Dear Sierra Club, why are you so fickle?
Ouch.Yesterday, the Sierra Club released its “cool schools” ranking of the most eco-awesome colleges and universities in the country. Last year the University of Colorado at Boulder ranked #1. This year, #13.
CU wasn’t the only one on a roller coaster ride. According to a blog on the Chronicle of Higher Eductaion’s website:
Last year, the University of Colorado at Boulder ranked No. 1, while Green Mountain College was 35th. This year, CU is at 13th and Green Mountain is tops.
Dickinson College went from 19th in 2009 to No. 2, and Stanford University zoomed up from 26th to 5th. Yale University went from 14th to 26th, and Emory University fell 10 notches to 42nd.
You might assume from such fluctuations that sustainability programs went haywire in the past year. But little changed, it seems, other than Sierra‘s ranking methodology. Energy issues were given more weight in this year’s survey, Sierra editors say, but that answer probably won’t satisfy the longtime critics of these green ratings.
And the new emphasis on energy sources are what hurt CU. Dave Newport, director of CU’s Environmental Center, told the Camera that the university is at the whims of Xcel Energy, which still relies heavily on coal.
Read more about CU’s slip in Sierra’s green rankings at DailyCamera.com.
Folsom Field doesn’t have trash cans
CU’s football stadium is full of stats, but its number of trash cans might impress us most. Turns out almost all containers of what you can eat or drink at Folsom Field is recyclable or compostable already — and it’s still improving. From PlanetGreen:
Equipped with the necessary compost and recycling bins, he says the only trash produced is from coffee cup lids, snack chip bags, and candy wrappers. For now, that trash goes into the recycling bins and gets sorted out later (by students, as all the recycling on campus is done), but soon they’re going to stop selling candy in non-recyclable wrappers, and in part because of the university’s influence, Newport said, Frito-Lay is now producing SunChips in compostable packaging.
Read more about Folsom’s zero-waste plans here or after the jump.





