When the U.S. Green Building Council — the folks who brought us the LEED certification system for buildings — released its inaugural list of “Best of Green Schools” Connecticut with its fuel-cell and solar-powered schools was notable by its absence.

What’s worse, who’s the sponsor for the USGBC’s Center for Green Schools, which oversaw the awards and other new programs? Connecticut’s own United Technologies, manufacturer of many of said fuel cells.

The state is pretty much AWOL throughout the Center for Green Schools initiatives. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, is the only delegation member on the Congressional Green Schools Caucus. Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch and Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia are the only two mayors on the Mayor’s Alliance for Green Schools. And we’re completely absent on the 50 for 50 Green Schools Caucus for state legislators.

A little bit embarrassing?

Avatar photo

Jan Ellen SpiegelEnergy & Environment Reporter

janellenspiegel@comcast.net

Jan Ellen is CT Mirror's regular freelance Environment and Energy Reporter. As a freelance reporter, her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Yale Climate Connections, and elsewhere. She is a former editor at The Hartford Courant, where she handled national politics including coverage of the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. She was an editor at the Gazette in Colorado Springs and spent more than 20 years as a TV and radio producer at CBS News and CNN in New York and in the Boston broadcast market. In 2013 she was the recipient of a Knight Journalism Fellowship at MIT on energy and climate. She graduated from the University of Michigan and attended Boston University’s graduate film program.

Leave a comment