Although Vanderbilt prides itself on being environmentally friendly — with the number of LEED-certified buildings, ongoing projects to further environmental sustainability and the work of several student-run organizations such as SPEAR and SustainVU — it only received a C+ grade on the 2010 College Sustainability Report Card.
The report evaluated 332 colleges across the U.S. on their “green” practices in dining, construction, transportation, student-led initiatives and endowment investments, among other categories. The Sustainable Endowments Institute, a special project of Rockfeller Philanthropy Advisors, conducted the report.
Vanderbilt was highly acclaimed for student involvement in green issues, especially for initiatives such as Eco-Dores, a new student-run environmental education program, and the annual inter-house energy competitions conducted by SPEAR. However, Vanderbilt failed two of the categories relating to the university’s endowment.
Yet Vanderbilt environmental experts and students are not worried. The failing grades on the endowment, which contributed to the overall barely passing C+ grade, are attributed to the fact that Vanderbilt does not make the details of is endowment available to the public. The low grade is not to be attributed to the standard of the university’s environmental sustainability.
“The reason we were rated as low as a C+ is because if a university doesn’t reveal where it gets its endowments from, it’s an automatic F,” said Leslie Labruto, SPEAR president. “In all the places we had control over, the more environmental ones, we had fantastic grades.”
“The score card is not a true sustainability score card,” added Andrea George, director of the Sustainability and Environmental Management Office. “It measures a lot of endowment sustainability as opposed to only environmental sustainability. To become transparent in endowments is competitive from a sustainability standpoint, but not from an economic standpoint.”
The commission praised the positive impact of student involvement at Vanderbilt. Not only do projects such Battle of the Bulbs reduce energy consumption, but they also make the subject of sustainability a discussion topic among students.
There is room for improvement, however, especially in consumer consumption.
According to professor and geochemist John Ayers, who teaches a course on sustainability, the need to reduce the impact of consumption is paramount.
“The best thing that can be done is to educate people. We have to change our value system,” he said. “I know people who live in big, beautiful houses, and all they can think about is how they can make it better. After a while it just stops making sense. You just have to step back and ask yourself, ‘Do I really need all this money? Do I really need all this stuff?’”
As well as further educating students, Vanderbilt needs to continue making progress on sustainability developments.
“Vanderbilt’s just starting with the sustainability improvements,” Ayers said. “We were a little slow to get onto the bandwagon. Last year, when the university ran out of money, they kind of came to a halt. However, hopefully they will start making progress on it again soon.”
Lucas Loffredo contributed reporting to this story.
