Green College Spotlight: University of British Columbia

The University of British Columbia was the first university in Canada to adopt a sustainable development policy, and to open a campus Sustainability Office.  The University of British Columbia (UBC) has campuses in Vancouver and Kelowna, British Columbia.  Named on Grist.org’s 2007 list of Greenest Colleges, UBC is well known as a vibrant school where environmental responsibility is at the top of their priority list.

UBC offers a unique academic program called SEEDS – social, ecological, economic development studies. It brings together students, faculty and staff for projects that address sustainability issues, including studying stormwater treatment alternatives, finding innovative ways to market Fair Trade coffee, reducing pesticide use and exploring a sustainable food system for the campus.  Students receive academic credit for their participation.

Some of the ways in which UBC has risen above other Canadian colleges on the ecological front include a comprehensive energy management program, a variety of green campus structures, paper reduction efforts, and a team of sustainability coordinators that includes both staff and students.  UBC has been honored with Green Campus Recognition from the World Wildlife Federation for three years, and the college offers more than 300 sustainability-related courses.

UBC’s Residential Environmental Assessment Program was launched in 2006 to steward development in the college’s University Town neighborhoods. The program uses a residential green rating system to determine how green the buildings are, and assesses water consumption, energy consumption, indoor environmental quality and material and resource use. The REAP program has ratings that range from Basic Compliance to Platinum, and helps make UBC one of the greenest campuses in Canada.

Green buildings on campus include the LEED gold-rated Life Sciences Center, the award-winning C.K. Choi Building for the Institute of Asian Research and the Liu Center for the Study of Global Issues.  The C.K. Choi Building features many used and recycled materials, natural ventilation and composting toilets; the Liu Center is partially constructed of ‘fly ash’, a waste material from coal-firing power plants that replaces cement in the concrete mix.  The Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory is pending LEED silver certification, and the ICICS/Computer Science building boasts a mechanical system that uses chilled slab for cooling.

Check out UBC’s Sustainability Office home page, where you can see real-time figures of sheets of copy paper, kWh of electricity and liters of water used as well as the amounts of these resources that have been saved and how much money these efforts have saved the school. On the same page, you can view videos of UBC’s green building tour and sustainability initiatives.

College Spotlight: Green Mountain College’s Sustainable Orientation

One Vermont college is going far above and beyond in their efforts to green up their campus, and it shows in their ‘sustainable orientation’, a weekend for new students to get educated on carbon emissions and other aspects of sustainability. Green Mountain College’s sustainable orientation will take place between August 28th and September 1st. Initiated by the office of student life and sustainability coordinator Jesse Pyles, the college’s orientation weekend will include all of the following:

• Fewer mailings. Offices have reduced the amount of paper by sending bulk mailings and directing students to the website for information.
• Local programming. “In the past we had outside consultants develop programs on drug and alcohol use and safety,” says Ouimette. “To decrease the amount of travel created by orientation, we’re now doing these workshops in-house by orientation leaders.”
• Reused utensils. “Students are encouraged to bring their own utensils and travel mug to use during orientation,” she says. There will be stations set up for students to wash their silverware with environmentally friendly dish soap. Biodegradable utensils will be available for family and friends visiting during orientation.
• Green decorations. Instead of balloons-which are not biodegradable-the campus decorates with flowers grown on the college farm. Other decorations and necessary signage will be done on reusable sandwich board.
• Local dinners. On “Sustainable Sunday,” students will dine on breakfast provided by the college farm and local providers. “Logistically, it’s near impossible to have four days of local meals,” explains Ouimette, “but we want to show students about the improvements we’ve made in greening our food service.”
• Camp-Out Night. Students will assess the energy saved in one night of camping on campus. GreenMAP, the College’s outdoor adventure program, will also educate new students about nationally developed “leave no trace” principles, especially with regard to setting up tents and using the nearby Poultney River.
• Green Student Orientation Leaders (student orientation leaders specifically assigned to sustainability efforts and education) will lead several colorful “Ecostunts”-activities and demonstrations designed to illustrate sustainability themes.

