U. receives A-minus grade for sustainability

Based on data provided by the institutions, the report card assessed more than 300 colleges on their sustainability efforts across various categories. The University showed improvement in four categories in this year’s report.

Last year, it earned B’s in climate change and energy, green building, and transportation, and a C in shareholder engagement. This year, Princeton received A’s in all categories except one, including: administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, investment priorities, and shareholder engagement. It received a D for endowment transparency.

Shana Weber, manager of the University’s Office of Sustainability, which was created in 2006, said in an e-mail that the University has worked to demonstrate its commitment to campus sustainability in recent years.

“Since 2008 we have been implementing strategies to reach our new goals and are making progress we should be proud of,” Weber explained.

In 2008, the University adopted a sustainability plan aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, conserving resources and increasing community engagement on environmental issues.

At a meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community earlier this month, Weber said that the University has reduced its paper waste by 11 percent since 2007 and its water consumption by 27 percent since 2001.

Though the University has improved its grade in a number of categories, its score on endowment transparency has consistently been low.

“Our endowment category is probably the hardest for a school to get a good grade on because it asks schools to do things that sometimes they really don’t want to do,” said Rebecca Caine, a spokeswoman for the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

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This includes releasing a list of endowment holdings as well as information about shareholder proxy voting, both of which the University does not do. Of the more than 300 colleges surveyed, roughly 20 percent made lists of endowment holdings available to their campuses and, often, to the general public, and 16 percent make proxy-voting records available.

Caine said that endowment transparency is relevant to the ranking because, like student group involvement in environmental issues or the use of local foods, “it’s another way in which a school can use its resources to be environmentally friendly, and we want to draw people’s attention to that.”

Chrissy Badaracco ’12, co-president of Greening Princeton, said she thought that while endowment transparency “should be a factor in determining our grade,” it should not be as heavily weighted as other categories.

“We do try in many ways to encourage donations from outside sources and alumni, so I think it is important [to know] where all of their money is going and how it’s going to the help the University,” Badaracco noted.

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Universities across the country have also improved their grades in the report card.

The universities with the eight highest grades have all improved since the previous year. Among Ivy League schools, Harvard and Penn maintained the same grade, while all of the other universities improved.

Caine attributed the improvements to increased awareness of the rankings and sustainability issues among universities.

“They compare themselves to peer institutions all the time, and with the growing amount of public attention that’s being drawn towards sustainability, it’s something that schools care about when it comes to attracting prospective students,” Caine said.

To showcase its work, Princeton will hold an open house on Nov. 16 that features campus sustainability initiatives. The University will also release its second annual sustainability report that day.

— Staff writer Molly Brean contributed reporting to this article.