Healthy learning environments

Abstract

A good school environment is paramount to the performance and health of the pupils and teachers. However, the quality of school buildings in the Netherlands is in general not so good, with 80% of them not complying with good practices for the indoor environment, while having high energy costs. When tackling these issues, School Boards around the country have two options: building new facilities, or upgrading the existing ones. Although they usually prefer new buildings, municipalities around the country are promoting the alternative. This presents opportunities for the sustainable renovation of potentially thousands of buildings, to make them not only energy efficient, but with a high quality indoor environment as well; Energy efficient schools with good indoor environment are at the heart of the project “Developing a model for the balance of energy use and indoor environment quality in school buildings”.