What is Sustainability?

        

"Sustainability" means having the ability to maintain or sustain one’s existence. It’s about taking various aspects of an issue into consideration to determine the best possible outcome for the most over the longest amount of time. As it pertains to CCC, sustainability is about considering social, environmental and economic concerns in our immediate and long-term planning to ensure best possible outcomes. These three components make up the sustainability "triple-bottom-line" and are essential to our overall success.    

Educat​ion is an investment of  time, money, energy and other valuable resources. A sustainable education is one that yields high value in exchange for these resources. City Colleges of Chicago strives to offer students an affordable, accessible, high-yielding education that will continue to enrich and benefit the students, their families and the community for years to come.  

Sustainability at City Colleges of Chicago goes beyond the classroom walls and comprises the very structures in which these classrooms are housed, literally. Sustainable construction and repairs of both new and existing buildings has resulted in a improvement of both indoor and outdoor learning environements across all seven colleges. Many of our facilities are on par with requirements for the USGBC’s LEED green building certification standards. The result of CCC’s focus on sustainable, "green" building practices is not only a significant reduction of our environmental impact such as increased energy efficiency and reduced stormwater runoff, but also a significantly improved indoor learning environment for our students, faculty and staff. From high-efficiency building materials, procurement of recycled products, green-cleaning and improved efforts for waste reduction and recycling, our facilities and administrative services team is dedicated to maintaining a "green" standard across all facilities on each college campus.