The Green Report Card lauds colleges making a 4.0 in green

The Sustainab College-Sustainability-Report-Card_July-21-783305 le Endowments Institute released the 4th edition of its annual College Sustainability Report Card 2010, also known as the Green Report Card on Wednesday.

Founded in 2005 and supported by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the Institute supports the advancement of sustainability in higher education. It boasts that its college ranking project had a response rate of 96 percent in 2009, giving the Green Report Card the highest response rate of any college sustainability ranking or rating service.

The Green Report Card graded 332 universities on a scale of 1 through 4 on their performance in nine categories:

Administration
Climate Change & Energy
Food & Recycling
Green Building
Transportation
Student Involvement
Endowment Transparency
Shareholder Engagement
Investment Priorities

Twenty-six schools received a 4.0:

Amherst College
Arizona State University
Brown University
University of California – San Diego
Carleton College
College of the Atlantic
University of Colorado
Dickinson College
Harvard University
Luther College
Macalester College
Middlebury College
University of Minnesota
University of New Hampshire
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Oberlin College
Pacific Lutheran University
University of Pennsylvania
Pomona College
Smith College
Stanford University
University of Vermont
University of Washington
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University

Out of the 26 schools that earned a 4.0, 20 belong to the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

“We believe that report cards like this offer important opportunities to raise public awareness and apply pressure to schools to improve their sustainability efforts. However, there are other useful considerations too, such as membership in the ACUPCC, whether the school is working towards climate neutrality, and what sustainability courses and research the school is providing,” stated Gina Coplon-Newfield, director of communications and outreach for Second Nature.

The total endowment value of the schools surveyed for this year’s Green Report Card is $325 billion. While the average endowment value dropped 23 percent in the last year, schools are not making cuts in sustainability. In fact, they are using sustainability to their advantage.

“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, in a statement. “New financial realities encouraged saving money by adopting environmentally friendly innovations.”

“Colleges are now taking pride in greener campuses and sustainability-savvy investments—increasingly important concerns for parents and students in choosing a school,” Orlowski said.

The Green Report Card allows a person to compare up to 10 schools at a time, filtered by more than 100 categories, such as geographic region, athletic league, environmental studies majors, sustainability jobs on campus, renewable energy use and many other factors.

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