August 7, 2009—The Princeton Review, known for its education services helping students choose and get in to colleges, has reported its second annual green ratings of colleges, measuring how environmentally friendly the institutions are on a scale of 60 to 99. The company tallied its Green Ratings for 697 institutions based on data it collected from the colleges in 2008-09 concerning their environmentally related policies, practices, and academic offerings.
The Princeton Review also named 15 colleges to its “2010 Green Rating Honor Roll,” a list that salutes the institutions that received the highest possible score 99, in this year’s rating tallies.
The Green Rating scores appear in the profiles of the 697 schools that The Princeton Review posted on its Web site. The ratings are also in profiles of those schools in the 2010 editions of three Princeton Review books: “The Best 371 Colleges” (now on sale, $22.99), “The Best Northeastern Colleges” (on sale August 4, $16.99), and “Complete Book of Colleges” (on sale August 4, $26.99), all published by Random House.
The Princeton Review developed its Green Rating criteria and institutional survey in 2007 with ecoAmerica (www.ecoamerica.org), a non-profit environmental organization that continues to participate in this project.
The criteria for the rating cover three broad areas: 1) whether the school’s students have a campus quality of life that is healthy and sustainable, 2) how well the school is preparing its students for employment and citizenship in a world defined by environmental challenges, and 3) the school’s overall commitment to environmental issues.
The institutional survey for the rating included ten questions on issues ranging from energy use, recycling, food, buildings, and transportation to academic offerings (availability of environmental studies degrees and courses) and action plans and goals concerning greenhouse gas emission reductions.
The Princeton Review has dedicated a resource area on its Web site for students and others interested in learning more about the rating and the benefits of attending a green college.
