University comparisons take on a new shade - green

As students become more focused on going green, college guide books have created ways to measure sustainability on campuses.

And for Penn - which has made sustainability a priority in recent years - these evaluations provide a way to compare its progress to that of other schools.

This year, The Princeton Review and Kaplan both dedicated sections of their college guide books to acknowledging environmentally friendly schools.

They join the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Sustainability Endowments Institute and the National Wildlife Fund in publishing surveys evaluating colleges' sustainability efforts.

In order to rate campus sustainability in The Best 368 Colleges, the Princeton Review gave schools green ratings on a scale from 60 to 99.

Penn received a rating of 93, which Robert Franek, the author of The Best 368 Colleges, called an "exceptional score."

The criteria for rating colleges focuses on quality-of-life issues, Franek said, ranging from food services and transportation to the number of LEED-certified buildings and measures being taken to reduce carbon emissions.

This year, Kaplan's College Guide 2009 also recognizes universities working toward sustainability. The guide includes a chart of 25 environmentally responsible colleges, detailing each of their green initiatives.

Penn was not included in the list.

The University takes the sustainability surveys "very seriously," Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Daniel Garofalo wrote in an e-mail.

We "are always interested to learn what our peer institutions are doing, so that we can adopt the best practices and improve our own performance,"

he wrote.

But a major problem with the surveys, according to Garofalo, is that, since each survey asks slightly different questions, completing them takes up too much time.

To save time, Garofalo and sustainability coordinators from peer institutions hope to create one basic sustainability report, in which all schools can address the same topics in the same format, he wrote.

Though current surveys may be a hassle for administrations, they provide important information to students, Franek said.

In addition to enrolled students, he said, "college-bound students are very serious about sustainability."

In a different Princeton Review survey, aimed at high school students, 63 percent of college bound students said sustainability was important to them and 25 percent said sustainability ratings would "help determine if the school was right for them," Franek said.

But for Garofalo, sustainability is not important as a means of attracting students and faculty but "because it is one of the critical challenges of our age." Currently, Penn's major sustainability initiative is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he wrote.

In conjunction with other sustainability coordinators, Garofalo is looking into "developing shared standards on efficiencies in labs and data centers," which are two building types that use a lot of energy.

The Penn Environmental Group is also continuing its "quest to make Penn a more sustainable place," PEG director and College senior Jennifer Tintenfass said.

Tintenfass said the group swapped regular light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs during New Student Orientation and recycled hangers that were collected during move-out last spring.

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