What do Harvard, Dartmouth, the University of Washington, Middlebury, Carleton and the University of Vermont have in common? They have all been recognized as top college sustainability leaders by the 2008 College Sustainability Report Card, which is issued by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

Falling at the bottom of the list are the Juilliard School, Howard University, Regent University and Samford University, which all received overall ‘F’ grades.

What is the College Sustainability Report Card?

The College Sustainability Report card is an independent sustainability evaluator of college campuses. The Sustainable Endowments Institute rates the top 200 public and private colleges in the U.S. that receive the largest endowments each year.

The Report Card assigns letter grades to each school in these 8 categories: Administration, Climate Change & Energy, Food & Recycling, Green Building, Transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities and Shareholder Engagement.

The best news from the report is that 2 out of 3 schools on the list improved their overall grade from last year, and over 45% of the colleges have committed to reducing their carbon footprint this year.

Some other cool findings on the report:

• The number of schools that buy some food from local farms increased from 63% to 84%
• 1 in 3 schools earned an overall grade of ‘B’ or higher
• More than 1 in 3 schools have full-time campus sustainability administrators
• 3 in 5 schools have green building projects
• Hybrid or electric cars can be found at 42% of the schools

To learn more about the College Sustainability Report Card and its findings, you can go here.

This is a great way to learn how college students, faculty and administrators are helping with the fight against global warming.

If your campus is currently not following any sustainable practices, hopefully this report will inspire you to contact the right school officials and make some positive changes!