Sustainable Living Tips by Lee Leffler

photo by Jim Fairchild

Maharishi University of Management has launched a $1.5 million renovation project to fix buildings, upgrade facilities, and improve energy efficiency at the same time. After completing a $2 million dorm renovation project last year, the University plans to spend half of the new funds on energy efficient upgrades.

“Our University Trustees were eager to make energy efficiency a major focus of the project,” said David Streid, MUM chief administrative officer. In addition to making the campus greener, the upgrades will save money in the long run.

The roof of the Art Center received an additional 2 ½ inches of insulation and a system to capture the heat from the kiln . . .

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Sustainable Living Center Will Be Unique in the Country

Press Conference and Earth Day Event Scheduled for 12:45 p.m. April 22

On Earth Day, April 22, the walls and the roof will go up on Maharishi University of Management’s new Sustainable Living Center — a building that will set a new standard for green building in America by being completely off the grid with respect to electricity, heating and cooling, water, and waste.

The Sustainable Living Center has been designed to meet the Living Building Challenge, the highest standard for sustainable design and green building in the world. It will be one of the first three to achieve this. And it will be unique because it will be the first to combine that standard with the standards of LEED Platinum certification, Building Biology, and Maharishi Vedic Architecture.

“There’s no other building like this going up in the nation, or in the world for that matter, that we know of,” said nationally known green building expert Mike Nicklas, who co-designed the building and whose company Innovative Design has designed over 4000 buildings that use renewable energy solutions.

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The Green Dragon is a 45 minute documentary including interviews with Chinese people about building sustainably in the world’s most populace country. “Before making this film,” says Max Perelman, American Environmental & Agricultural, Inc., “I had no idea of what an amazing journey I was embarking on. I had been told that over half the world’s construction takes place in this one country, but only when you see it do you believe it.”

The Green Dragon website includes a trailer and a more in-depth multi-media project. http://www.greendragonfilm.com/

Max Perelman will be speaking at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, IA on Monday, January 11 at 8 PM at the Argiro Student Center. Mr. Perelman is the president of American Environmental & Agricultural, Inc., an import/export and trade consulting firm specializing in environmental technologies and focused on trade between Asia and North America. He is also an advisor to the Joint US-China Cooperation on Clean Energy. Max speaks and reads Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. He has presented at a number of green building conferences including the USGBC’s Greenbuild 2007 in Chicago and WestCoastGreen 2008 in Silicon Valley.