WILDWOOD, Mo. (AP) __ St. Louis Community College’s Wildwood campus was built to be environmentally friendly. Turns out those moves are pretty friendly to the bottom line, too.

The Suburban Journals of Greater St. Louis reports that green features installed when the campus was built four years ago save the community college district about $45,000 annually.

“We feel confident we’re meeting the projected resource savings targets,” said Dennis Dill, district manager of maintenance and HVAC for the district. “They were a 30 percent  reduction in energy use and a 30 percent reduction in water use.”

The campus includes features that earned it a gold rating in the building certification system known as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). That is the second-highest rating possible. The LEED standard verifies that a building was designed and built to improve energy savings, water efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources.

About half of the roof includes aluminum pans containing soil, small stones and plants. The other half is painted white to reflect sunlight.

Plantings insulate the building and make it cooler in summer, Dill said.

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Link:  http://www.stlcc.edu/WW/Index.html