Measuring Energy & Health in Existing Massachusetts Schools – AreaResearch

Measuring Energy & Health in Existing Massachusetts Schools

Child learning environments require special consideration due to students’ rapid biological, cognitive, academic, and social growth, and less mature immune systems. The current public school building portfolio is geographically diverse and spans decades of construction practices, demographic, environmental, and economic pressures. This document discusses the significance and methodologies for collecting the environmental determinants of health and energy metrics in K-12 public school buildings. To properly identify building optimization strategies for energy and health, systematic data needs to be collected to inform decision-making.

Completed: 2022
Locations: Massachusetts
Partners: AIA Massachusetts, Acentech, Bala Engineering, CMTA, Heschong Mahone Group, Jones Whitsett Architects, Lam Labs, Perkins&Will

“What gets measured, gets done.”

In August 2022, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed Session Act 2022, Chapter 179, An Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind, which required the Department of Public Health (DPH), the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the Department of Energy Resources (DOER), and the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to collaborate on three priorities:

An assessment of Massachusetts K-12 public schools with the goal of determining their existing conditions relative to health, safety, and energy use.
A standards-setting requirement to make clear what constitutes a healthy and effective school building relative to specific building metrics (energy use intensity, air quality, thermal comfort, daylighting, etc.)
A plan for the Commonwealth to achieve 2050 emission reduction goals in public school buildings.

Building Partnerships Across Massachusetts

After the act was passed, a coalition of designers, public health, engineers, and season advocates began working together to define what metrics could be included in the assessment. The goal was not to reinvent the wheel, so collaborators identified existing measurement efforts and methodologies to inform the Commonwealth’s agencies.

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