The new College Sustainability Report Card 2011 gave Penn an A- in sustainability.
More than 500 North American colleges were surveyed and within the Ivy League, Brown University and Yale University both received the highest cumulative grade of A. Columbia University received a B+and the rest, including Penn, received an A-.
Evaluations were made on nine major categories which contribute to sustainability, including administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities and shareholder engagement.
Penn had a straight flush of A’s in all categories except in endowment transparency, where it received a D. Princeton received an identical evaluation.
GreenReportCard.org, the publishers of the report card, noted significant improvement from last year’s assessment.
For example, tray-less dining is now available at 75 percent of schools surveyed, as opposed to none in 2006.
Penn’s grade of A- qualified the University as an Overall College Sustainability Leader.
