More Schools Making the Sustainability Grade

Report shows progress in adopting sustainable campus and endowment practices

By James Hyatt

The College Sustainability Report Card, now in its third year, found that 66% of the 191 schools it evaluated over the last two years improved their overall sustainability grade, “in part reflecting concern about climate change and the realities of rising oil and gas prices.”
 
The report, produced by the nonprofit Sustainable Endowments Institute in Cambridge, Mass., this year looks at 300 colleges that together hold more than 90 percent of all university endowments.
 
Colleges are evaluated on six categories for campus activities—ranging from local food sourcing, recycling and green building to student involvement and alternative transportation—and at three categories for endowment practices— transparency, priorities and shareholder engagement. School-by-school details may be found on the new website, GreenReportCard.org, launched in September.
 
Overall, 5 percent of the schools were graded “A”; 33 percent garnered B;  44 percent earned C; 17 percent earned D and 1 percent were labeled F.
 
Colleges got the highest rankings for their investment priorities (37 percent graded A). The ranking looks at emphasis on return on investment, investing in renewable energy funds, and investing in community development loan funds.  On the other hand, colleges generally flunked the survey’s grading for shareholder engagement (56 percent graded F) for failing to get college community input on voting for shareholder proxy resolutions and for lack of voting on sustainability-related proxy resolutions.
 
The report found that one in three schools makes lists of endowment holdings available to the campus community, and often, to the public, while 23 percent make proxy voting records available. Still, the average transparency grade was D+.
 
On campus, 30 percent of the schools were graded A for their food and recycling policies at dining services, ranging from using locally gown food to using reusable dishware and eco-friendly food containers.
 
And about one in four colleges was graded A for addressing sustainability in staffing and policies. More than half of the schools have full-time staff dedicated to sustainability; nearly one in four has a sustainability office; and more than half have made a carbon reduction commitment.
 
Green Building efforts are advancing as well. One in seven schools has “at least one green roof on campus,” almost half have a certified green building or are constructing one, and 57 percent have campus-wide green building policies.
 
Transportation alternatives are popular, ranging from bicycle-sharing programs (31 percent), car-sharing programs (35 percent), reduced-fare passes for public transit (50 percent) and hybrid or other alternative-energy vehicles in school fleets (66 percent).
 
So which schools ranked at the top? The report listed fifteen colleges with an average grade of A- or better across all categories: Brown University, Carleton College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Dickinson College, Harvard University, Middlebury College, Oberlin  College, Stanford University, University of British Columbia, University of Colorado, University of New Hampshire, University of Pennsylvania, University of Vermont and University of Washington.
 
The average grade for all schools was C+.
 
Beyond a particular school’s performance, “a larger question is how schools are using their resources,” said Mark Orlowski, Executive Director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute. “Are they learning from each other, and what example are they setting for students and for the community?”