News
December 4, 2018LEED for Communities in the New York Olympic Region
Clarkson Students with Attendees at the Adirondack Research Consortium’s Fall Forestry Conference in October 2018. Photo courtesy of Dan Fitts.
Fourteen students from Clarkson University have been developing new research and analysis to inform the U.S. Green Building Council’s new LEED for Communities Program (LFC; LEED = Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in the New York Olympic Region (NYOR). Students have been working to help the Lake Placid Village and Central School District, The NY Olympic Regional Development Authority, and the Town of North Elba in the Olympic Region to be poised for preliminary certification in the program.
LEED for Communities is a new pilot program that expands sustainability development to a community level using data planning. It uses metrics and data integrated with sustainability goals from each community. The New York Olympic Region (NYOR) Partnership will be the first LFC Program in a rural, tourist and Olympics-based economy, with strong environmental policies from the Adirondack Park, and combining four unique jurisdictions into a single partnership entity.
Students will present an overview of the program, the initial core metrics from LEED for Communities, the Community goals to be embedded in the NYOR Agenda, and analysis of implementation designed to inform the USGBC program for the future. The presentations will be on Monday, Dec. 10 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at the Olympic Conference Center in Lake Placid, NY. And on Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. at Moore House at Clarkson University.
The Adirondack Semester is an off-campus program based at our partner Paul Smith’s College in near Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. It focuses on experiential learning and research with various Adirondack themes, with a unique real-world integrated research project (IRP) problem each semester. It is administered by Clarkson’s Institute for the Sustainable Environment.
