The Princeton Review has named 16 colleges to its 2012 Green Rating Honor Roll, a list of colleges that received the highest possible score (99) in its Green Rating tallies this year.
The list includes:
- Arizona State University: Hosts the largest collection of energy-providing solar panels at a university.
- College of the Atlantic (Bay Harbor, ME): All electricity comes from renewable hydropower; new buildings and some old are cleanly heated via renewable wood pellets; utilizes composting toilets.
- Northeastern University (Boston, MA): A campus-wide installation of 70,000 low wattage T8 fluorescent lamps will reduce carbon emissions by 686 tons annually.
- University of California – Santa Cruz: The campus boasts a 70% waste diversion rate and gets 20% of its energy from renewable sources.
- Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA): Seventeen undergraduate and 15 graduate majors and degrees and more than 200 undergraduate and 140 graduate courses integrate sustainability concepts.
- University of Maine (Orono, ME): Provides free bicycles to be used by faculty, staff, students, and even visitors.
Among 8,200 college applicants The Princeton Review surveyed this year for its annual College Hopes & Worries Survey, 69% said having information about a college’s commitment to the environment would impact their decision to apply to or attend a school.
Criteria for Princeton Review’s Green Rating cover three areas: whether the school’s students have a campus quality of life that is healthy and sustainable, how well the school is preparing its students for employment and citizenship in a world defined by environmental challenges, and the school’s overall commitment to environmental issues.