Tag: sustainable endowments

Carleton recently recieved an A- for the second straight year from the Sustainable Endowments Institute and was an honorable mention for the Sierra Clubs “Top Ten Cool Schools” list.  But Carleton has been conspicuously absent from other list.  Ray McGaughey explains how these rankings are very subjective and differ in their grading criteria.

While numeric classifications tend not to shape members of the Carleton community, rankings of all sorts determine the way that others view our college. Evaluations of campus sustainability efforts form the latest lists. So I’ll cut to the chase—does Carleton measure up? We have been placed on some and absent on others, and while the value of magazine blurbs and ever-changing ranking remains dubious, I offer the following observations and comments about Carleton’s place among the Green:

Rachel English is a philosophy major in the class of 2008. This article was originally published in the Viewpoints section of the Carletonian.

On October 24th, the Sustainable Endowment Institute (SEI) published its second annual “College Sustainability Report Card.” To almost everyone’s surprise, as we on the campus noted no huge leap in campus sustainability during the same time frame, Carleton managed to bound from a C+ to an A- between this year’s report and last. The change was mainly due to our catapult from C’s and F’s to A’s and B’s in the Endowment categories, prompting Carleton’s recognition as one of three “Endowment Sustainability Leader,” and contributing to our recognition as one of six “Overall Sustainability Leaders.”

The main boost came, not from anything outstanding Carleton did, but from SEI’s ineffective evaluation procedures. Carleton had, and has had for the last three years, the Carleton Responsible Investing Committee (CRIC). But SEI could not find it–it noted in its first report that Carleton “has not made any public statements” about its investment practices, causing Carleton to earn an F in two of the three investment categories. This is a problem because, in addition to a survey, SEI’s only method of evaluation is–according to the methods section of their report–through “publicly available documentation. Sources included the institution’s website and media coverage,” as well as more reliable places like the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

Of course, no one really can be blamed for failing to find information on Carleton’s unsearchable website, but you might think that the “Administrative and Governance Committees” webpage which does list the CRIC would be one obvious place to begin a search. (To be fair, although the CRIC does have a webpage, no link is provided from the committees webpage, although I was assured one would be coming soon).
The real difference between this year’s results and last’s seems to be that Carleton actually took the survey seriously this year. As a senior college administrator pointed out, this was somewhat hard to do, since SEI seems like somewhat of a joke–last year it sent each part of the survey to a separate person, in the process mistaking the Burton dining hall manager for Carleton’s actual dining manager.

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In the most recent release of college sustainability grades from the Sustainable Endowments Institute, Carleton was one of six schools to receive an A- (the highest grade awarded).

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