Carleton Repeats High Scores On Sustainability Report Card

Northfield, Minn.–– Carleton College, for the fourth consecutive year, has scored an A- on the College Sustainability Report Card 2011.

Carleton is one of only 53 schools nationwide to earn a grade of A- or better. Three Minnesota institutions received at least an A- or better, led by the University of Minnesota’s grade of A, one of only eight awarded nationally. Macalester College also received an A- grade.

The College received an A rating in the categories of climate change and energy, food and recycling, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities and shareholder engagement. Carleton graded a B in green building and administration.

In the leadership categories, Carleton was an Overall College Sustainability Leader (52 schools), Campus Sustainability Leader (120), and Endowment Sustainability Leader (23 schools).

The report highlights a number of areas where Carleton excels in the different categories. In the food and recycling area, the report notes the College spends 33 percent of its annual food budget on local items including produce, meat, and organic greens, serving all fair trade coffee; and composting pre- and postconsumer food waste in the dining halls. In student involvement, the College has a theme house, Farm House, which promotes sustainable living and is home to the campus garden. Student groups have created a thrift store, advocated for tray-less dining halls, worked in the campus garden, run a Green Wars dorm energy- and water-use competition, and have implemented low-flow showerheads in the residence halls, a project supported by our Sustainable Revolving Fund. Carleton’s transportation efforts include four hybrids in the campus fleet that run on alternative fuel, a van carpool program for employees, parking spots reserved for faculty and staff that carpool to work, and free student shuttles to Northfield merchants. There is a communal bike-sharing program, and students can rent campus fleet vehicles. Most parking is located on the edge of campus to encourage walking and biking. In the area of endowment transparency and investment priorities, the College makes a list of all holdings available online to trustees, senior administrators, and other select members of the school community, while equity holdings information is available to the public. A list of votes cast on proxy resolutions on a company-specific level is accessible online to the public upon request.

Manager of campus energy and sustainability, Martha Larson, says, “Carleton has a strong history of incorporating sustainability initiatives and sustainable thinking throughout the campus environment. Earlier efforts such as construction of the first college wind turbine, establishment of the environmental advisory committee, sustainability assistant (STA) program, and [addition of the] environmental studies department, all laid a very solid foundation which is reflected in our high scores on this past years’ sustainability report card.” She states that Carleton plans to implement even more sustainable changes in 2011, with the planned addition of a second wind turbine that will provide nearly one-third of the College’s campus energy by renewable resources. Other steps include completion of the climate action plan as part of the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment (ACUPCC), which joins together various campus sustainability initiatives and outlines future plans. Student sustainability assistants will continue to play an important role in monitoring and management of sustainability effort; their bathroom composting pilot program will expand to include all campus residence halls this winter.  Larson says, “We can continue tying together various campus-wide initiatives into an even more robust sustainability profile for the College.”

Now in its fifth year, the College Sustainability Report Card covers the colleges and universities with the 300 largest endowments in the United States and Canada. The profiled schools have combined holdings representing more than $325 billion in endowment assets, or more than 95 percent of all university endowments.