Ivy high performance school buildings are consciously designed to respond to and positively impact the environment. They are energy and water efficient. They use durable, nontoxic materials that are high in recycled content and are themselves easily recycled. They preserve pristine natural areas on their sites and restore damaged ones. And they use nonpolluting, renewable energy to the greatest extent possible. As a consequence, high performance school buildings are good environmental citizens and they are designed to stay that way throughout their entire life cycles.
These benefits arise only when school leadership establish high performance as a specific goal from the very beginning, and fight for it, hard, over the course of the development process. A focus on student and teacher outcomes, coupled with a concern for the environment and a commitment to cost-effectiveness, will help ensure that the effort is successful and that the school achieves the highest performance level possible for its particular circumstances.