By Margaret Hartley from the Daily Gazette

When a friend from college got his doctorate in soil sciences, he asked to be called Dr. Dirt. Now that he’s been a professor of environmental sciences for years, we like to call him Dr. Sustainability, and the last time a bunch of us got together he was the go-to guy for all our questions.

“Hey, doctor, paper or plastic?”

“Doc, is it better to use the hot air dryer or the paper towel dispenser to dry your hands?”

“Hybrid or good gas mileage?”

“Hey, what about all these new LEED-certified buildings popping up on college campuses?”

The good doctor is not always predictable. He approves of LEED certification, of course, but wonders whether unnecessary — and unnecessarily large — buildings are being put up when existing buildings could be retrofitted and reused at less cost, and with less waste.

“When’s the last time you saw a college knock down a building?” the doctor asked, and because we’re an argumentative bunch, a few who also work at colleges gave examples of, say, old fieldhouses and office rows coming down for a gleaming new LEED building.

Still, the doctor’s point is interesting. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, and the official certification, which comes one year after the building is occupied, indicates that it was built with recycled or sustainable materials and that it operates in ways that conserve energy and water. That might include situating the building to take advantage of natural light, recycling waste water for utilities, using natural and renewable building materials and super-insulating walls to cut down on heating.