PHILADELPHIA, October 12, 2021 – Last week, the School District of Philadelphia announced the authorization for issuance of $60 million in “green bonds”, and $315 million in other facility upgrades. These green bonds will fund energy efficiency projects that include HVAC overhauls (including adding air conditioning for climate resilience and improved ventilation for COVID readiness), lighting upgrades, building envelope improvements and more. Councilmember Derek Green (At-Large) issued the following statement commending the District’s actions:
“The School District deserves credit for their commitment to continuing to engage in deep energy retrofits that have the effect of leveraging capital dollars with green bonds to perform much-needed school infrastructure upgrades, while lowering energy costs, carbon footprint, and driving healthy and safe learning environments for our children.
As we continue to push for more of these projects faster, to move from 10 schools to 50 to 200 as quickly as possible, this $60 million investment shows leadership at a time when it is greatly needed. Not a day goes by that we don’t hear a story about the challenges of operating a very large district with very old and complex buildings, and these integrated, innovative projects are critical to fundamentally solving those issues. I look forward to seeing the successful completion of these projects and even more of this type of work from the District.”
Emily Schapira, President and CEO of the Philadelphia Energy Authority added, “We are proud to continue to support this work from the District and celebrate their continued innovation and commitment to integrated energy and capital projects. Having nearly completed deep retrofits at 10 schools over the last 3 years, the District has demonstrated that these projects have major impacts on students and teachers, improving health, comfort, and safety on top of reducing energy costs and carbon footprint, per their GreenFutures plan. While there is much work to be done, the District is setting an example for how other large school districts can approach facility renewal in tandem with climate action. We are very grateful to Dr. Hite, Uri Monson, Reggie McNeil, Ahmed Sultan and the many others at the District who have worked tirelessly to push this work forward.”
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