The U.S.’s Greenest Colleges

The Sierra Club has ranked the most environmentally friendly colleges and universities in the United States, with tiny Green Mountain College in Vermont heading the list because it produces much of its electricity from burning biomass and cow manure. Other schools in the top ten include Stanford University, which has launched a $225 million Global Climate and Energy Project to develop new renewable energy technologies, and the University of Washington, which hosts an annual Environmental Innovations Challenge designed to foster interdisciplinary solutions to environmental problems. The Sierra Club came up with its list after sending an 11-page questionnaire to 900 colleges and universities, 162 of which responded to the survey. Some of the criteria used in picking the greenest colleges included energy supply and efficiency, food procurement, academic programs, transportation, and green investments. The top ten colleges, after Green Mountain College, were Dickinson College in Pennsylvania; Evergreen State College in Washington; the University of Washington; Stanford; the University of California, Irvine; Northland College in Wisconsin; Harvard University; the College of the Atlantic in Maine; and Hampshire College in Massachusetts.