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Syracuse University and SUNY ESF are listed on The Princeton Review’s top 50 “Green Colleges,” SU’s Sustainability Management Office tweeted Wednesday.

SUNY ESF ranked third on the list while SU is 50th. The data comes from both administrators and students at 713 universities and colleges across the United States. Students took a 10-question survey that covered health and sustainability on campus, how colleges are preparing their students to work in an increasingly “green economy” and how environmentally friendly the school’s policies are.

SU has pledged to become fully carbon-neutral by 2040 through its climate plan. Leaders in SU’s Student Association are pushing the university to move the goal to 2029 or 2030 instead. SA President David Bruen also published the “Green New Deal for Syracuse University,” which proposed that the university goes fossil fuel neutral by 2026 and fossil fuel free by 2036, last April.

@SyracuseU made the top 50 in Princeton's review guide to green colleges! The review ranks over 400 colleges in the U.S., Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, Taiwan, and Morocco. Read more about the rankings here: https://t.co/nAjQoJPGR9.

— SU Sustainability (@SustainableSU) November 2, 2022

Last year, SU also received $750,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate innovations for energy-efficient buildings and installed energy-saving LED lights in the Comstock Avenue and Colvin Street parking lots as well as the SU Soccer Stadium. The lights lower energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a large factor of global warming and climate change.

SU has cultivated Pete’s Giving Garden and several beehives on campus as well, and recently earned a Silver Rating for Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating Systems, which evaluates university sustainability measures.

This is the second year ESF appeared in the list’s top-10, climbing from the number nine spot last year. ESF signed a plastic-free by 2025 pledge in 2020 and began offering campus composting bins in the 2019 fall semester.

In order to rank the schools, experts in higher education green practices reviewed the survey answers and ranked the school accordingly, the report states. The experts rated the schools based on information such as if the school employs a sustainability officer, if it offers a major or minor in environmental studies and its waste-diversion rate, which is a comparison of the amount of trash versus recycling the school produces.

“The schools that made our Top 50 Green Colleges list share superb sustainability practices, a strong foundation in sustainability education, and a healthy quality of life for students on campus,” the report said.

Published on November 3, 2022 at 1:11 am