It's not easy being green, but Penn seems to be doing a pretty good job.
While officials say there is always more to be done, compared with the way most U.S. institutions combat today's environmental challenges - from the high price of energy to the excessive waste produced in campus buildings - Penn is definitely at the higher end of the spectrum.
Penn hosted a conference this past weekend called "Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design after the Age of Oil," which examined cities of the future in the face of global warming and ever-increasing gas prices and addressed the need for urban innovation.
This conference is just one of the ways that Penn has shown its commitment to protecting the future of the environment.
More schools in Pennsylvania purchase and promote clean energy than any other state in the country, said Nathan Wilcox, the energy and clean air advocate for PennEnvironment, a statewide environmental advocacy organization.
Penn, for example, purchases the most wind energy out of all U.S. universities, at around 200,000 megawatt hours per year.
Although Wilcox added that "nationally, we are lagging behind" in terms of environmental awareness, Penn's "ambitious initiatives" - like investing in wind power - go a long way toward improving that lag.
Earlier this year, The Princeton Review gave Penn a rating of 93 on a scale from 60 - 99 on its environmentally-related policies, practices and academic offerings in the Review's Green Rating Honor Roll.
The 11 schools that received a score of 99 included Emory University, Yale University and Georgia Institute of Technology.
According to Princeton Review college ratings director David Soto, the schools were rated based on criteria that included a healthy, sustainable environment, taking into account such factors as the availability of organic food and efficient transportation.
The Review also looked at each school's institutional initiatives and diversion rates - the amount of waste on campus that is diverted, recycled or composted.
"Based on what other schools are doing, [Penn] did get an excellent score," said Soto, citing Penn's transportation alternatives such as Philly Car Share and free bus passes and participation in Recyclemania as "commendable."
And while Penn did not score as well on the environmental literacy requirement, he commended Penn's recent hire of a sustainability coordinator.
Penn environmental science professor Alain Plante said that systematic environmental problems like climate change are "very difficult to tackle . all at once."
However, he said that Penn's efforts to increase recycling, manage waste, purchase wind power and retrofit any new construction on campus to save energy are effective.
Wilcox emphasized that the most important thing schools can do is teach students about "both the role that the government has to play in the civic engagement process and how students can actually influence policy and influence officials to actually take action."
