Colleges get wise about going green

By Sarah Kneezle

While the success of a college’s sports teams are important to many students, others focus instead on their alma mater's dedication to the environment.

In Bar Harbor, Maine, students at College of the Atlantic all major in human ecology, the study of human relationships to the environment. Students here engage in environmental conservation, get their hands dirty with organic gardening and take classes in activism.

"Being green is our job,” said Millard Dority, the Director of Campus Planning, Buildings and Public Safety, on the college’s website. “We foster a human ecological environment here on a daily basis, so our students, and all of us, learn from what we have and from what we do."

The college, which was voted the greenest university in the world by Grist.org, was the first U.S. institution to pledge carbon neutrality, a way of off-setting energy use with renewable resources, and held the first zero-waste graduation.

Other colleges have become involved by joining the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, a pledge to address global warming and reduce the carbon footprint of higher education facilities.

By signing the commitment, colleges must complete an emissions inventory, set a target date to go carbon neutral, integrate sustainability into coursework and create an action plan to address global warming on campus.

Since 2006, hundreds of college and university presidents have signed the commitment and on earth day, the ACUPCC announced that all 50 states, including Washington D.C. are represented in the commitment.

“Colleges and universities must lead the effort to reverse global warming for the health and well being of current and future generations,” said Michael Crow, founding member of ACUPCC and president of Arizona State University.

Some colleges have made green improvements by incorporating primitive brown matter: cow poop.

In 2006, Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt. signed up to receive more than 50 percent of its electricity from Vermont dairy farms as part of Central Vermont Power Service’s Cow Power program, which cuts the college’s carbon emissions by 3,500 metric tons.

Even schools without sustainability offices have decided to build green. In 2006, Emerson College opened its first LEED certified residence hall, thanks in part to advocacy by Earth Emerson, the school’s student-run environmental group.

LEED Certification, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a green building system created by the U.S. Green Building Council that requires eco-friendly building construction and assigns ratings—certified, silver, gold and platinum—based a building’s conservation and sustainability.

Even the Ivy League is turning green, with Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities all reducing their environmental impacts through sustainable programs.

“Each and every one of our [Green Campus] programs and services proves its worth financially, organizationally and environmentally,” claims Harvard University’s Green Campus initiative website.

Make your school go green—urge your college president to sign the ACUPCC, join an environmental advocacy group on campus, start a dorm recycling program and urge your classmates to reduce, re-use and recycle.

Photos by Harvard University and CVPS