Contact:

FRED FEINER, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
PHONE: 908-234-1225, EXT. 104
FRED@NJCONSERVATION.ORG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Learn How to Save Green by Building Green on March 31

FAR HILLS, NJ, March 13, 2007 – Join the New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJCF) for “The Willow School: A Case Study in Sustainable Design” at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, March 31. The program will begin at NJCF’s office, 170 Longview Road in Far Hills, and conclude with a tour of the nearby Gladstone school, which recently ranked second nationally on The Green Guide’s annual list of the “Top 10 Green Schools in America.”

Mark Biedron, NJCF Trustee and co-founder of The Willow School, will lead the program which will examine the issue of environmental sustainability as it relates to building and landscape design. The Willow School is a small, independent, five-year-old, coeducation day school for students on Pottersville Road in Gladstone which has become a national model for “green building” or environmentally sustainable construction. Green building is the practice of designing and constructing structures to minimize adverse impacts on the surrounding environment. It incorporates site design, construction techniques, operation and maintenance procedures and increased utility (energy, water, etc.) efficiency.

The Willow School was the only school in New Jersey and the Northeast to be ranked in the top 10 by The Green Guide, which researches and publishes rankings for several environmental categories including top cities. The school also has been a winner of the U.S. Green Building Council’s esteemed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold Certification. This program is free, but pre-registration is required and space is limited. NJCF members receive first preference. For more information, please contact Lauren Ramos at Lauren@njconservation.org or 1-888-LAND-SAVE (1-888-526-3728).

Building green emphasizes the use of recycled materials and integrating a building’s features to emphasize conservation. Recycled materials at The Willow School include all the wood in the school from doors and windows that came from old catsup and vinegar vats to posts and beams that came from an old cotton mill to a roof made from recycled toothpicks to building insulation from recycled blue jeans.

But there’s much more to environmental sustainability than using recycled materials and The Willow School illustrates that like few buildings can including: a 57,000-gallon tank that collects rainwater, which is used to flush toilets and nourish plants after a cleansing process; green lights in classrooms that go on when the outside temperature is between 65 and 80 degrees, signaling children to open the windows; maximizing natural lighting by having the school sit on an east-west orientation to harvest daylight while sensors dim artificial lighting when the natural light is strongest; maximizing indoor air quality by selecting glue, paint, piping and wire coating with the minimum toxicity; and emphasizing native plants with deep roots on the school grounds that give rainwater the best chance to reach underground aquifers.

Biedron and his wife, Gretchen Johnson Biedron, a former educator with degrees in linguistics and speech therapy, decided to found the school after researching local alternatives for the eldest of their three children as kindergarten was approaching. The Willow School is still first and foremost a K-8 school for its 80 students, but from English to art, from science to social studies, it integrates the conservation principles on which the school was founded. “If we are teaching children to be virtuous, we need to be virtuous with our surroundings,” said Mark Biedron. “We have to treat the earth the same way we should treat each other.”

He disputes developer claims that environmentally sustainable construction is more costly than traditional approaches, saying that in general it costs about 2 to 5 percent more to build green than conventional methods. “And the savings are huge in the long run,” Biedron said. “We are saving about 50 percent on traditional energy costs.” A study of 33 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) buildings in the United States found that green building costs an extra $3 to $5 per square foot, but produces a return on investment of $50 to $70 per square foot in energy and other savings.

There are other benefits as well. Studies cited by SSP Architecture of Somerville, a leader in environmentally sustainable design, report that high performance green building results in a 2 to 16 percent increase in worker productivity; two and a half day earlier hospital discharges; and a 20 percent increase in school test scores.

Since 1960, NJCF has preserved over 100,000 acres of land from the New Jersey Highlands to the Delaware Bayshore, permanently protecting forests, farmland and natural resources, all vital to New Jersey’s future. For more information on saving New Jersey’s precious natural areas and natural resources, contact the New Jersey Conservation Foundation at 1-888-LAND-SAVE (1-888-526-3728) or visit our website at www.njconservation.org.