College initiative looks to set sustainable standards
By JULIE GARRETT, Published February 16, 2008

The National Wildlife Federation issues a national report card on environmental performance and sustainability in higher education. Sierra and Grist magazines list their picks for the top green colleges and universities. But what do such designations really mean?

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is trying to set a standard measure through a pilot project that gauges higher education institutions environmental and sustainability efforts. The association last week selected about 100 institutions, including 18 community colleges, to test a comprehensive rating system called the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS).

“We’re really responding to a need in the higher education community,” said Judy Walton, STARS project manager and acting executive director of AASHE. “The Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium issued a call two years ago for a rating system and asked AASHE to create it, to bring all the stakeholders together.”

Developing a rating system is the last step before AASHE rolls out “STARS 1.0” in early 2009.

The voluntary rating system is designed to help institutions gauge their progress toward sustainability in all sectors, from governance and operations, to academics, student life and community engagement.

“STARS will help campuses benchmark progress at their own institutions and provide recognition for their sustainability achievements,” Walton said.

Two-year De Anza College (California) committed to sustainability about two decades ago. It developed one of the first sustainability management plans in higher education and has applied for the highest LEED certification for its Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies. 

Joseph Cooke, a member of the grounds department and De Anza’s environmental advisory group, said participating in STARS will allow the college to see how it compares to other colleges and institutions and to network with them.

Cooke said he is most interested in developing internal benchmarks to measure De Anza’s progress. STARS ratings will be valid for three years, and institutions may submit a new STARS report annually. 

Santa Fe Community College (Florida) completed lighting retrofits that have decreased its demand for electrical energy for the past three years, despite adding 45,000 square feet of new building space. In its application to STARS, college officials said the pilot would serve as a road map and teaching tool for staff, catalyzing sustainability efforts as departments across campus capture data for the STARS checklist.

Gary Burbridge, director of sustainability at Grand Rapids Community College (Michigan), said his college has already instituted a sustainability plan.

“In some ways, we’re far along,” said Burbridge, whose college decided to participate in STARS at the urging of the College Quality Improvement Network’s (CQIN) Sustainability Implementation Visioning Project. “In other ways, we’re just starting. We’ve been at it for a while, and we’ve done a lot of things that colleges are just starting to think about, but we’re just getting started on many of the tougher kinds of things.”

Grand Rapids gets 15 percent of its power from renewable energy and will soon hire an energy auditor. Burbridge said the college will install a green roof on its applied technology center next summer and may offer an alternative energy technician certificate program.

“Right now, I’m thinking of STARS mostly in terms of being able to work with other colleges and being able to learn from them and share information,” Burbridge said.

Richland Community College (RCC) in Illinois, another CQIN member, is located near Archer Daniels Midland Co.’s largest U.S. ethanol plant. A cogeneration plant produces steam to heat the campus. 

“Our carbon footprint is pretty good,” said Greg Florian, RCC’s vice president for finance and administration. 

In April, Richland will roll out its first classes for biofuels operators, Florian said. The college may also install a wind turbine on campus, and it recently approved plans to build its first LEED-certified building.

 “We have a responsibility to our community and to our students to integrate sustainability’s triple bottom line into everything we do—into our curriculum, operations and the activities we do with the community,” said Florian. “STARS will help us measure where we are on the sustainability walk.”

For more information, visit www.aashe.org/stars. 

Garrett is a communications specialist at Santa Fe Community College (Florida).