“It’s important for the College to introduce incoming students to what it’s like to be sustainable as soon as they first set foot on campus,” says Christina Ouimette, a senior at GMC and student coordinator for orientation. “It’s a huge part of our community, our mission, and how we learn here.”

Green Mountain College is Vermont’s environmental liberal arts college, tucked away in the countryside in the Valley of Vermont. The core of Green Mountain College is its environmental liberal arts (ELA) curriculum, which all Green Mountain students complete. It combines the skills and content of a liberal arts course with a focus on the environment.

Green Mountain College was the first college in the United States to be named EPA Energy Star Showcase Campus after their campus-wide effort to retrofit light fixtures. They’ve also been awarded with the Campus Sustainability Leadership Award by the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) for their ‘outstanding commitment to environmental sustainability in their governance and administration, curriculum and research, operations, campus culture and community outreach. Green Mountain College was also included on Grist.org’s Top 15 Green Colleges and Universities.

Some of the green initiatives that have been put in place on the Green Mountain College campus include a commitment to carbon neutrality, 50% of its electricity from local dairy farms through the Cow Power Program, participation in the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System) program, a plug-in hybrid study, a sustainable agriculture project, a robust recycling program and much more.

Learn more at the Green Mountain College website.

College Spotlight: The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington

The Evergreen State College is appropriately named, nestled in an evergreen forest in the southern part of Washington State. Evergreen has been honored several times in lists for greenest colleges in the U.S., including Grist’s 2007 15 Green Colleges and Universities. They’ve committed to being a carbon-neutral campus, incorporated eco-friendly designs into their buildings, taken charge of their waste management practices and much more.

Evergreen’s strong commitment to sustainability is evident in many aspects of the college. In terms of curriculum, they offer an oft-praised undergraduate program in environmental studies as well as a Master in Environmental Studies. Full-time interdisciplinary programs in energy studies, environmental design and ecological agriculture are available.

On the 1,000-acre campus, which includes about 800 acres of woods, forest and saltwater beach used for teaching and learning, you’ll find green roofs, native vegetation and teaching gardens. There’s also an organic farm and Center for Ecological Living and Learning, where sustainable agriculture is taught in a hands-on environment. Its newest teaching facility is a LEED gold certified green building.

Students have also worked to put many of the college’s green programs in place, including a self-imposed fee for purchasing green, non-polluting energy at a cost of $100,000 per year (total). 100% of Evergreen State’s energy is green. The college has a sustainable food service, with 28%-38% of weekly food purchases being local, local organic and organic. They’ve also got a sustainable housing checkout, which has resulted in donations to 10 non-profits.

Of pledging to be carbon-neutral, the college President Thomas L. Purce said,

“Since 1971, Evergreen has built a national reputation for environmental studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Its graduates and faculty are leaders in addressing environmental challenges locally, nationally and globally. By joining the Presidents Climate Commitment, and building sustainability into our strategic plan as a top priority, we are sharpening our focus on climate issues and environmental responsibility. We hope to set an example others can follow.

Sustainability isn’t just a bandwagon we’re hopping onto. It’s woven into the very fabric of our identity, and history, as an institution.”

Evergreen State plans to take its initiatives even further in the future. It has a Sustainable Task Force in place to research and inform college decision-making, and has employed a full-time Sustainability Coordinator. The college has put a ‘strategic plan’ in place to ensure that they constantly improve, building sustainability right into their core.

Prospective students can learn more at the Evergreen State website, apply online or schedule a visit.

Green College Spotlight: College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine

Last year, Grist.org named College of the Atlantic it’s #1 greenest college in the nation, and it’s easy to see why.  Despite being a tiny school with just one major – human ecology – it’s a model for institutes of higher learning across America, with its progressive programs, innovative ideas and incredibly ambitious goals.  It was the first college in the U.S. to pledge carbon neutrality, and more than 270 other schools have followed its example.

Back in 2006, College of the Atlantic’s newly installed president, David F. Hales, announced the school’s intentions to cut back on their carbon footprint, stating at his inauguration, “Just as all greenhouse gas emissions adversely affect the atmosphere, all emission reductions benefit it,” Hales said in a statement. “What we put into the atmosphere in Maine can be offset by reducing emissions here and elsewhere, so that we are able to reduce our college’s negative global warming impact to zero.”

