RIT named to green colleges guide

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For the third consecutive year, Rochester Institute of Technology has been named one of North America’s greenest universities by The Princeton Review.

The company’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges, released this morning, evaluates colleges and universities on environmentally related policies, practices, and academic offerings. In partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), best known for developing the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard for green building certification, The Princeton Review has produced lists of North America’s green colleges since 2010. The guide is an alphabetized list of schools that meet The Review’s guidelines for being green and provides no ranking of any kind.

“RIT’s recognition by The Princeton Review as one of the nation’s ‘green colleges’ is a reflection of the leadership by students, faculty, staff and administration. We strive to lead by example, as evidenced by the newly dedicated Sustainability Institute Hall,” says Enid Cardinal, senior sustainability advisor to the president. “RIT is committed to advancing sustainability through research, academics, and operations.”

Released less than a week prior to the April 22 celebration of Earth Day, the guide features profiles of the colleges and universities that provide application information plus facts, stats and write-ups reporting on the schools’ environmentally related policies, practices and academic offerings.

The Princeton Review chose the 322 schools based on a survey it conducted in 2012 to tally its annual green rating scores of colleges for school profiles included in its college guidebooks and website. The survey asks administrators more than 50 questions about their institution’s sustainability-related policies, practices and programs. The company tallied ratings, which are scaled from 60 to 99, at 806 institutions last summer. The 322 schools in this guide received scores of 83 or above in that assessment.

Among other highlights, RIT’s profile was cited for President Bill Destler’s pledge that all new construction projects will seek, at minimum, LEED Silver certification, and that the Golisano Institute for Sustainability was designed and built to exceed LEED Platinum standards of the USGBC—the highest standard that can be achieved.

The 215-page book—the only free, comprehensive, annually updated guide to green colleges and universities—can be downloaded at the Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges 2021 website and the Center for Green Schools website. The guide also was developed with support from United Technologies Corp., founding sponsor of the Center for Green Schools.