Morty sits on the mantelpiece of the new Paresky center to be visible to as many people as possible during the opening of the building. Many people have been asking me what sort of green features the new student center on campus has. Here is an official answer, a page on the green features of Paresky.

The page addresses lighting, heating/cooling, recycling of the old building, materials used in the new building and even the cleaning materials used by the custodians. Maybe most significant are the insulation ratings:

Insulation: The Paresky Center is very well insulated. It has R values as high as R25 in the walls and R72 in the roof; Massachusetts Code requires only R2 in walls and R15 in roofs. A highly insulated building retains more heat in the winter and stays cooler in the summer, and thus requires less energy to heat or cool.

Sitting in front of Paresky is the newly finished CFL sculpture. The five foot tall replica of a light bulb was made by Whitney and Cooper out of the incandescent bulbs collected through the CFL exchange. If the sculpture really used the 1000 bulbs that we had at that point, the materials making up the structure alone would represent $8000 that the college wouldn't have to spend this year on electricity costs. And we do this stuff for free!