Considering that the school is dedicated to ecology, it’s no surprise that it’s often called ‘the greenest of them all’.  All 325(!) students are personally committed to making the college as green as possible, and not just by planting lots of trees. They actively work to reduce waste, maximize energy efficiency, use low fossil-fuel transport, eat local and organic and educate the public about sustainability.  A free bike program provides bicycles, helmets, lights and reflective vests to all students, faculty, staff and visitors, and the entire fleet is comprised of restored and repaired older bicycles.  The college’s small fleet of watercraft used in academic programs as well as for recreation run on ethanol. COA also operates an 81-acre farm called Beech Hill, which includes 5 acres of certified organic farmland, several acres of heirloom apple trees and 65 acres of forest.

Even the head custodian at COA is dedicated to environmental responsibility, making sure that all products used on campus are safe and natural.  Paper products are 100% recycled, low-VOC paints are used and even the brooms are made from dye-free corn fiber with removable bamboo handles.

College of the Atlantic has proven that even on a very small scale, it’s possible to achieve carbon neutrality by making smart decisions about even the littlest things in life.  It’s an example that all of us can follow, and clearly, they’ve already inspired many others.

Link [College of the Atlantic] + [Washington Post]

Green College Spotlight: Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio

Oberlin College is one of the nation’s leaders in sustainability initiatives at places of higher learning. The students at Oberlin aren’t just dedicated to recycling, gardening, composting and other green efforts often undertaken at colleges and universities – they’ve thrown themselves into living lives that have a positive impact on the environment, down to their practically Olympian competitions to have the shortest shower.

The shining star of the college’s environmental efforts is the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies. The building is an ongoing experiment in sustainable practices, and is constantly studied and improved as new green technology becomes available. Built by William McDonough & Partners, an architecture firm headed by the co-founder of the Cradle to Cradle design philosophy, the building is geothermally heated and uses only about 20% the energy of a typical similarly sized structure. The Lewis Center also features daylighting, recycled materials, a complex ventilation system and a green roof.

Outside the Lewis Center, you’ll find several more green buildings, including the SEED House, or Student Experiment in Ecological Design. Eight students live in the SEED house, and those students strive to be as environmentally conscious as they can be. Inside, you’ll often find worm compost bins, unplugged appliances and students layered under several blankets as the thermostat is never set higher than 60 degrees. One thing you won’t find is a television. The New York Times spent a day at the SEED House – check out the video below.

Professor of Environmental Studies David Orr explained the students’ impressive level of dedication to the New York Times:

“This is a generation that is watching the world come undone.” Projects like the Oberlin house, he said, are “helping them understand how to stitch the world together again.”

Link [Oberlin College] + [YouTube] + [New York Times]

Green College Spotlight: Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont

Tucked into a small, rural Vermont community is liberal arts gem Middlebury College, a highly selective private school that prides itself on its environmental activism. Middlebury established the first Environmental Studies major back in 1965, and has since helped pave the way for colleges across the country to be more environmentally conscious from its sustainable agriculture and recycling programs to the green building techniques used in recent construction.

Middlebury’s dedication to environmentally responsible practices is apparent in nearly every aspect of daily operations. In fact, they’ve incorporated environmental stewardship into the college’s new mission statement, which reads in part, “The College’s Vermont location offers an inspirational setting for learning and reflection, reinforcing our commitment to integrating environmental stewardship into both our curriculum and our practices on campus.”

Middlebury was one of six colleges to receive a grade of ‘A-‘ from the Sustainable Endowments Institute on its College Sustainability Report Card 2008, the highest grade rewarded. It has also been named as one of the greenest colleges in the U.S. by Forbes, Grist, Alternet and The Daily Green.

The honors are due in part to the students’ incredible drive to be environmentally responsible. Middlebury spawned the ‘Step it Up’ protests against global warming, and lobbied hard for the $11 million biomass plant now being built, which will help the college meet its goal of being carbon neutral by 2016. They’ve demanded green programs at the school and have gotten them, from the sustainably sourced wood used for heating to the wind turbine that powers the college’s recycling facility. Produce from local farmers plus the harvests reaped from the school’s on-campus organic gardens provide a quarter of the student meals at the dining hall. Check out the video below showing the students participating in ‘The Green Finger Project’, where they write what they’re voting to protect on the palms of their hands.

