How Green Is Your Campus?

I stumbled across a new website from the Hearst Company called The Daily Green. It has great tips for living a green lifestyle. The list of the 12 greenest college campuses caught my eye. Here are the top six on their website:

1) College of the Atlantic – Bar Harbor, Maine

This tiny college offers just one course of study: human ecology. It was the first U.S. college or university to go carbon neutral.

2) Middlebury College – Middlebury, Vermont

The home of green author and lecturer Bill McKibben, Middlebury is well-known for pushing the envelope with green building, waste reduction, and other sustainable initiatives.

3) Evergreen State College – Olympia, Washington

Home to a 13-acre organic farm and compost facility, and powered with clean energy, even the name of this famously progressive school says green.

4) Oberlin College – Oberlin, Ohio

Home to eco-pioneer David Orr, Oberlin tracks water and energy use at each dorm, boasts solar panels, and hosts one of the world’s most famous and innovative green buildings.

5) Harvard University – Cambridge, Massachusetts

Harvard has been leading with energy efficiency and bio-fuels, as well as other programs.

6) Warren Wilson College – Swannanoa, North Carolina

Warren Wilson College is almost entirely self-supporting, getting its food and lumber from farmland and gardens managed by school employees in order to reduce shipping. The school has also worked for energy efficiency.

The list comes from a site called the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, a membership group of colleges dedicated to greenness that has grown from 35 members when it began two years ago to over 500 today. These institutions have listened to their students’ demand for greener campuses. The Washington Post has an article on the growth of sustainability strategies and interest on campuses across the country.