Ohio State’s expanding health sciences campus will monitor its “green” performance thanks to a unique partnership with the Center for Resilience in the College of Engineering and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Ohio State University Medical Center has made a commitment to incorporate sustainable technologies, including energy conservation, into a $1 billion master plan for campus expansion. The EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory has provided funding to enable the medical center to track non-financial benefits such as greenhouse gas reduction, research productivity and community well being.
“This is truly a pioneering assessment of the ‘before and after’ performance of a large professional enterprise as it migrates from conventional facilities to sustainably designed facilities,” said Joseph Fiksel, executive director of the Center for Resilience. “We expect that the health care and green building communities will learn a lot from this experience.”
Beginning July 1, post-doctoral researcher Tricia Petras, who received her doctoral degree from Ohio State’s John Glenn School of Public Affairs and holds a master’s degree in civil engineering, will work full time in the medical center’s facility planning department to develop standards of measurement by which the medical center can assess its sustainability. Her research will be guided by Fiksel, an expert on sustainability metrics, who will draw upon the knowledge of other engineering and architecture faculty members.
“This project exemplifies Ohio State’s commitment to translating cutting-edge research into practice, both in the medical field and the engineering field,” said William Orosz, administrative director for Facility Planning and Development at the medical center.
The National Risk Management Research Laboratory will closely supervise the project and will assist in disseminating the results to others in related fields, such as architects, engineers and designers, under the direction of Gordon Evans, acting director, Sustainable Technology Division.
“We support this research because we believe that development of rigorous sustainability metrics is one of the most important requirements for well-informed decision-making about sustainable buildings and industrial technologies,” said Sally Gutierrez, the overall laboratory director of the National Risk Management Research Laboratory.
Said Petras: “I am excited about this opportunity to contribute to the science of green buildings. Ohio State and EPA have given me a chance to apply my skills to an area that I am passionate about � urban sustainability.”
Editors:For more details, contact: Joseph Fiksel, executive director, Ohio State Center for Resilience, at fiksel.2@osu.edu or (614) 688-8155.
More information about the Center for Resilience is available online at www.resilience.osu.edu.
Jay Kasey, chief operating officer of the Ohio State University Health System, is available for comment regarding this news release. To arrange an interview, please contact Medical Center Communications at (614) 293-3737.
