Hello Elaine,
Thank you for your inquiry about STARS.

You are correct that STARS does not address IT specifically be creating a sub-category on this topic. However, computer technologies are addresses directly in the Purchasing and Waste sub-categories of the Operations Section in the STARS Technical Manual.

That being said, we are very aware that STARS is not a perfect system and welcome your thoughts and ideas for how we can better include IT throughout STARS. If you have any specific suggestions please let us know.

Best,
Jillian

Hi Elaine,

I wanted to supplement Jillian's response by sharing our thinking in the design of STARS credits because I think it helps explain why we didn't include a separate section on IT in STARS 1.0.

When designing Tier 1 credits for STARS, we tried to use quantitative measures of sustainability performance over indicators focusing on the implementation of a particular strategy (e.g. a policy, practice, or process). We did this because in general performance metrics: capture the impact of many different strategies (thus allowing us to reduce the number of credits and keep STARS manageable); avoid prescribing any particular approach for achieving the performance improvement and thus are more applicable to the diversity of higher education and better allow for innovation; and reward tangible improvement rather than just the implementation of (potentially ineffective) strategies. We did still end up using a fair number of strategy-based credits, but usually only when we couldn't find a performance metric that would be measurable and relatively comparable across institutions.

In the context of your specific question, we felt that, while IT solutions are obviously crucial for improving sustainability performance on campus, the benefits of IT programs should be largely captured in the performance-based credits in STARS so there wasn't a need to have separate Tier 1 credits focused on IT (except in the context of purchasing and waste since the impact in these areas wouldn't otherwise be captured). IT-based sustainability efforts are thus captured and rewarded across many different STARS categories rather than pulled out as a separate category.

All that said, since we recognized that a lot of folks would be interested in understanding the strategies institutions took to improve their performance, we included a number of high-interest strategies as Tier 2 credits. Several IT-based strategies end up here. For example, in the Energy section, while the Tier 1 credits are both high-level quantitative performance metrics, having an energy management system is included as a Tier 2 credit.

I hope that provides some context for understanding why the current version of STARS doesn't have a separate section on IT. As Jillian points out, we are very interested in feedback on the issue. If there are important IT approaches to sustainability that aren't in some way captured by existing STARS credits (or if our thinking on credit design more generally is flawed!), we'd definitely welcome suggestions for improvement. Likewise, if there are particular IT strategies that you think it would be good candidates for Tier 2 credits, please let us know.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this issue further,

Julian
(Chair, STARS Steering Committee)

--
Julian Dautremont-Smith
MBA/MS Candidate, Class of 2012
Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise
Stephen M. Ross School of Business | School of Natural Resources & Environment
University of Michigan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/juliandautremontsmith

Thank you both for your very comprehensive response to my IT/Energy related questions!

Elaine Hanson