In a recently published study ranking, the environmental sustainability of college campuses in the United States and Canada, Loyola received a D grade, a minor improvement from last year’s D- rating. The Sustainable Endowments Institute, the organization that issued the report, based its ratings on nine categories, ranging from food and recycling practices to green building policies.
According to its Web site, http://www.greenreportcard.org, the report card was developed to identify colleges and universities “that are leading by example in their commitment to sustainability.” The Web site also states that the purpose of the report cards is to “provide accessible information for schools to learn from one another’s experiences, enabling them to establish more effective sustainability policies.”
Loyola scored below the national campus average of C+, but Robert Thomas, chair of environmental relations, said the poor grade does not fairly represent Loyola’s current environmental policies. He said the university scored so low because no one filled out the surveys. According to the rules of the study, universities who did not respond to the questionnaires or declined to participate received their grades based on research from public sources as well as the university’s response to the 2008 report card surveys.
“Students shouldn’t take this as an indictment against our university’s attitude,” he said. “We just didn’t fill out the forms.”
Thomas said his recent attempt at submitting the forms was refused by the organization, and that next year’s forms will receive top priority.
Regardless of the low score the university received this year, Thomas said Loyola is already enforcing environmentally sustainable practices. For example, Loyola does not use cypress mulch on its campus because the trees play an important role in protecting coastal Louisiana from hurricanes.
“Loyola’s not perfect, but it does a pretty good job in terms of energy efficiencies, and all the new work going on now takes energy efficiency into account,” he said.
In order to ensure environmental sustainability policies are being put into action, the university is in the process of forming a study group on campus sustainability, which Thomas will chair. The committee will be comprised of faculty, staff and students and will hold it’s first meeting by next month.
While it is still in the formative stages, the committee’s goal is to improve Loyola’s current sustainability practices and implement new ones. Ultimately, Thomas said he hopes that the committee will be able to collaborate with Tulane University so the universities can work together on creating and promoting environmentally sustainable practices.
Rachel Buhner can be reached at [email protected]. Rachel Strassel also contributed to this story. She can be reached at [email protected].
