The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, a member organization of colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada working to create a sustainable future, is helping to lead an effort to raise higher education’s green score.  According to today’s New York Times, colleges are doing the following things in their race to be the greenest campus:

• Setting dates by which they will be carbon-neutral
• Hiring sustainability coordinators
• Buying green power through offsets

In a contest sponsored by the EPA, athletic conferences competed to see who could by the most green power and the ivy leagues won, with a combined 221.6 million kilowatt hours for the past quarter. However,  colleges and universities are lagging behind in accomplishing more substantive actions.

“….some higher education officials worry that campuses are taking easy steps to win the label rather than doing the kind of unglamorous work — replacing air exchange systems, for example — that would actually reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Some campuses are changing little more than their press releases. ‘I don’t think we really have the tools to quantifiably test who’s doing the best and who’s not,’ says David W. Oxtoby, president of Pomona College. “It becomes a publicity hype type of thing.’”

Universities are dragging their feet in doing the kind of infrastructure improvements that would really move the needle, like:

• Converting to alternative energy
• Changing over to hybrid fleets
• Retrofitting old buildings for efficiency
• Composting their food waste
• Offering sustainability throughout the curriculum

Let’s hope they can ramp up their efforts.

Image Credit: New York Times

Last week, I ran across an article from the Washington University Record noting that it, along with 89 other institutions, was participating in the pilot stage of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS). The pilot represents the start of “a collaborative process to develop a campus sustainability rating system” with the following goals:

1. Provide a guide for advancing sustainability in all sectors of higher education, from governance and operations to academics and community engagement.
2. Enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions by establishing a common standard of measurement for sustainability in higher education.
3. Create incentives for continuous improvement toward sustainability.
4. Facilitate information sharing about higher education sustainability practices and performance.
5. Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community and promote a comprehensive understanding of sustainability that includes its social, economic and environmental dimensions.

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Chandler-Gilbert Community College (Chandler, AZ) won in the community college and other two-year institutions category. Green Mountain College (Poultney, VT) won in the four-year and graduate institution (under 1,000 students) category. Middlebury College (Middlebury, VT) won in the four-year and graduate institution (1,000-7,500 students) category. Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) won in the four-year and graduate institution (over 7,500 students) category.

Chandler-Gilbert’s president, Maria Hesse, was one of the first presidents to sign the American College & University President’s Climate Committment. The College is part of a city-wide system that uses reclaimed water for irrigation. Two of Chandler-Gilbert’s campuses use energy management systems to ensure energy efficiency, and all new buildings will be built according to LEED standards.

For Green Mountain College, the environment and sustainability are unifying themes on campus. Environmental awareness is infused into every aspect of the curriculum, and all students must take courses in sustainability. Students installed a wind turbine to power the campus greenhouse and solar panels on the student center. The remaining energy needs are met partially by electricity generated from methane from local dairy cow manure.

Middlebury College has pledged to become climate-neutral by the year 2016. Bill McKibben is a scholar-in-residence there, and Step It Up 2007 was largely organized by Middlebury alumni. 25% of Middlebury’s dining budget goes towards locally grown and produced food, and the college recycles 60% of its waste. The campus uses solar and wind-generated power for portions of its energy needs, and has an Environmental Council, a committee of students, staff, and faculty, that advises the president of the college on sustainability policies.

Michigan State University has been a leader in large campus sustainability by committing to a 2% annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, along with meeting LEED standards for all new buildings on campus. MSU has an extensive recycling program, sustainability speakers, and funds student-designed sustainability projects. It even hosts a green roofs research program. One look around their extensive "Ecofoot" website tells you that this is a campus that takes its sustainability seriously.

Honorable mentions were awarded to Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA) and University of California, Berkeley.

Washington University in St Louis has made a $55 million dollar investment in sustainability, focusing on the development of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES). the university annouced Monday.

I-CARES will foster "institutional, regional and international research on the development and production of biofuels from plant and microbial systems and the exploration of sustainable alternative energy and environmental systems and practices." The center will also focus cleaner processes for utilizing Missouri's abundant coal resources, as well as improved combustion processes and emission reduction.

I-CARES will create five new endowed professorships to attract top-tier research leaders in energy, environment, and sustainability. Research will also include international partner universities, all of which recently issued a "call to action" on energy and sustainability.

The program will also support a sustainability officer and the means to apply green technology to improve energy efficiency in the university's operations. Roger N. Beachy, president of the Danforth Center, which will collaborate with I-CARES, noted,

The I-CARES initiative is an outstanding commitment by Washington University to seek solutions for a critical factor that faces the world this century, namely creating abundant and environmentally sustainable energy sources. It also adds an important component to the regional initiative to establish St. Louis as a leader in the development of renewable energy.

Washington University is a member of Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which works to promote sustainability in all sectors of higher education.