Environmental and labor groups call on RI to invest in greener schools

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island environmental and organized labor organizations are calling on state government to use an influx of federal funds to ensure that any plans to rebuild public schools also include the incorporation of solar power and other clean energy measures. 

Climate Jobs Rhode Island, the coalition formed earlier this year between environmental advocates and labor leaders, announced a campaign Wednesday pushing for all public schools in the state to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. 

Cornell University researchers working for the coalition tentatively estimate that attaining the goal would cost $2.5 billion, but that it would result in $35 million in annual energy savings and support more than 11,000 jobs over the next nine years. 

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Coalition members argue that the goal, though ambitious, is realistic given that $1.4 billion has been allocated to school construction in Rhode Island since voters approved $250 million in bonds in 2018 to rebuild school buildings. 

They’re urging the state to tap COVID relief funds, money from the Biden administration’s infrastructure package that became law last month, and, if it passes Congress, Rhode Island’s share of the Build Back Better legislation. They also want another bond proposal equal to or greater than the one approved three years ago to be put before voters next year.   

“We believe this state will have the resources it needs to get us forward and meet these ambitious goals,” Patrick Crowley, secretary-treasurer of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and co-chair of Climate Jobs Rhode Island, said at the announcement in the State House. 

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Slash schools’ carbon footprints

He and others with the coalition say the time is right to slash schools’ carbon footprints because many school buildings are aging and in need of replacement, and because of the passage last spring of the Act on Climate, the law signed by Governor Dan McKee that requires the state get to net-zero emissions by 2050.   

Climate Jobs Rhode Island formed last January to push for bigger investments in renewables and energy efficiency while at the same time addressing environmental damage in front-line communities and creating good jobs with living wages in the new economy. 

The coalition is backed by the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, The Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Law Foundation, among other groups, as well as General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and a host of state legislators. 

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Priscilla De La Cruz, senior director of government affairs at the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and the other co-chair of the coalition, described the decarbonization of public schools as a priority in meeting the goals of the Act on Climate. 

“The quicker we can do this, the quicker we’ll see healthier kids with brighter futures,” she said. 

Coalition members have been in discussions with General Assembly members, Magaziner’s office and the state’s School Building Authority, which oversees school construction projects in Rhode Island.  

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Michael Roles, a policy analyst with Climate Jobs Rhode Island, said they were told that new schools are being planned to be net-zero ready but may not actually have renewable energy systems included immediately. Getting those systems installed depends on funding, he said. 

But Roles also pointed to a recent study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of 88 zero-energy schools across the country that concluded “that not only can zero energy schools be designed and built on conventional school budgets, they can cost less.”