Loyola University Chicago
OP-3: Building Operations and Maintenance

Current LEED certified buildings on campus include the Klarchek Information Commons, Norville, Niehoff Nursing School, Damen Student Union, di Nobili Hall and Cuneo Hall.

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Loyola University recognizes that its physical infrastructure has an enormous impact on energy and the size of our carbon footprint. Loyola is dedicated to efficiency and conservation on all campuses. Over the past 10 years, the Facilities Management Department at LUC has constructed new, high-efficiency buildings and completed major retrofits and renovations to improve older and historic buildings. In fact, Loyola's electric and natural gas usage and cost per square foot has dropped by 62% since 2001 and continues to decrease. To illustrate, this decrease saves almost 30,000 metric tons of CO2 from being emitted to the atmosphere each year. This is equivalent to saving the burning of 150 rail cars full of coal or 360 tanker trucks full of gasoline! In recent years, Loyola has committed all new construction & renovations, where possible, to at least a Silver rating through the US Green Building Council's LEED certification. For existing or historical buildings on campus, Loyola encourages the development of innovative opportunities for energy savings. For example, a collaboration between Solomon Cordwell Buenz (architects), Argonne National Laboratory (building science), Elara Engineering (mechanical and electrical engineering), and Loyola, Dumbach Hall was retrofitted to achieve at least 30% improvement in energy performance. Moreover, LUC's Retreat and Ecology Campus offers the opportunity to create a "Net-Zero energy" facility. The efficiency improvements and retrofits conducted on this campus have the potential to bring the total energy use to a level that can be made up entirely by renewable energy sources located on the property.