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5 Things to Be Thankful for this Thanksgiving
The holidays for me are all about family and enjoying nature. When I was growing up, my family and I use to go camping for Thanksgiving in California. I know, camping on Thanksgiving might seem a bit weird, but trust… Read more >
New rankings show prominence of sustainability
The Sustainable Endowments Institute's new green rankings are out, and there is some good news: With all the focus on sustainability in higher education over the past few years, grades are going up. Just over half of the schools surveyed… Read more >
Rudders on the Rudder: Thinking Beyond Master Planning
We talk a lot about climate and the environment here at Campus Ecology, but the truth is that long-term sustainability requires more than ecological considerations. If a school is carbon-neutral, but not financially viable, it has failed its mission. Therefore,… Read more >
How Campus Climate Leaders Will Help Revive Regional Economies
Former President Bill Clinton, at the third annual meeting of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in Chicago today, shared valuable perspectives on investing in large-scale building retrofits for efficiency and clean energy on campuses, including the… Read more >
Reporting from the 3rd Annual Butte College Sustainability Conference
Butte College’s 3rd annual sustainability conference opened with a welcome from the school’s president, Dr. Diana Van Der Ploeg. Her speech exhorted attendees to remember that sustainability is as much a national security issue as an environmental one, and that… Read more >
Deferring Climate Committments: An Issue of Costs or Priorities?
A new article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (sub. req.) profiles a minority trend that could, if economic conditions persist, become a majority problem. Scott Carlson reports that "about 25 percent of the colleges that should have turned in… Read more >
Ball State to spend $66M on ground-source heat
Ball State university, long a leader in climate action (and frequent sustainability conference host), has just approved drilling almost four thousand closed-loop wells to heat and cool the campus. Ground-source heat pumps use constant ground temperature, which is cooler than… Read more >
LAT Covers Green Building at Universities
Here’s another trend-skimming piece for you: this Los Angeles Times article highlights more than a dozen schools building green. If you already know a lot about LEED, geothermal and recycled countertops, you won’t find anything revolutionary here. However, it’s worth… Read more >
Moving Past the Low-hanging Fruit at University of Missouri
One of our Chill Out! competition winners, the University of Missouri, has accomplished the admiral task of reducing their energy use by 19% per square foot since 1990, while still expanding the campus space by 60%. While this means that… Read more >
Sunshine State Awards $8.5M for Solar Power to Florida Gulf Coast University
It’s not often that a state’s motto so appropriately fits the actions of its Congress: the Sunshine State of Florida recently passed a bill which allocates $8.5 million to Florida Gulf Coast University for the construction of 16 acres of… Read more >
