The Sustainable Endowments Institute gave Northeastern a B+ for environmental efforts, up from Bs the previous two years, in its 2010 report card, released last week.
According to the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s website, the organization rates the 332 schools with the largest endowments in the United States and Canada. It uses categories to make up a composite score from data collected by the schools pertaining to eight categories: administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, investment priorities and endowment transparency.
Northeastern’s B+ scored higher than Boston University’s B, up from its B- on the 2009 report card. Harvard received an A-, Boston College got a B, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology sits with Northeastern at a B+.
Northeastern has been regularly receiving high marks for green awareness. Of the 697 schools given Green Ratings for the Princeton Review’s 2010 editions of college guides and website profiles in July, the school was one of 15 nationwide to achieve Honor Roll status by receiving a perfect score of 99.
In the transportation and climate change and energy categories, Northeastern rose to an A from last year’s B.
But the university received an F for the fourth year for endowment transparency. The university’s endowment is managed by an investment firm, which buys and sells stocks within the endowment on a daily basis.
The report card states that Northeastern has continually reduced the carbon footprint and switched out the lighting and heating and cooling systems to more energy efficient ones, which allocates for the improvement under the climate change and energy category.
As for transportation, 40 percent of university vehicles run on alternative fuels. The university has also made carpool and car-sharing programs available to faculty members and students, according to the grade explanation on the report card.
Student groups’ involvement on campus ranges from awareness to campaigns such as the Husky Energy Action Team’s Do it in the Dark campaign, which is cited in the report card. The dinning halls are constantly composting and the administration built a whole department within the university focused on sustainability.
These factors allowed three categories to remain unchanged on this year’s report card, as student involvement remained at a B, and food and recycling and the administration sit comfortably with As.
Carol Rosskam, Northeastern’s sustainability manager, said she thought that the student envelopment score would go up as the number of active student groups on campus continue to grow and promote sustainability. She cited that they turned in the data for multiple student run groups and their efforts, which where the confusion in the categories score is.
Northeastern received an A for investment priorities as the university chooses to invest in renewable energy funds according to the report card.
The university lost a letter grade in the green buildings category dropping from an A to a B, even with the opening of International Village, which is expected to receive Gold Certification from the Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design (LEED) Program.
The Sustainable Endowments Institute changes their methodology yearly to keep up with new technologies and the ever-growing popularity said Lea Lupkin, a spokesperson for the Sustainable Endowments Institute. A change in how the green building score was calculated is responsible our drop from an A to B.
“We considered more the actual square percentage of the campus square footage that the LEED certified building represents,” said Lupkin. “In previous years we gave credit for saying there are one or two or three buildings, where this year we asked for the square footage [to see how much of the campus the LEED certified building accounts for].”
Sophomore civil engineering major Ryan Gordon said he likes that he can see Northeastern’s efforts around campus all the time.
“I think that Northeastern’s efforts are visible all throughout campus,” Gordon said. “Whether it’s how many gallons of water we’re saving with our laundry, composting the food we throw out in the dining hall or promote events like sustainability week, we’re still moving in a positive direction. There’s always room for improvement.”
University improves in sustainability report card
Published: Thursday, October 22, 2009
Updated: Thursday, October 22, 2009
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