If you or someone you know is going (back) to School, it would be worth considering the schools sustainability practices. Why? Because in the long run, the greenest campuses will be the most profitable and the others will incur greater costs. For example its important to know if your campuse will be able to survive the next unexpected flood, or the next earthquake or the next hurricane, or the next drought or the next epidemic. Those are all likely scenarios as the earth's climate changes. If a campus is already geared up to say get electricity from onsite solar generators or draws from a grid that uses renewable energy, there is less risk of an extended outage when oil based energy sources go down!
There are several noteworthy surveys of the greenest campuses out there. I will be adding and updating the list below as I find new stuff. So consider subscribing/following this blog/blog post to stay up to date when the content changes.
- http://greenreportcard.org/media - Covers 332 colleges in US and Canada and offers universal access to 1,100 survey responses! The Survey includes 48 indicators in the following 9 categories: Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Building, Transportation, Student Involvement, Endowment Transparency, Shareholder Engagement and Investment Priorities.
What I loved to see most in this report was the following comment:
“Surprising the skeptics, most schools we surveyed did not let financial reversals undermine their green commitments,” said Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute. “New financial realities encouraged saving money by adopting environmentally friendly innovations.”
- http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/201009/coolschools/ 162 out of 900 schools responded. "Although energy supply carried the most significance, 9 other categories were considered in measuring a school's commitment to sustainability: efficiency, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management, administration, financial investments, and a catchall section titled "other initiatives." No school scored a perfect 100; Green Mountain came closest, with 88.6.
- http://www.princetonreview.com/green-guide.aspx Covers 286 Colleges.
- http://climateculture.com/americas_greenest_campus/. This survey focus on student efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. UMCP leads the pack with 2257 students who committed to carbon reductions. Tells you that even on a small budget, change is possible.
No comments:
Post a Comment