Back to School Week: Which Colleges Are Greenest? : EcoLocalizer

Back to School Week: Which Colleges Are Greenest?

Published on August 26th, 2008

Posted in Arizona, Atlanta, Bar Harbor, Binghamton, Cambridge, Connecticut, Durham, Eugene, Georgia, Lewiston, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Haven, New York, Oregon, Seattle, Tempe, Washington

$Emory University, free license to publish.)$ As college students across the U.S. begin heading back to school, some will be returning to campuses that are greener than most.

According to the Princeton Review’s new Green Ratings for institutions of higher learning, 11 colleges stood out from the national field of 534. All 11 earned a rating of 99, the highest score possible in the Princeton Review’s new tally.

So which schools are tops in all things green?

» Read more on Arizona

Winners in the 11-way tie include Arizona State University (Tempe campus); Bates College in Lewiston, Maine; College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine; Atlanta’s Emory University; the Georgia Institute of Technology, also in Atlanta; Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts; State University of New York at Binghamton; the University of New Hampshire in Durham; the University of Oregon in Eugene; the University of Washington in Seattle; and Yale in New Haven, Connecticut.

Each school’s greening efforts are unique, ranging from Arizona State’s new School of Sustainability, a first for U.S. colleges, and Bates’ food purchases, 28 percent of which are local, natural or organic, to Emory’s goal of recycling 65 percent of its waste stream by 2015, and Harvard’s $12 million revolving loan fund for green campus projects. Its an exciting mix of initiatives that should provide inspiration for many more colleges and universities across the country.

You can learn more about the Princeton Review’s Green Rating Honor Roll here.