by Shane Henson — August 31, 2011— With numerous colleges and universities desiring to make their campuses more sustainable and to pursue some type of sustainability rating, much of the planning and labor falls to facilities managers and their staff, who are responsible for many of the initiatives that must be created to reduce the amount of energy and waste needed to receive a good rating.
Reflecting the hard work of these facilities teams, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has announced that more than 100 colleges and universities have earned a rating in its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) during the past year.
STARS, a system that incorporates environmental, economic and social indicators, is a self-reporting system that requires affirmation by the institution’s highest-ranking executive. STARS Participants report achievements in the areas of: Education & Research, Operations, and Planning, Administration & Engagement. Once an institution submits its data, it receives a Reporter, Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum Rating. The STARS Report then becomes available for viewing on the STARS Web site.
STARS is billed as the only rating system of its kind that involves public reporting of comprehensive information related to a college’s or university’s sustainability performance. Unlike other rating or ranking systems, STARS is open to all institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada, and the criteria that determine a STARS rating are transparent and accessible to anyone. Because STARS is a program based on credits earned for specific actions, it allows for both internal benchmarking as well as comparisons with similar institutions.
With recent deadlines, 104 institutions have now submitted their reports: 22 received a gold rating, 55 received a silver rating, and 21 received a bronze rating. In addition, six institutions also submitted their data as a STARS Reporter, indicating that they were not seeking an overall score but wanted to make their data public. The ratings are indicators of the sustainability performance of an institution using a broad and comprehensive set of credits. More than 260 institutions from the U.S. and Canada are participating in STARS. The remainder will be submitting their reports throughout the next year.
The STARS 2010 A Year in Review report can be found on the organization’s Web site.
