Higher Education Leaders Announce a Call to Action
In response to the recent scientific reports that strongly advise unprecedented action in the next decade, 21 higher education leaders announced a call to action for accelerating equitable and just climate solutions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. The declaration, which was released at the 2019 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit, provides guiding principles for higher education institutions to accelerate climate leadership and concludes with signatories' belief that leveraging their institutional strengths is critical to doing more.
U Maryland Unveils 'Do Good Accelerator' Program
The Do Good Accelerator program supports student teams by providing space and assistance to develop ventures and projects aimed both at tackling societal problems and building successful companies and nonprofits.
U Victoria Launches Campus Cycling Plan
The university's inaugural Campus Cycling Plan provides a comprehensive and coordinated approach to support cycling as a safe, enjoyable and convenient mode of transportation on campus for students, faculty, staff and visitors. It includes bicycle parking, cycling paths and end-of-trip facilities, as well as policy direction on strategies to improve levels of comfort and safety on shared paths and roads.
Three Schools Selected for Free Carbon Neutrality Program
The College of Saint Benedict, the University of Minnesota Morris and the University of St. Thomas have been selected to participate in Ever-Green Energy's pilot program: Roadmap to Carbon Neutrality. As part of this pilot program, the institutions will receive free energy and carbon neutrality planning services over the next year that will help them map out plans, evaluate feasibility and lay out next steps.
U Texas San Antonio Hires Sustainability Director
Lani May, who for the past seven months has served as the university's interim sustainability director, has been hired as the new university sustainability director. For the last nine years, May has served as a senior environmental planner in the UTSA Office of Facilities. Prior to joining UTSA, May spent more than six years as the natural resources coordinator. She earned a bachelor's degree in geography and a master’s degree in environmental science from UTSA and is currently working on her Ph.D. at UTSA in civil and environmental engineering.
CSU System Adopts Policy on Single-Use Plastics
The California State University system released a new policy on single-use plastics that aims to eliminate the distribution and sale of plastic straws, bottled water, plastic carryout bags, and styrofoam food packaging by designated phase-out dates that align with recent state legislation. Plastic straws and single-use plastic carryout bags were eliminated in January 2019. Single-use plastic water bottles are to be banned no later than Jan. 1, 2023.
Danish Academics Call for Climate Leadership
Over 650 Danish academics from multiple research fields in Denmark signed a letter at the end of 2018 calling on universities to immediately develop and implement a series of far-reaching policies to drastically reduce the universities’ carbon emissions. The letter was signed by researchers both inside and outside of climate research and has been sent to all management and boards of universities in Denmark.
Middlebury College Releases Plan for Energy, Investments & Engagement
The college's new 10-year commitment, Energy2028, puts the institution on a path toward a complete shift to renewable energy to power and heat its central campus by 2028, sets goals to reduce energy consumption, phases out direct fossil fuel investments in the endowment, and creates new educational programs and opportunities.
New England HEIs Receive $250K for Local Food Solutions
The Henry P. Kendall Foundation announced the 2018 winners of the New England Food Vision prize, a $250,000 award designed to raise awareness of the environmental, economic and health impacts of our food choices, support regional agricultural resiliency, and use the purchasing power of institutions to influence consumers. Institutions were asked to partner with a peer institution to identify collaborative solutions to offer more regionally-produced food on their menus. Five winning teams will receive a $250,000 prize to implement their proposed projects.
GreenMetric Releases 2018 Ranking
The GreenMetric World University Ranking, administered by the University of Indonesia, recently released its sustainability ranking for 719 universities participating from 81 countries. The information is organized under six main categories: Settings and Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Change, Waste, Water, Transportation, and Education and Research.
AASHE Releases 2018 Annual Report
AASHE recently released a report detailing its accomplishments and progress throughout 2018. It spotlights STARS, educational and professional development opportunities, the Sustainability Awards, the conference and expo, and outreach and advocacy. The report also includes information about new initiatives: AASHE Connect–an online community for members, AASHE’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion statement, and a partnership with Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) to advance STARS.
Grand Valley State U Names New Sustainability Director
Beginning January 1, Yumiko Jakobcic, who served as campus sustainability coordinator since 2014, assumed the role of director of the university's Office of Sustainability Practices. Jakobcic earned a bachelor's degree in natural resources management from Grand Valley in 2006 and a master's degree in environmental management from Duke University. She is in the process of earning a doctoral degree in natural resources from the University of Vermont.
