by: Jason Payne, Vancouver Sun

January 22, 2011 - The University of British Columbia is in the process of converting its entire campus into an urban-sustainability laboratory.

At the heart of this initiative is a new building set to open this summer that will generate electricity, purify rainwater, regulate its energy requirements with plants and reduce the university’s carbon footprint in the process.

All this will cost no more to build than a LEED gold standard office building, according to project director John Robinson. (LEED is a rating system that promotes the design and construction of high-performance green buildings.)

"It’s one thing to make a building that has a lower or zero carbon footprint," said Robinson. "We want to make a building that actually improves the environment." {continued}