Higher Ed Making the (Green) Grade

on Oct 08 in Related stories

Colleges: Less Green in the Bank, More Green on Campus
New portal allows universal access to sustainability data from 332 schools
[Information from Sustainable Endowments Institute's Oct. 7 press release, Mark Orlowski]

Despite budget-breaking investment losses and widely fluctuating energy costs, many schools became greener during the last year, earning higher grades on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010. Released on the new GreenReportCard.org website by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the annual publication provides school profiles and grades along with exclusive insights about sustainability in higher education.

More than 95 percent of participating institutions agreed to share the inner workings of their green practices, resulting in over 10,000 pages of detailed data and descriptions. Overall, the College Sustainability Report Card has the highest response rate of any college sustainability ranking or rating.

Grading the schools entailed researching publicly available information, conducting surveys of appropriate school officials, and assessing performance with 120 questions across 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.

Viability staff’s alma maters were featured:
Grand Valley State University – B
Hope College – C+
Northwestern University – B-
Ohio State University – B
Michigan State University – B

Click here to Read Full Article and find other rankings