Colleges Increasingly Going Green

Two in three colleges improved their performance on the annual College Sustainability Report Card released this week, but many of the wealthiest schools don't apply the same standards to their investments that they do to their campus scene.

The Report Card calls itself "the only independent sustainability evaluation of campus operations and endowment investments." It is published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute and assesses the 200 public and private universities with the largest endowments, ranging from $230 million to nearly $35 billion.

Here's a look at some of the results:

• 45% of campuses have made strides to fight global warming by cutting carbon emissions.
• 59% have high-performance green building standards for new buildings.
• 42% use hybrid or electric vehicles.
• 37% purchase renewable energy, and 30% produce some of their own with wind or solar generators.
• 70% buy food from local farms, and 64% serve fair trade coffee.

These colleges received the highest marks: Harvard, Dartmouth, University of Washington, Middlebury, Carleton, and University of Vermont. The lowest marks went to Juilliard School, Howard University, Regent University, and Samford University.

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