Amid this year’s Campus Sustainability Month in October, The Princeton Review announced the 2024 Guide to Green Colleges, which included the University of Rochester as among top colleges and universities for their environmental awareness and institutional preparation. Specific measures that went into determining this year’s list include:
- whether students have a campus quality of life that is both healthy and sustainable;
- how well a school is preparing students for employment in the clean-energy economy of the 21st century as well as for citizenship in a world now defined by environmental concerns and opportunities; and
- how environmentally responsible a school’s policies are
The 2024 Guide was determined by the 22–23 survey of administrators at 683 colleges related to their institutions’ sustainability-related policies, practices, and programs. Editors analyzed more than 25 data points from the surveys to tally Green Rating scores for the schools on a scale of 60 to 99.
Some of the data points in the survey include questions related to local food sources, alternative transportation, LEED certification, waste diversion, academic programs, greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, renewable energy sources, and senior institutional leadership for sustainability.