What Are We Doing?​​

At City Colleges of Chicago we strive to do our part today while teaching the stewards of tomorrow.
Energy Leadership


The City Colleges of Chicago has been a leader in energy efficient operations for the last decade. The District currently uses 600,000 less therms and 13 Million less kilowatt hours than a decade ago, while adding more usable campus space and increasing operating hours. 


Energy Performance Contracting 


Over the last ten years, City Colleges has used Energy Performance Contracting to automate buildings and reduce energy usage. Building Automation Systems (BAS), lighting retrofits, equipment upgrades, occupancy sensors and variable speed controllers are paid for with future energy savings. These upgrades have given our building engineers the tools they need to track energy usage in real time, find faulty equipment and set schedules to reduce energy usage during unoccupied periods. 

Smart Tools      

Energy usage tracking
and reduction at the City Colleges of Chicago is hi-tech business. We use
multiple tools to track energy usage including: 

With the automated capability of
reducing building energy usage quickly and easily, the City Colleges of Chicago participates in
a voluntary curtailment program that reduces its electricity usage if
circumstances cause the electric grid to become unstable.  

Waste & Recycling​

At the City Colleges of Chicago we are committed
to recycling our refuse in an efficient and effective manner.  Toward this goal, we have recently expanded
our efforts to include plastic bottles, glass bottles, and aluminum cans in
addition to the cardboard and paper we have been recycling.


This comingled recycling effort is called “Single
Stream” Recycling.  Our District Wide recycling rate for the
first half of 2013 was 13.3%.  This
amounts to 89 tons of recycling which produced an emissions reduction of 237 metric tons of
CO2e. 
That is the equivalent of the carbon sequestered by 6,077 tree seedlings
grown for 10 years, or the annual carbon sequestration of 194 acres of U.S.
forests, or taking 50 cars off the road for a year. 

Sustainable Purchasing

The goal of
the City Colleges of Chicago Sustainable Purchasing Policy is to encourage and
quantify the environmental stewardship of our procurement.  Procuring sustainable products and services
as best practice is a well-established ethos of the City Colleges of
Chicago.