Saturday, July 26, 2008

Universities market sustainability to applicants

From the New York Times today (excerpt):
HIGHER education can’t resist a ranking: best college, best cafeteria, biggest endowment, biggest party school. It says something about what’s important on campus, then, that when the Princeton Review releases its annual guide to colleges this week, it will include a new metric: a “green rating,” giving points for things like “environmentally preferable food,” power from renewable sources and energy-efficient buildings.

Green is good for the planet, but also for a college’s public image. In a Princeton Review survey this year of 10,300 college applicants, 63 percent said that a college’s commitment to the environment could affect their decision to go there.

Grist Magazine, Forbes Magazine, the Princeton Review, and others are now ranking colleges and universities in part at least on "green" criteria. I wonder where UW-Madison will rank? I also wonder, how might libraries in all of these institutions contribute to a strong green score?

(Read the full article here.)

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