CSB and SJU join pilot project for sustainability rating system for higher education

02/01/2008

The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University are among approximately 90 college and university campuses selected nationally to participate in the pilot phase of a rating system for sustainability in higher education developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

The self-assessment system, called STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System), will launch on Feb. 4. Participating college and university campuses will test the system over the course of 2008, and provide feedback to AASHE that will inform STARS version 1.0, planned for release in spring 2009.

According to Derek Larson, chair of the CSB/SJU environmental studies department, the new rating system will allow people to evaluate campus “green” claims on a level playing field.

“By providing both external and internal interests a way to truly evaluate the sustainability claims of a given campus, STARS will help prospective students, donors and academics alike separate the schools which are making sustainability part of their missions from those who are simply applying it as a marketing veneer,” Larson said. “Call it a ‘truth in labeling act’ for green schools if you like—it’s going to challenge our perceptions of where the most sustainable colleges really are, in Minnesota and across the nation.”

The 90-plus participating campuses were selected to represent a wide range of institutional types, sizes and geography. They include public and private schools, community colleges and research universities. STARS is designed to:

• Help gauge the progress of colleges and universities toward sustainability in all sectors, from governance and operations to academics and community engagement.
• Enable meaningful comparisons across institutions as well as benchmarking within institutions.
• Create incentives for continuous improvement toward sustainability.
• Facilitate information sharing about sustainability practices and performance in higher education.
• Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community.

Given the rapid growth of sustainability initiatives at institutions of higher education in North America, measuring and assessing progress toward sustainability goals has become increasingly important. While many institutions have undertaken sustainability assessments and while a variety of assessment tools are available, there is currently no system that translates disparate sustainability indicators into a single metric that enables both institutional benchmarking and easy comparison across a large number of campuses in terms of overall level of achievement.

“The launch of the pilot phase is a major milestone in the development of STARS,” said Judy Walton, AASHE’s acting executive director. “It has taken nearly two years of hard work and the contributions of hundreds of individuals from every sector of the higher education community to bring us to this point.”

The system is similar to the LEED (Leadership in Energy Environmental Design) green building rating system. STARS, however, is applied to an entire campus rather than a single building or set of buildings and evaluates social responsibility as well as environmental stewardship. Campuses may earn credits in three categories – 1) Curriculum and Research, 2) Operations, and 3) Administration and Finance. Within each category are subsections of credits, ranging from “purchasing” and “buildings” in Operations to “investment” and “planning” in Administration and Finance.

Participating institutions

For other information about STARS, including a copy of the Pilot Phase One Guide, visit the AASHE Web site.

For information on CSB and SJU sustainability programs, contact Derek Larson, department of environmental studies, at 320-363-3247 or dlarson@csbsju.edu.