Everything under the sun is being sold as green nowadays, and colleges are no different. "Sustainability is increasingly becoming an area where schools are putting their best foot forward," says Mark Orlowski, founder and executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, which just released its annual report card tracking green initiatives at 332 schools in the U.S. and Canada.
University of Washington recognized for leadership in sustainability according to Inhabitat.com, a weblog devoted to the future of design, tracking the innovations in technology, practices and materials that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future.
The UW was ranked #2 in the country by Sierra Magazine for the University's sustainability efforts. Sierra Magazine, the official publication of the Sierra Club, judged each institution on eight factors: efficiency, energy, food, academics, purchasing, transportation, waste management and administration.
Honor Roll:
The UW was ranked second in the country by Sierra Magazine for the University's sustainability efforts, and it was also named to the 2010 Green Rating Honor Roll by the Princeton Review.
The Princeton Review – known for its education services helping students choose and get in to colleges – today reported its second annual Green Ratings of colleges: a measure of how environmentally friendly the institutions are on a scale of 60 to 99.
Commuter Challenge, a program of enterpriseSeattle that has for over 15 years assisted King County employers in reducing commute trips through education and partnership, today announced the winners of its prestigious Diamond Awards for 2009. Diamond Awards winners are innovative leaders in reducing commute trips for their employees. This year’s Diamond Ring Award winners were: CH2M HILL, Bellevue; Microsoft Corporation, Redmond; Seattle Children’s Hospital, Seattle; and the University of Washington, Seattle.
University of Washington Housing and Food Services was recognized as Recycler of the Year for overcoming significant barriers to expand residence hall recycling. Assisted by a residence hall student organization, SEED (Students Expressing Environmental Determination), HFS created a program for composting post-consumer food in dining halls and other food outlets.
The College Sustainability Report Card is the only independent evaluation of campus and endowment sustainability activities at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. In contrast to the academic focus on sustainability in research and teaching, the Report Card examines colleges and universities, as institutions, through the lens of sustainability.
UWMC won a 2007 Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) award at the leadership level. H2E was founded by the American Hospital Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, Health Care Without Harm and the American Nurses Association.
UWMC is the first hospital in Washington state to win the award and was one of eight recipients nationwide this year. Leadership award winners must recycle at least 25 percent of solid waste (UWMC weighed in at 27 percent) and have eliminated mercury from facilities.