Trane Technologies brings industry expertise to Sustainable Biomaterials students

In the Sustainable Impact in Practice, we bring students in as a bridge experience. We have students in sophomore year, we even have a couple of freshmen all the way up to graduate students who are in a transition towards what they're learning and thinking about in their classes. How do they apply that in potential career paths? Engaging with Trane has been an amazing opportunity. Students were able to really bring together energy efficiency in concept, how Trane applies that in practice and how things like energy, and water efficiency can result in real impact. This class is focused on the energy impact in buildings. That is directly what we do. We go into existing buildings, we perform energy audits and identify waste that we can address either with low-hanging fruit changes like LED lighting or water fixture upgrades or large HVAC renovations that'll make those buildings operate more efficiently and reduce their carbon footprint. It was my first time doing that kind of work, specifically for energy. I really like applying my knowledge into machinery and equipment and so on, increasing efficiency according to the building needs. Working with partners like Trane, finding those win-win scenarios where we can have hands -on training for students to understand how do we put sustainability into practice, as well as creating pipelines for students who are looking for co -ops, looking for internships, looking for their next career steps. It's been great to get exposure to the students and get a better idea of what they're looking for in their careers. They have a large breadth of experience that they can draw from, from their coursework and from being at Virginia Tech. It speaks volumes to their character that they're looking to improve the world's energy footprint through sustainable measures and through energy efficiency.