Alamo Colleges – Corina Solis – 2014

Goals

Alamo Colleges has set rigorous goals for itself that span energy conservation, water efficiency, LEED certification and waste management. Corina Solis worked with the Alamo Colleges district facilities office and focused primarily on district sustainability.

Solutions

Solis developed a report card tool for the district to baseline and measure the district’s performance and policy compliance over time. By rating each sustainability procedure, the report card can provide an overall score to share with the Board, the Chancellor’s Office and the district community. This tool’s coinciding report details procedural and goal recommendations for revisions, in addition to suggestions for achieving compliance in areas with the lowest compliance.

Additional work includes an assessment of Northwest Vista Campus for a U.S. Green Buildings Council LEED certification for existing buildings. Solis created a user guide with next steps for each prerequisite and recommended credit to help the facilities office achieve a Silver-level certification in the selected candidate buildings.

Solis also updated Alamo Colleges’ greenhouse gas emissions for its American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment report. She developed recommendations on streamlining data collection and storage for the future to make it easier to keep up with yearly reporting.

In addition, Solis created the Alamo Colleges Energy Snapshot to provide the district a simple summary of the district’s energy. This snapshot compares Alamo Colleges’ energy performance to national averages and a peer Texas community college, based on square footage, cost and student population.

Lastly, Solis assessed the district’s participation in summer demand response from the building user perspective. She provided content to include in campus sustainability webpages explaining the program and its benefits and also provided recommendations on additional educational and communication opportunities.