Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Sustainable Building Features

PCC has invested significantly in creating a more sustainable built environment, most notably by requiring LEED certification for new construction and major renovations. Occupant engagement and education are needed to reap the benefits of these buildings and promote a culture of sustainability awareness throughout the college. The college uses LEED buildings as a way to promote occupant awareness and engagement and to support education in a living lab model. These efforts lead to reduced resource use in line with the college’s Climate Action Plan, Strategic Plan and the Strategic Energy Management Program. You can find various signage across the college to learn more about the sustainable features in each building.

Energy Efficiency

PCC’s greenhouse gas emissions related to energy come from heating and lighting buildings, running electrical equipment and emissions from the college’s fleet vehicles. Some of the greatest opportunities to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions are through efficient energy use, green building design, improvements in operations and education and outreach.

Renewable Energy

PCC can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions through consuming renewable energy. Renewable energy comes from a source that is naturally replenishing, e.g. the sun. By investing in clean, renewable energy, PCC is working towards energy security. PCC’s campus solar arrays power some of the college’s operations and buildings.

LEED Certifications

Overall, PCC has decreased building energy consumption use per square foot by more than 45% since 2013. As PCC has grown, investments in infrastructure such as designing buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard has helped reduce energy use. PCC’s inventory of sustainable assets currently includes nine LEED buildings.

Healthy Environment

Resiliency focuses on reducing vulnerabilities in the connections between ecological health and human social systems. PCC has incorporate resiliency into the 2021 Climate Action Plan, allowing PCC to center people at the heart of creating benefits and solutions to the climate crisis, ensuring that equity is a focus rather than an afterthought.

Outdoor Spaces

Greenery on campus is important to our health and brings community together. PCC is committee to planting native, pollinator-friendly landscaping across the college. Buildings with views to the outdoors and nature are important to PCC to maintain our communities connection with nature, even when indoors.

Sustainable Materials

PCC has recently increased its efforts around reducing supply chain emissions to create sustainable procurement practices. PCC’s Procurement & Contract Services department has recently added sustainable purchasing responsibilities to one of its positions. Internally, PCC offers guidelines to help employees make sustainable purchasing choices and the college recently updated its design standards for use in Planning and Capital Construction with several new guidelines for sustainable products and low carbon materials.

Sustainable Travel

PCC provides options for students to green their commute to school include providing inter-campus shuttles, offering subsidized bus passes to students, supporting public transportation to PCC facilities and using grants to promote sustainable transportation and travel such as bicycling and walking. However, other factors such as urban growth and gentrification have influenced commuters in the region to both drive more and live further away from their destinations.

Waste Reduction

Extensive recycling and composting programs exist on each campus, including closed-loop models such as where food waste is composted on site and then used in the garden to grow food for consumption on campus. Beyond standard recycling and composting, PCC consistently works towards preventing emissions from solid waste made by individual consumers.

Water Conservation

Climate change is predicted to have numerous adverse effects on freshwater resources. Many water supplies are becoming far less reliable. Water demand is growing and many local supplies are already tapped or drying out. Climate change puts additional stress on water systems, making it paramount to create resilient water systems that reduce PCC’s water consumption habits and save freshwater resources for future generations.