Majors at Middlebury include classical studies, geography, history of art & architecture, international studies, molecular biology & biochemistry and political science, among many others. Prospective students wishing to take a tour of the campus can get that info, along with more about the admissions process, at the school’s website.

Link [Middlebury College ] + [YouTube]

Green College Spotlight: Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, NC

Warren Wilson College, nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, has received numerous accolades for their environmental policies, including being named ‘Greenest College of the Southeast’ by Blue Ridge Outdoors for the second consecutive year, making the Daily Green’s list of greenest colleges and being named one of the Top 10 Eco-Friendly Colleges in 2007 by the Sierra Club.

Located in the small town of Swannanoa just outside Asheville, Warren Wilson isn’t just a college – it’s a 300-acre working farm and 700-acre forest that operates as a research laboratory for sustainable practices. Two of its buildings are LEED gold certified. LEED, the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, is the green rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council. By the end of this year, the college hopes to have 5 LEED certified buildings including an ‘EcoDorm’, for which it’s seeking the Platinum certification, which is the Green Building Council’s highest rating. Check out a video explaining some of the green aspects of the EcoDorm below.

Environmental sustainability is a major theme at Warren Wilson, seen everywhere from the compost bins and biodiesel car fleets to the organic gardens and use of passive and active solar heating. Staff use solar-charged electric golf carts to get around, there’s a vegetarian café on campus and students enjoy a ‘free store’ where donated goods find new homes. There’s a deep-rooted awareness of conservation and sustainability on this campus, where students, faculty and staff do everything they can to minimize their impact on the environment.

Warren Wilson has put an emphasis on making sure that it, as a school, is the best example it can be for students seeking leadership in sustainable initiatives. They’ve taken things like biodiversity conservation into account when planning their land use, have an Environmental Leadership Center, a Recycling Crew, and a Campus Greening Seed Grants program that allows students and a staff co-sponsor to apply for grants up to $500 to put environmental restoration projects in motion on campus. Their college press uses 100% post-consumer chlorine-free paper and soy inks. A campus shuttle gets students to nearby Asheville for social and shopping excursions, since first-year students aren’t allowed to have their own vehicles.

They’re not done by any means – Warren Wilson has made a commitment to continue growing as an environmentally responsible college as technology and sustainable practices evolve. This liberal arts college, offering majors like Art, Biology, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Humanities, Outdoor Leadership and Social Work has a lot to offer for students who have set themselves on a greener path.

Check back with EarthFirst.com every Monday for a new green college feature!

Link [Warren Wilson College]

Princeton Review’s Green College Ratings to Debut This Summer

College students everywhere now have a new guide to choosing the right school: the Princeton Review, a popular annual guide for college students to gain information about schools, now includes ‘green ratings’. The 2009 guide is set to be published later this month. Other factors ranked by the Princeton Review for the 600 colleges included in its guide include everything from financial aid to selectivity to quality of life.

From GreenBiz.com:

The Review added the green dimension to its ratings system after it found that 63 percent of college applicants surveyed said they would value having information about a college’s commitment to the environment and that such data could affect their choice to apply or attend a school.

The green rating is based on responses to a battery of questions that are designed to provide a comprehensive measure of a school’s performance as an “environmentally aware and responsible institution,” the Review said on its website.

What an awesome resource – this is definitely something that more and more college students want to know about. It could also foster some competition between schools to get greener, and of course we LOVE that! Exciting time to be entering college.

Link [GreenBiz.com]

Green Up Your Summer Tour (Not That Kinda Green): Bands Embracing Eco

Shit! School starts up again in just only seven or eight weeks! You’ve got a lot more BBQs to hit and a ton more concerts to roll out to. Swing over to The Daily Green to get the scoop on what bands will be touring green(er) this summer. If you’re a fan of Tom Petty, Radiohead, Coldplay, Jack Johnson, Dave Matthews, Kanye West, or the already green John Mayer, head on over and get the scoop on how you can green up your summer concert tour.