AASHE Adopts Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Statement
Developed over the course of a year with input from the Advisory Council and board of directors, the new Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) statement reaffirms AASHE's resolve to advancing DEI as a core value. As a result, AASHE will be providing DEI training for AASHE staff, offering professional development opportunities for members, and continuing to emphasize equity and social justice throughout AASHE programs and partnerships.
Delta College & U Illinois Urbana-Champaign Win Climate Leadership Award
Second Nature, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), recently announced the winners of the Climate Leadership Award. Delta College was recognized for implementation of an Energy Optimization Incentive Program in collaboration with its utility provider, as well as a sustainability-immersive study abroad program, and climate adaptation and resilience learning sessions. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was honored for using power purchase agreements to reduce more than 17,000 metric tons of CO2 annually, creating a task force to address climate resilience concerns, and enhancing classroom learning through a sustainability mentorship program. Six institutions received honorable mention.
Georgetown U Creates Faculty Research Collaboration
The Georgetown Global Cities Initiative is a network of university faculty and students who share ideas and research on global urbanization. It includes about 70 Georgetown faculty from disparate disciplines who work on the relationship between cities and climate change; governance and diplomacy; history and the humanities; health; sociology; digitization; infrastructure and numerous other issues.
TIAA Difference Maker 100 Honors Florida State U & Lehman College Staff
The TIAA Difference Maker 100 recognizes people who devote their lives to improving the world and shaping a better future. Of the 100 people recognized, Elizabeth Swiman at Florida State University was honored for her work creating a food recovery program that resulted in 40,000 pounds of donated meals, a recycling project that has collected 100-plus tons of recyclables and a low-cost bike initiative for students. Eva Bornstein at Lehman College was recognized for creating culturally engaging performances for underserved audiences at Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in the Bronx. Those recognized will receive $10,000 to help support the organization where they are making a difference.
Big Tent Consortium Calls for Higher Ed Action on SDGs
The Big Tent Consortium, a global network of universities and their community partners, has issued a declaration and call to action to its members to commit to collaboration, cooperation and action on the Sustainable Development Goals. The Big Tent Consortium is composed by The Talloires Network, the Global University Network for Innovation and the UNESCO Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education.
U Alabama Birmingham Releases 6-Year Sustainability Plan
The new Sustainability Strategic Plan outlines the goals and strategies for 13 different objective areas targeting the university’s academic and medical campus. The plan commits the university to acquire 20 percent of the university’s energy needs from renewable sources of power and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2025.
Silliman U Adopts Environmental Policy
(Philippines) The university recently adopted a new environmental policy framework consisting of Environmental Principles, Policies, Guidelines, and Best Practices that will be implemented by its faculty, staff, and students as well as by concessionaires, booth operators, event organizers, sponsors and visitors. Nine components that the guidelines encompass are teaching, research, service, worship and fellowship, culture and sports, outreach, planning and development, administration, and operations.
College William & Mary Announces 2019-2024 Sustainability Plan
As part of the the university’s first long-range, comprehensive Sustainability Plan, the university has signed onto the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s Billion Dollar Green Challenge, pledging to grow its green revolving fund for environmental efforts from $200,000 to $1 million by 2025. Other components of the W&M Sustainability Plan include a commitment to creating a climate action plan by 2020 and exploring renewable energy for the campus. Individual departmental efforts include elimination of single-use plastics by dining services and implementation of electric vehicle charging stations by transportation.
U Washington Uses E-Bikes to Deliver Campus Mail
The university's Mailing Services now uses a fleet of electric-assist cargo bicycles to deliver nearly all mail to 455 departments on the Seattle campus. Mailing Services used a grant from the Campus Sustainability Fund to purchase five of the bikes. Since phasing out trucks, deliveries now take 10 percent less time and 30 percent fewer miles traveled.
ACTS Announces 2018 Green Gown Awards Australasia Winners
(Australia) The Australasian Campuses Toward Sustainability (ACTS) recently announced 10 winners across nine categories. The Green Gown Awards Australasia is an awards program dedicated to recognizing excellence in sustainability within the tertiary education sector in Australasia.
EAUC Announces the 2018 Green Gown Award Winners
(U.K.) Administered by the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC), the Green Gown Awards recognize the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by universities and colleges. This year, there were 17 winners and 15 highly commended institutions or people.
