Green school – teaching green awareness
Experts believe that the 3 factors forming a sustainable and environment-friendly school are green facilities, green curriculum and green community.
“To have green people, there must be green cities,” emphasized Mr. Do Viet Chien, General Secretary of the Vietnam National Real Estate Association, on the topic of Green School, at the Green Café Seminar on June 12, organized by Vietnam Real Estate Online Magazine and Capital House Group.
Chien said that a green city must have many green buildings in which there are green schools. A school is not only a place for children to go study but also an environment for community engagement. Especially when the relationship between people is now increasingly distant as urbanization overflows, turning villages into condos and urban areas.
“On the same floor of an apartment buildings, neighbours don’t even know each other. Consequently, traditional cultural values are gradually eroded,” Chien continued. “The solution to restore and preserve cultural traditions is green school, where people come to communicate and stick together.”
Mr. Do Viet Chien sharing at the Green Café Seminar on the topic of Green School.
Vice Chairman of Capital House, an investor of Genesis School, Ms. Do Thuy Chi shared, “Currently, Vietnam has many movements towards green living and sustainable development like scavenging and reducing plastics.”
“However, these activities only deal with the tip of the iceberg. The living habits that cause environmental damage have existed for too long and are difficult to cut the root,” she said. “I believe that educating children on both knowledge and responsibilty in the early stages will be the most effective and positive way to change the society.”
With years of experience consulting, developing green buildings and green schools, International Business Developer Mr. Johann Bourgoin said that green school design requires many factors such as smart shading in the classrooms to prevent glare and increase thermal comfort, or sensor to automatically turn light on and off according to natural light and room usage.
In addition, a building management system is needed to collect data, helping optimize indoor lighting usage and save energy. Not to mention walls and floors insulation, green roofs and green sidewalks using green insulated and sound-proof materials, etc.
“But the most important factor to have in a green project is education. The first is training for workers and technical staff during green construction process. Then training for teachers, students and building operators to understand and operate green buildings efficiently,” he claimed.
Mr Johann Bourgoin concluded, “A building is foremost green thanks to natural solutions before using hi-tech solutions. A building is foremost smart thanks to human solutions before using hi-tech solutions.”
The most important factor to have in a green project is education.
Is green school… easy?
Currently, only a few projects achieved green certificate. The root of the problem lies in technical barriers, costs and awareness. In particular, the development of green school faces many obstacles.
Mr. Hoang Manh Nguyen, Executive Director of the Green Urban Research and Development Institute, said “There are many difficulties in doing green buildings.”
“Firstly, green construction is very challenging: low public awareness, modest professional qualifications and booming number of projects. Secondly, investors are more interested in immediate profits and less concerned with long-term benefits,” he explained. “Finally, administrative agencies have not had policies to encourage and facilitate green buildings. At the moment, green buildings are solely derived from investors’ desire, but to create a trend, a movement, supportive legal framework is essential.”
In achieving green school target, cost is a major concern. Expenses such as design and in-depth analysis, green consultancy, green equiments and materials, assessment and certification are additional charges that need to be considered.
Genesis School - A green school model. (Photo: Minh Nghia/Vietnam+)
However, Nguyen asserted that these surcharges are, in fact, relatively small. They are actually lower than we imagined if sustainable solutions are synchronously implmented right at the start.
“Heading towards a truly green school, we always have to push a little further to include more sustainable utilities and everytime we add a new material or any standard, careful calculations have to be made,” Ms. Do Thuy Chi said. “When Genesis School achieved Gold Certification, we had to keep working hard to create even better things for future generations.”
“In particular, to achieve certain key points, we incorporate green educational program into the official curriculum. A green school is not only green on the outside but also on the inside, in everything, from operating the electrical grid, taking care of trees, to disposing waste and garbages,” she said.
“For a large group of people and new students, we have to teach children and train employees to live and do green. For building a green school means building green people,” Chi concluded.