Link [The Daily Green]

5 Eco-Minded Scholarships You Can Apply For Right Now

If you’re interested in environmental activism and need more money for college (who doesn’t, with how expensive it’s gotten?!), here’s some good news. We’ve caught wind of 5 eco-minded scholarships that can help you pay those bills and get in some good deeds while you’re at it. They include the Blade Your Ride Scholarship, The Goi Peace Foundation 2008 International Essay Contest for Young People, the Solix Resettles Blue Mountain Essay Contest, Annie’s Homegrown Sustainable Agriculture Scholarships and the Nicodemus Wilderness Project Apprentice Ecologist Initiative.

The scholarship amounts range from $475 to $10,000. The contest entry requirements vary; check out the NextPath education finance newsletter page for more info.

Link [NextPath]

College Green: The University of New Hampshire Will Get 85% of Its Electricity From Landfill Gas

I went to the University of New Hampshire in my first year of college way back in 96/97. It’s a great campus and I’ve been excited to read about their forays into sustainability over the years.

Here’s a wonkish video outlining UNH’s green initiatives, including their use of landfill gas that will provide 85% of their energy needs. Although I remember the food being good when I was a skinny 18 year old freshman eating in the dining halls, I missed out on their recent embrace of Slow Food- locally sourced minimally processed natural foods.

Go Wildcats!

Via [Environmental Leader]

Photo credit: Flickr user craptastic

Does Your College Have Lead-Laden AstroTurf Fields?

Hundreds of colleges and universities across the country have chosen AstroTurf as a low-maintenance, supposedly eco-friendly alternative to live grass. Athletes roll around on it every day, and no doubt fumes and microscopic particles are kicked up into the air during games and practice. Recently, it’s been found that there are disturbing amounts of lead in this bright green synthetic turf.

From Plenty Magazine:

Four New Jersey artificial playing fields have registered high levels of lead, the neurotoxic heavy metal, and the U.S.Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating, according to the Washington Post . And not only that, but the recycled crumb rubber fill used as padding has been found to release toxic volatile organic compounds (VOC)s. These include styrene-butadiene, classified by the EPA as a probable human carcinogen, and whose inhalation can produce irritation of eyes, nose, throat and lungs. Another VOC in the fill, ethylene-propylene, is on EPA’s hazardous air pollutants list.

If your college has an AstroTurf field, it might be a good time to push for an alternative. Of course, you don’t want your school to tear up the fake stuff and replace it with grass they’re gonna pour pesticides and herbicides onto. Push for an organic lawn. If it can be done on golf courses, there’s no reason it can’t be done on your home team’s playing field. You can get more info at SafeLawns.org.

Link [Plenty Magazine] + [Safe Lawns]
Photo credit: Flickr user D. de la Peña

Conservation, Recycling, Local Food: How College Campuses Are Going Green

An EarthTalk reader wrote in to ask how college campuses are working to reduce their carbon footprints, and the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine had plenty of answers. Seems like college campuses are doing more every day to contribute, from taking small steps that add up to taking on large projects and initiatives.

From The Daily Green:

Foremost on the minds of green-leaning students today is global warming, and many are joining hands to persuade their schools to update policies and streamline operations so that their campuses can become part of the solution. Largely a result of student efforts, for example, nearly 500 U.S. colleges and universities have signed the American College and University Presidents (ACUP) Climate Commitment.

This agreement requires schools to put together a comprehensive plan to go “carbon neutral” in two years of signing. (Carbon neutral means contributing no net greenhouse gases to the atmosphere either by not generating them in the first place or by offsetting them somehow, such as through tree-planting or by buying “offsets” from companies that fund alternative energy projects.)

ACUP also commits schools to implementing two or more tangible (and easily implemented) policies right away, such as improving waste minimization and recycling programs, reducing energy usage, providing or encouraging public transportation to and from campus (and switching campus buses over to bio-diesel fuel), constructing bicycle lanes, and implementing green building guidelines for any new construction.

Schools that sign the agreement also pledge to integrate sustainability into their normal curricula. Student-run organic gardens like those of Yale University and Warren Wilson College provide another great way to green up campus food services, as do recycling programs and water conservation efforts.

