This article describes how community colleges, as educational institutions, play a central role in the sustainability movement and in the battle against climate change. Across the country, two-year institutions are creating sustainability programs, such as recycling garbage or composting food waste. They are building new green buildings, upgrading…

After a 35-year building hiatus, the nine colleges in the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) needed a major facelift. Facilities on LACCD campuses were antiquated and had fallen into disrepair. For years, students voiced dismay, saying their campuses resembled high schools rather than colleges. Inadequate infrastructure drove many…

This article talks about how the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) embraced a precedent-setting green policy that would forever change its approach to education. The "greenprint" for how environmental design and construction could be done mandates that all new buildings funded with at least half of the funds from its $2.2…