East Carolina U Publishes Inaugural Sustainability Plan
The university's inaugural Sustainability Plan, covering 2019-2023, outlines goals in the areas of climate change mitigation, academics and research, campus grounds, and materials management. More than 60 faculty, staff, students and members of the community participated in developing the plan over the past year.
AASHE & ACTS Partner to Bring STARS to Australasia
A new partnership between AASHE and Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability (ACTS) provides a framework for a cohort of ACTS members to conduct a STARS assessment. Anticipated to begin in early 2019, the pilot initiative is for ACTS members that have dedicated a staff member to support the cohort. Qualifying ACTS members will receive a substantial discount from AASHE to use STARS.
UCLA Wins National Athletic Sustainability Award
The University of California, Los Angeles was the winner of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and USG Corporation Sustainability Award for its work on the Wasserman Football Center. The award was designed to recognize NACDA member institutions across all divisions, honoring athletics directors and their universities for incorporating sustainable practices and materials into their athletics facilities. Bentley University and Georgia State University were finalists, receiving $10,000 each in USG product while UCLA received $40,000 in USG product.
McGill U Provides Staff With Resources to Incorporate Sustainability
The McGill Office of Sustainability has released two new resources that encourage staff to make sustainability a part of their everyday work life. One resource is for new employees while the other outlines many different ways to engage with sustainability practices, programs and initiatives on campus.
Stony Brook U Professor Earns Sustainable Engineering Forum Education Award
Alex Orlov, Ph.D., associate professor of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and a faculty member of the Consortium for Inter-Disciplinary Environmental Research and the Advanced Energy Center at Stony Brook University, will receive the American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s Sustainable Engineering Forum Education Award for "outstanding contributions to sustainability education". He is being recognized for new approaches to teaching sustainability practices to undergraduate and graduate engineering students. The annual award comes with a $1,000 cash prize.
Princeton Review Releases Guide to 399 Green Colleges
The Princeton Review's 2018 Guide to 399 Green Colleges is a free guide that profiles universities and colleges with commitments to sustainability based on their academic offerings, campus policies, initiatives and activities. The edition includes a Top 50 Green Colleges list. In related news, STARS ratings have now been added to campus profiles on Princeton Review website. The rating is displayed in the Sustainability section of the Campus Life tab.
Ball State U Faculty Receives 2018 Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award
Eva Zygmunt is the Helen Gant Elmore Distinguished Professor of Elementary Education and co-director of the Alliance for Community-Engaged Teacher Preparation at Ball State University. Zygmunt was selected for her work in training future teachers in thoughtfully engaging communities to work toward social justice and educational equity in the classroom. This Campus Compact award is bestowed annually to recognize one faculty member and up to four finalists for exemplary leadership in advancing student civic learning, conducting community-based research, fostering reciprocal partnerships, building institutional commitments to engagement, and enhancing higher education’s contributions to the public good. Four finalists were also acknowledged for their achievements.
Southern Oregon U Signs Real Food Commitment
By signing up for the Real Food Challenge, the university agreed that at least 20 percent of its food budget by 2023 will be spent on “real food”. To get there, the university will establish a transparent reporting system and file an annual progress report to evaluate its food purchasing practices; create a food systems working group that will develop a “real food" policy and multi-year action plan; and increase awareness of ecologically sustainable, humane and socially equitable food systems.
Four Universities Join University Climate Change Coalition
Second Nature recently announced that Boston University, the University of Connecticut, the University of South Florida, and Washington University in St. Louis have joined the thirteen other research universities that comprise the University Climate Change Coalition (UC3). UC3 is a new network of research institutions from across North America formed in early February that committed to leveraging their institutional strengths to foster exchange of best practices and research agenda in pursuit of accelerating local climate solutions.
Times Higher Education to Develop International SDGs Ranking
A new global university ranking that aims to measure institutions’ success in meeting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals is under development by Times Higher Education (THE). The first edition of the ranking will include metrics based on 11 SDGs and the long-term goal is to measure performance against all 17 goals. The ranking will be open to all accredited universities that teach undergraduates, and the first edition will be launched at THE’s Innovation and Impact Summit in South Korea in April 2019. Data collection will begin this autumn.
U California Expands Systemwide Sustainability Goals
As part of its Carbon Neutrality Initiative, the university now aims to provide 100 percent of its electricity across its campuses and medical centers from clean sources by 2025. Additional goals include reducing energy-use intensity by 2 percent year over year and discontinuing on-site fossil fuel combustion for water and space heating in new buildings and major renovations after June 2019. Enhanced purchasing requirements supporting sustainable sourcing were adopted and each campus will reduce municipal solid waste 25 percent by 2025, and by 50 percent by 2030.