For a roundup of additional green college initiatives, see the full post at The Daily Green.

Link [The Daily Green]
Photo credit: Warren Wilson College

On-Campus Food Getting Greener (and Hopefully Tastier)

First there was the cool invention of reusable take-out trays by a college student, and now schools across the country are starting programs providing sustainably grown meals in on-campus dining halls and cafes. College students around the country are demanding green options, and they’re getting it.

From Wiretap Magazine:

“Students get it,” said Anna Lappé, a sustainability food expert, author and the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute who often speaks at campuses around the country to promote sustainable eating. “The most common question I get from students is, ‘We know we need to be promoting sustainable food — what can we do?’” She usually responds to the question with examples of what other schools have done, which is no short list.

Julian Dautremont-Smith, sustainability expert and associate director at the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Learning, or AASHE, says that one thing his organization does is connect like-minded students at schools across the country so they can compare notes and learn from each other.

This is a great example of the power of college students rallying together and making a demand, and it working. I can’t believe how far college cafeteria food has come in the short amount of time since I was an on-campus student! I was picking through barely edible, oil-soaked nastiness and making far too many trips to off-campus fast food joints as a result. I wish I would have started something like this at my own school – but then again, I went to a tiny private college funded by conservative Southern Baptists who thought that being an environmentalist meant I was a rabid, dangerous eco-terrorist. The climate is changing in more ways than one – people are so much more open to ‘green’ choices now. Take advantage of it!

Contact the AASHE through their website for information on how to get a similar program started in your school.

Link [Wiretap Magazine]
Photo credit: Flickr user klynsis

18-Year-Old Invents Bad Ass Electric Bike to Combat Pollution

Cliched as it sounds, sometimes the youth really does have a fresh creative edge over the rest of the population. 18 year old Ben Gulak of Canada has spent the last few years creating a futuristic looking electric bike designed to reduce pollution. That’s right, he’s been working on this thing since he was a mere 14-15 years old.

The Telegraph has it:

Although it resembles a unicycle, the Uno has two wheels side by side and uses gyroscopic technology to stay upright.

Ben Gulak, 18, spent several years building the machine. The rider leans forward to accelerate to speeds of 25mph, and backwards to slow down.

Mr Gulak, from Canada, said: “I was inspired to make the bike after visiting China a few years ago and seeing all the smog. They all drive little bikes that are really polluting and I wanted to make something to combat that.”

Weighing 120lb, the bike is light enough to be taken indoors to be charged up, and runs for 2.5 hours.

Don’t you want one? When I saw the photo, the ‘Jetsons’ theme song instantly started playing in my head. When I was a little girl, I was under the impression that by the time I was in my 20’s we’d be living in a Jetsons-style futuristic world, and of course we’re nowhere near that, but cool inventions like this make it seem closer. I just hope that more of the inventions to come are as eco-friendly as this one.

Link [The Telegraph]

Photo credit: Motorcycle Mojo

More Info for College Students: Princeton Review Adding Sustainability Ratings to their College Rankings

The jury’s still out on whether college ratings provided by outlets like Newsweek and the U.S. News and World Report are actually helpful to students and their families. There have been a lot of questions about some of the statistics used to rank schools, and some colleges have been known to intentionally skew data to rank higher.

One way that these college rankings can be helpful to college students, however, is getting a feel for a school’s eco-friendliness via The Princeton Review’s new sustainability ratings. Beginning this year, you’ll be able to see a school’s ‘green rating’ in The Princeton Review’s annual college rankings.

From the Maneater:

The Princeton Review spokeswoman Harriet Brand said the “green rating” measures how well schools are using their environmental practices to deliver a better campus experience and to prepare students to succeed in their future careers.

The rating criteria includes how environmentally responsible a school’s policies are, whether students have a quality of life on campus that is both healthy and sustainable and how well a school is preparing its students for employment and for citizenship in a world defined by environmental challenges.

The data for the rating is based entirely on the 2007-2008 academic year.

Adding a rating like this to widely read rankings from the Princeton Review, which many prospective students and parents take very seriously, could be a great thing for the future of green practices in colleges. It could introduce a little competition into the sustainability practices at the schools highlighted in the issue. Students win, the environment wins – sounds good to us.

