Case Study: University of Pennsylvania achieves sustainable design and historic preservation with Trimble e-Builder

University of Pennsylvania Sustainable Design Meets Historic Preservation

The University of Pennsylvania, with a campus dating to 1740, must balance aggressive sustainability goals with historic‑preservation constraints. Penn’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 3.0 commits to a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2024 and requires all new projects to meet at least LEED Silver, pushing Facilities and Real Estate Services to prioritize adaptive reuse, green roofs and high‑performance design across campus.

To meet those goals Penn uses e-Builder to streamline project management, reduce paper waste and support sustainable design choices—examples include renovating the historic West Philadelphia Title and Trust building into the Perelman Center and specifying mass timber for a new data‑science building (mass timber could cut CO2 by up to 20% if it replaced steel globally). These strategies have produced multiple LEED projects (including Gold and Platinum), lowered embodied carbon, and advanced Penn’s environmental stewardship and efficiency objectives.

University of Pennsylvania