A total of 31 area college campuses have agreed to cut down ongreenhouse emissions by 30% in accordance with Mayor MichaelBloomberg's 2030 Challenge. The schools—Barnard, Columbia, CooperUnion, Fordham, New York University, Pratt Institute, St. John's,the New School and all 23 CUNY campuses—intend to one-up the Mayorand achieve their goal in 10 years, rather than 23. The challengewas issued by the Mayor as part of his PlaNYC initiative, firstannounced in December. As 2030 Challenge "partners," each schoolwill create an inventory of its greenhouse gas emissions along witha plan for how to achieve reductions.

According to the city's first-ever carbon emissions inventorystudy, 79% of emissions produced here come from buildings and, ofthose, 18% are produced by government and institutional facilities.To address this problem, the mayor's office has earmarked $80million for the 2008 fiscal year for a program to assist buildingowners and occupiers in reducing their carbon output. The program,currently still in the planning stages, will include retrocommissioning of buildings, energy audits, and an assessment ofoperations and maintenance practices.

Cooper Union, meanwhile, is going a step further in itscommitment to the environment. The progressive engineering schoolrecently broke ground on a new $150-million academic facility at 41Cooper Sq. which has been designed to LEED Gold standards andincludes the city's first green academic laboratory facilities. Thenine-story, 175,000-sf East Village building will house CooperUnion's Albert Nerken School of Engineering and provideinstitutional space for faculty of other Cooper Union schools.Designed by Pritzer Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne ofMorphosis, the 41 Cooper Sq. project team also includes associatearchitect Gruzen Samton LLP. Horne Rose is acting as owner'srepresentative and F. J. Sciame Construction Co. is constructionmanager.