Shineman Center at SUNY Oswego earns gold rating for energy and environmental impact

OSWEGO, N.Y. — The Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation on the SUNY Oswego campus has earned a gold rating from the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program.

The facility opened in the fall of 2013.

LEED-certified buildings save money by being energy efficient, and have “a positive impact on the health of occupants, while promoting renewable, clean energy,” the USGBC contends. The gold rating is the second-highest of four possible ratings.

Despite the particularly cold winter of last year, the 230,000-square-foot Shineman Center lowered the college’s utility costs, according to a news release issued by SUNY Oswego.

Some of the building’s many green attributes include a wind turbine, rooftop solar panels (some of which are in the midst of being replaced because of storm damage), small roof gardens, and bins to retain storm water.

The facility also features the state’s largest geothermal-well installation, consisting of 240 wells nearly 500 feet deep. The wells utilize the constant temperatures beneath the earth to save on heating and cooling costs, depending on the time of year, according to the release.

The geothermal installation alone was projected to reduce the building’s annual energy consumption by about 12 percent, and its emissions by about 33 percent, the school said.

The green elements used for the Shineman Center are part of SUNY Oswego’s larger effort to reduce the school’s carbon footprint by 40 percent by 2050, which was laid out in a pledge signed by school president Deborah Stanley in 2007, according to the release.

Since that year, all new construction on the campus was designed to meet the standards of at least a silver rating in the LEED certification system, according to the release. It did not specify if all projects over that period actually received LEED certification.

“Our Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation stands out in so many ways,” Stanley said in the news release. “The largest project in our campus renewal program, it is a model of environmental sustainability, a model for building teaching opportunities right into the facilities where students learn, and a model of an interdisciplinary science community that is mindful of the welfare of future generations as it pursues discovery and innovation.”

The Shineman Center is the second building at SUNY Oswego to earn a LEED gold rating. The Village, a campus housing complex, earned a similar rating in 2011, the school said.

Contact Nick Kapteyn at nkapteyn@cnybj.com

PHOTO CAPTION: The U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) has awarded the SUNY Oswego’s Richard S. Shineman Center for Science, Engineering and Innovation a gold rating in its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program. (Photo credit: SUNY Oswego)