I have occasionally written in this space about a greening trend on college campuses,
I have occasionally
written in this space about a greening trend on college campuses, which only makes sense; today’s students are the ones who are going to be bearing the brunt of the environmental shortsightedness of yore. But which are the greenest college campuses?
Forget ratings of which are the best party schools; a new tool debuted last week that ranks the U.S.’s most sustainable colleges and universities. Via
GreenBiz: “Two of the biggest publishers of educational rankings, the Princeton Review and Sierra Magazine, today have joined with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) to promote the
Campus Sustainability Data Collector, a free tool that aims to make it easier for any education institution to report its environmental impacts.” Among the data collected for the rankings are sustainability education and research programs and initiatives, sustainable operations, and innovation, such as “campus microgrids to deploy smart technologies or meeting student and faculty demand for things like organic food and car sharing.” (If I recall my campus dining hall experiences correctly, they were largely
inorganic.)
The University of Vermont has long been one of the most sustainable schools in the country, and they have recently developed a
certification program for campus sustainability.