Chronicle of Higher Ed Showcases Sustainable Campus Index
In early September, The Chronicle of Higher Education highlighted AASHE's 2018 Sustainable Campus Index, an impact report that spotlights top-performing colleges and universities in 17 distinct aspects of sustainability and overall by institution type. The Chronicle piece features the top 10 schools by overall score for doctoral, master's, baccalaureate and associate institutions, along with seven of 10 subcategories, which are sortable by score.
U North Carolina Charlotte Adopts Air Quality Measures for Construction
The university, with assistance from Clean Air Carolina, recently changed its Design and Construction Manual to require contracted companies to reduce diesel fuel emissions while working on campus. These new standards, which apply to all future construction projects on campus, discourage prolonged idling of equipment on construction sites and require all equipment to use the lowest exhaust emissions possible.
U Missouri Announces Ban on All Tobacco Use
The new policy prohibits all use of tobacco and electronic cigarettes on campus. The university applied for and won a grant from the American Cancer Society to help implement it.
Sierra Magazine Releases 2018 Cool Schools Full Ranking
This year, Sierra's Cool Schools ranking features 269 North American institutions, including, for the first time, community colleges. The annual ranking assesses colleges' environmental practices in food and transportation systems, water and waste management, purchasing procedures, academics, investments and more. Sierra based its ranking this year on scores from the AASHE Sustainability, Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS).
18 Schools Earn Top Spots in 2018 Sustainable Campus Index
AASHE recently released the 2018 Sustainable Campus Index, which recognizes top-performing colleges and universities in 17 sustainability impact areas and overall by institution type as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). The report highlights innovative and high-impact initiatives. Top performers overall by institution type are Nova Scotia Community College (associate’s), Dickinson College (baccalaureate), Green Mountain College (master’s), and University of California, Irvine (doctoral/research). The full list of top-performing institutions for each of the impact areas can be found within the report.
California State U East Bay Approves First Climate Action Plan
In early May 2018, the campus completed one of Second Nature's Carbon Commitment milestones by approving its first Climate Action Plan. The plan, which includes immediate, near-, medium- and long- action steps, indicates the university has set a goal of carbon neutrality by 2040.
APPA Selects Five 2018 Sustainability Innovation Award Recipients
Central Michigan University, James Madison University, Simon Fraser University, San Jose State University, and University of Calgary were recipients of this year's Sustainability Innovation Award given by APPA. This award is designed to recognize and advance sustainability in educational facilities.
U Louisiana Lafayette Adopts Sustainability Strategic Plan
The 21-point plan enumerates goals through 2021 that seek to reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions and overall energy and water consumption. It is the institution's first comprehensive statement of environmental objectives.
AASHE Announces Sustainability Award Finalists
The AASHE Sustainability Awards recognize sustainability achievements, research advancements and student leadership. Across 10 categories, 34 finalists were chosen from nearly 300 submissions. Winners for all categories, including the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award, will be announced mid-September.
U Wisconsin Madison Hires Sustainability Director
Melissa Nergard has been selected as the inaugural full-time director of Sustainability. Nergard comes to UW-Madison from Illinois State University where she served as director of Sustainability. In the near term, Nergard will focus on expanding and re-aligning the Office of Sustainability in order to advance the university’s sustainability efforts, as well as spearhead the university's AASHE Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) reporting and greenhouse gas data collection, benchmarking and reporting. Nergard holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from UW–Stevens Point and a master’s in history from Illinois State, and is scheduled to complete her Ph.D. in higher education administration in 2019, also from Illinois State.
Three Universities Receive NACUBO Sustainability Awards
The National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) annual awards honor institutional excellence in higher education business and financial management. The three universities that received this honor for sustainability leadership are University of California, Los Angeles; University of Minnesota, Morris; and University of Texas at Arlington.
Lenoir-Rhyne U Introduces Sustainability Scholarship
Lenoir-Rhyne undergraduates pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and Policy that plan to pursue a Master of Science in Sustainability Studies at the university now have the opportunity to apply for the Bracewell/Trout Unlimited Conservation Education Scholarship. The expected award is $3,540 - $4,130 per year toward tuition and additional fees.
