Green, Healthy Schools: How NYC Can Lead the Nation with Green Jobs, Quality Education, and Thriving Communities

New York City public school infrastructure is in crisis. There are over 1,200 public school buildings across New York City (NYC), many of which are on average 75 years old. Decades of disinvestment have left students and teachers in deteriorating environments marked by mold, poor ventilation, failing Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems, and structural vulnerabilities. Students and staff are exposed to these toxins every day, but so are the surrounding communities, due to the multipurpose  uses of public school buildings—they serve as emergency shelters and cooling centers during extreme weather, polling sites for elections, and spaces for adult literacy programs and community building.

The Green, Healthy Schools (GHS) initiative, championed by the Climate Works for All coalition, offers a comprehensive solution that provides a win for environmental justice and sustainability, and a path to creating good, green union jobs.

Among the key findings, the report details how an annual capital investment of $2.2 billion over five years in Green, Healthy Schools can:

• make schools fully electric and fossil fuel-free, install clean solar power, and upgrade heating, cooling, and ventilation systems
• create 321,944 green jobs or 64,388 per year
• cut Department of Education energy costs in half long-term
• deliver clean air and improve learning environments for nearly one million public school students
• make workplaces for more than 150,000 teachers and school workers sustainable
• meet the mandates of Local Law 97 at scale
• start to repair harm of decades of disinvestment by prioritizing schools in environmental justice communities