The University scored a B in the most recent edition of the College Sustainability Report Card, earning high marks in the fields of food and recycling, transportation, and green buildings, while receiving its lowest mark in endowment transparency.
The Sustainable Endowments Institute, located in Cambridge, Mass., has published sustainability report cards for the past three years. The grading is based on a voluntary survey and research conducted by the institute, SEI spokesperson Lisa Tuska said. The institute evaluates almost 300 colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada, Tuska said, in various fields relating to sustainability including administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green buildings, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities and shareholder engagement.
This year, the University improved on its previous years’ scores, Tuska said. For 2007, the University was given an overall grade of D+, while for 2008, the University received a B-minus. The University’s improved overall grade for the most recent 2009 grading period can be attributed to high grades in several categories, especially in food and recycling, transportation, green buildings and investment priorities.
Director of Dining Brent Beringer, an employee of Aramark, said he is thrilled with the University’s A grade in the food and recycling category. For the last grading period, food and recycling received a B.
“It’s been a couple of years’ journey that’s been exciting,” Beringer said. “Every year this thing gets a little different.”
Beringer attributed much of his department’s success to increased student involvement during the past grading period. He said student leaders and others interested in sustainability have impressed upon his office the need to use more local and organic products and also helped implement initiatives such as the removal of trays from the dining halls and the use of non-Styrofoam to-go boxes. All of these changes, he said, have improved the University’s sustainability grade. Future initiatives, including a proposed food composting plan, also contributed to dining’s high grade.
Transportation was another category in which the University saw gains. also improving from a B to an A.
Parking and Transportation Director Rebecca White said the University’s improvement in sustainable transportation can be attributed to a host of developments. She said the fact that 95 percent of undergraduate students live in an area serviced by free bus service for both the Charlottesville and University transit systems and the fact that parking and transportation uses biodiesel fuel in 20 percent of its bus fleet contributed greatly to the grade increase.
Other parking and transportation-related features that earned the University high SEI marks, White said, include the installation of bike racks on UTS buses and a new “Bike Smart Map,” detailing where services such as bike racks, bike repair shops and covered bike parking can be found on and near Grounds. These changes help to encourage the use of alternative transportation, White said.
The third area in which the University earned a top grade was investment priorities. When the SEI-conducted survey was first published, the University division earned only a C grade, but in the past two years it has maintained an A. About 37 percent of the higher education institutions participating in the survey received an A in this category, according to the report’s Web site.
University spokesperson Carol Wood said the University received a high investment priorities grade because the University administration aims to optimize investment returns and is currently investing in renewable energy and clean technology funds.
Overall, the most consistent grading category for the University has been green building. For the 2007 grading period, that division’s grade of B was the highest mark earned by the University, and for the last two grading periods it has received a grade of A, a score which only 17 percent of schools achieve, according to the Web site.
Andrew Greene, sustainability planner for the Office of the University Architect, said the University’s commitment to building according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certifications were key to maintaining the high green building grade. According to the University’s SEI survey, 23 buildings on Grounds are currently seeking LEED certification.
“This A is probably going to be a relative grade, meaning that we will need keep it up next year and need to make sure we have continual improvement, keeping our eyes open,” Greene said, noting that his office is currently making use of strategies designed to foster a closer sense of connectedness on Grounds. This enhanced connectedness on Grounds is evident in projects such as the South Lawn, Greene said, in which the Office of the University Architect has tried to include paths to and from buildings nearby, so that students and other University community members can simply walk — not drive — wherever they are going.
“The goal is to not have a sprawling campus and not use land unwisely,” Greene said.
In other categories, the University received mixed reviews. Administration scored a B, while shareholder engagement — the degree to which students and other members of the community are able to communicate with the administration about developing sustainability initiatives — and climate change and energy received C marks.
Tuska said a lower grade in terms of climate change and energy might be due to the University not yet having enough programs explicitly designed to fund wind farms and other alternative energy resources, as well as not yet having enough energy sustainability-related events, such as energy conservation competitions.
By far the University’s lowest grade, though, was for endowment transparency; in that division, the University received a failing mark.
Tuska noted that though a failing grade in endowment transparency does not necessarily mean that any particular college or university is using its funds to support initiatives that run counter to sustainability efforts, it nevertheless means a university’s policies are less than ideal from her organization’s point of view. She said some schools make their endowment spending information readily available to students, faculty and other members of the community.
“Definitely, ideally, it would be more available,” Tuska said about the University’s endowment. “When the endowment is not so transparent, it’s hard to see if those funds are being put in sustainability research. A college or university could be funding companies that are doing some not so good things ... so being able to see where that money is being spent is important.”
Wood, though, emphasized that the University’s lack of endowment expenditure reporting stems from the University of Virginia Investment Management Company’s regulations.
“Our endowments transparency grade is an F because UVIMCO’s Board’s policy prohibits disclosure of the names of our investment advisors and funds,” Wood said.
Furthermore, the survey filled out by the University states that UVIMCO invests in funds that make renewable energy investments. UVIMCO also has both venture capital managers and resource managers who invest in alternative energy and clean technology, the survey states.
“The University maintains an active dialogue with donors and may request that UVIMCO offer a fund that considers environmental/sustainability factors,” the survey states.
Since the first publication of the SEI report, though, the University’s endowment transparency grade has remained stable, never earning a grade higher than F. Across the full spectrum of schools graded by SEI, endowment transparency was one of the most difficult categories in which to score high, with just 11 percent of schools achieving an A. The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Dartmouth College and Virginia Commonwealth University all attained A marks, but the University of California-Berkeley and Harvard University received grades of D and C, respectively. Virginia Tech also failed endowment transparency, according to the report.
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