This session was a great overview and comparison of three different projects that each gauge campus sustainability in different ways. The AASHE Sustainability Tracking,  Assessment, and Rating System (STARS), The Sustainable Endowments Institute's (SEI) College Sustainability Report Card and the National Wildlife Federations (NWF) State of the Campus Report and Survey. 

Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System-  Presenters, Judy Walton and Julian Dautremont-Smith

Designed to help provide a roadmap for advancing sustainability in all sectors and create meaningful comparisons to other institutions.  Find out more at  www.aashe.org/stars

Sustainable Endowments Institute College Sustainability Report Card- Presenter, Mark Orlowski

Began by posing a question: What are the benefits and costs of a large scale assessment system?

Benefits:

• Opens up the big secret that admin's hate being graded more than students-motivates them to change

-awareness knowledge sharing between institutions

-more public awareness

-recruitment tool

-market transformation, higher ed can use purchasing power

-can help identify what areas you need to think about, broadens the discussion

-can help generate best practices and sharing ideas

-can increase peer to peer discussions and collaboration

Costs:

-each institution is different and unique

-could discourage creativity, focusing on making a better grade

-could reinforce a hierarchy

-time!

-could have unforeseen consequences

-having to spend time explaining "why" we received a rating/grade

Mark spoke about the focus that SEI has on college and university endowments ability to make market transformation. The College Sustainability Report Card is in its second year & profiles 200 largest endowments at institutions across the US. Has helped to spark discussions at all levels: trustees in regard to endowment investments, and on the student level. Through media attention and student groups talking the College Report Card can help ignite conversations. Also serves as a way to track trends. It has attracted attention in Alumni community, and the news media.

Discussed how  since the report card came out, Texas Christian U has students working on the  8 categories in the report card and will be making recommendations to the institution over the course of the semester.

2009 model will include more campuses (250-300 campuses) and perhaps some new indicators.

Julian Keniry - NWF State of the Campus Environment

In 2001 NWF produced the state of the campus report card. Currently and through the Summer they will be compiling results for the 2008 report.

The campus ecology wildlife project was started in 1989 to help green campuses, make the case for why it's important, and provide assistance and give examples of best practices. However, we only had anecdotal examples but could not accurately describe the state of campus environment holistically.

Main Goals of the 2008 report: get beyond anecdotal, identify trends, establish performance indicators and identify new best practices and help generate debate.

Method: For 2008 sending a survey to 3,9000 colleges and universities in a web-based format in separate modules. Have been fortunate in receiving support from a variety of organizations.

Review Process: In 2001 very laborious, there were fifty reviewers. 2008: two dozen very detailed reviewers by sustainability practitioners working in the field.

2001: 892 respondents reported in full. 20% of all surveys came back partially complete.

It will be exciting to see the growth in sustainability initiatives, (example in 2001 only 7% had sustainability purchasing staff, will be excited to see how much this number has grown). Renewable energy: in 2001 only 13% of campuses used 10% or more of renewable energy, hoping this number will be much higher.See  www.nwf.org/campusecology for the full report.

Q & A from the audience:

Q: Seems like STARS is very intentional in the goals and encourages campuses to participate. Do you have concerns how people might take the publicly available data and use it for subversive goals?

A: it is a concern however, STARS is broadly created to recognize positive achievements and we are open to suggestions to how we may avoid negative use of the data.

Q: Are there any indicators related to students?

A: STARS has a credit for an eco-reps programs, and a point for surveying student opinion and for co-curricular activities. SEI report card does not have a student credit at this time.

Q: one of the benefits of transparency is that it allows student groups to dig deeper because data will be available. Was that a goal?

A: That was an important consideration in STARS.

Q: Can each of you explain what you have learned about each of the different tools.

A: STARS- we are very collaborative, Mark is on on our advisory committee, and we have reviewed the indicators in NWF's survey to make ours compatible and complimentary. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to catch all the questions, there was however, many good points made and after the presentations were over it was neat to watch small groups form to discuss specific issues related to campus sustainability assessment tools.  Stay tuned for more news!