The World's Fair : Green Campuses

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David Ng is Director of the Advanced Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia - this is a just a fancier way of calling himself a science teacher.

Benjamin Cohen is an Asst. Professor of Science, Tech., and Society at the University of Virginia. He studies the place of S & T in environmental history, policy, and ethics. He also writes other stuff.

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Green Campuses

Category: Ethics Palace: Where ethical questions go to live or die • NatureLand: What They Used to Call the Environment
Posted on: February 17, 2007 2:14 PM, by Benjamin Cohen

Jenna Fisher at the Utne Reader has a guide to green campuses. This helps with an earlier post I'd added last Fall about campus sustainability, which in turn is a continuation of the conversation on consumption patterns.

Quoth Utne.com:

In recent years, college and university campuses have proven crucial leaders in the movement to make large-scale, resource-demanding institutions more environmentally friendly. Many have implemented projects that promote alternative energies, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability. But not everyone's jumped on the eco-bandwagon. So who's doing what?

The guide then reviews links to the following sorts of questions:

Does the college make the sustainability grade?
Is the campus vegetarian friendly?
Does the cafeteria food come shipped in from miles away or is it grown locally?
How effective are college activist groups?

And here is The Sustainable Endowments Institute's recent College Sustainability Report Card. It "grades 100 leading colleges by looking at campus greening practices and endowment policies."

For the record:
The University of Virginia, for example, got a "D+".

Dave's University of British Columbia got a "B-".

Oberlin College actually got a "C+," despite David Orr's work there. (Orr has been a speaker in Dave's Global Citizenship Series at UBC, which is why I picked that one out of the 98 others to show here.)

Comments

Wow - only C+ for Oberlin! I guess only their famouos house is eco-friendly and the rest of campus is not. I heard Orr speak once and it is a life-changing experience.

Posted by: coturnix | February 17, 2007 3:36 PM

I touched up that topic a number of times at
my old blog, commonground. LEEDS certified
buildings attract students to campuses. It's
also a growing practice area for up and coming
architects that want to separate themselves
from the pack.

http://commonground.typepad.com/commonground/
2006/12/college_campuse.html

Posted by: Enrique | February 18, 2007 4:50 PM