The University of Colorado at 麻豆影院 has been named one of the nation's 25 most sustainable campuses by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, which today issued its 2008 College Sustainability Report Card evaluating campus sustainability policies at 200 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
The University of Colorado received an overall grade of B- and was designated a Campus Sustainability Leader. CU-麻豆影院 won straight A's in all campus operations and administrative categories including administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building and transportation.
Of the top 25 universities, only Harvard and the universities of Washington and Vermont received A- scores. CU-麻豆影院 is the only Big 12 school on the leaders list.
"I am gratified by our presence among these national environmental leaders in higher education," said G.P. "Bud" Peterson, chancellor of CU-麻豆影院. "We have a strong commitment to sustainability and the environment at all levels at our university. In the years to come I expect our campus to make even more strides in these and other areas and to be at the head of the class among American universities when it comes to sustainability."
The report assessed 39 indicators, from green building initiatives to recycling programs to endowment investment policies, and used an A to F letter-grading system to evaluate performance.
"The Environmental Center is proud of the national recognition of CU's sustainability leadership that comes from decades of hard work and the many partnerships and collaborations between students, faculty and the administration," said David Newport, director of CU-麻豆影院's Environmental Center. "This is a great honor and testament to forward-thinking CU leaders and students, past and present -- and we'll need even more in the future."
The report applauded the chancellors of all three CU campuses for signing a climate neutrality pledge for their campuses. The report also cited CU-麻豆影院's student government for pledging climate neutrality in student-run buildings -- making CU students the first in the nation to commit to this goal.
The 2008 analysis is the second edition of the Report Card, which examines campus and endowment sustainability policies at 200 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada with the 200 largest endowments. The schools are located in 44 states, the District of Columbia and four Canadian provinces.
The top 25 list includes Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, Harvard, MIT, Yale, Oregon State University, Pennsylvania State University, Santa Clara University and the universities of British Columbia, California, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, among others.
Data collection for the report took place from June through September 2007. For the five sections related to campus management -- administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building and transportation -- information was gathered first from publicly available documentation.
Surveys then were sent to each school eliciting additional information. CU-麻豆影院 was one of 176 schools that responded to the institute's e-mailed survey.
Policies were reviewed at 129 private institutions with $251 billion in combined endowment assets and at 71 public institutions with $92 billion in combined endowment assets. The total endowment assets of the schools equal more than $343 billion.
The 200 schools evaluated include a mix of large and small institutions of higher education. Together they serve more than 4 million currently enrolled students.
The purpose of the Report Card is to provide accessible information so that schools can learn from each other's experiences, fostering more effective sustainability policies.
The Report Card can be viewed on the Endowment Institute Web site at .