Link [The Maneater]

Photo credit: Flickr user katmere

Heavy, Expensive, Wasteful College Textbooks are So 20th Century: Why Aren’t Ebooks More Readily Available By Now?

As mountains of old, out of date college textbooks continue to pile up – and updated versions are published to take their places – the current system of buying and selling these books seems more and more antiquated. It begs the question, what other options do we have? Sure, you can buy and sell used books, but there are cons to that too.

Last March, Treehugger questioned the eco-friendliness of online book swaps. While purchasing or borrowing used books is way better than constantly paying for new ones, all that shipping back and forth makes it a little less green than it should be. At least one site, 2swap.com, gets a good rating from Treehugger but isn’t geared specifically toward college students.

Nearly all college students these days have laptops, and PDF versions of books are becoming more and more common. Imagine how much easier and less wasteful it would be if college books were licensed and sold electronically for a semester of use. You wouldn’t have to lug around an insane number of 20-pound books, you wouldn’t be out a ton of money even when selling your books back after you’re done with them and the old unwanted texts would stop their endless march to the landfill.

Perhaps starting up a signature drive to get more publishers to offer texts in ebook form would be a good way for college students to get their eco-activist on. Publishers are old school and most aren’t yet internet-savvy, but they’re like any other businesspeople: if there’s a demand, and they know they can make money off of it, they’ll take action. If enough students started requesting ebook versions of their college texts, there’s no reason why everybody couldn’t make the switch. It’d result in less trees being cut down, savings for college students, and a way for publishers to get their foot into the 21st century finally.

Here’s a partial list of college textbook publishers to get started. Any takers?

Link [Treehugger] + [2Swap] + [ACQWeb]

Photo credit: Flickr user anavrin

Moore College of Art & Design Turns Trash into Fashion

Would you wear a gown made of electrical tape and used shower curtains? How about a cocktail dress made of candy wrappers? Moore College of Art & Design held their eleventh annual Trash Fashion Show last Thursday, showing off over 20 eco-friendly designs made entirely of trash and reused items.

The event had students constructing garments made of items like soy packets, phone wire and old CDs. Students weren’t allowed to use anything new or store-bought; it all had to be trash and was held together by fishing line, glue guns and staplers. It was designed to get people to think about how items that are thrown away could be used differently.

While the contest was held in honor of Earth Day, and a similar one-time challenge was seen previously on an episode of the popular Bravo series ‘Project Runway’, things like this shouldn’t be seen as a stunt. There are plenty of things that are currently being thrown away that could function beautifully as materials for clothing, and if designers started taking it seriously, we could end up with some fabulous eco-fashion made of all kinds of recycled materials.

Link: [Moore College of Art & Design]

College Students: Pick Schools According to their Eco-Friendly Practices

College students, you’ve now got a great new tool at your disposal: a website that can help you choose a sustainable school. You may be wondering what exactly makes a school ‘sustainable’, and why you’d be interested in that information. The Daily Green has it:

Colleges can be as large as small cities, and therefore use a tremendous amount of resources, plus they have strong potential to mold the minds of the next generation of leaders.

In 2007 Grist released an editorial ranking of top green colleges, and this year the Kentucky-based Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education launched a pilot program to rate 90 U.S. and Canadian colleges on environmental impact.

It’s called Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), and is designed to be a voluntary, self-reporting framework for gauging progress toward sustainability. It is associated with the group’s Chill Out Competition to reduce global warming contributions, and the comment period ends May 30.

Until that ranking becomes available, prospies may want to check out this informative post on the blog of major student loan lender NextStudent. It’s a summary of 12 of the greenest colleges in America, including many that have been honored in the past by other groups

Among the top sustainable colleges are College of the Altantic, Middlebury College, Evergreen State College, Oberlin College, Harvard University and Warren Wilson College. Highlights of their eco-friendly practices include solar panels, energy efficiency programs, waste reduction, composting and organic farming. If you’re interested in a ‘green collar’ career or just want to be part of an institution that promotes earth friendly initiatives, this info could be really helpful.

Link [Daily Green] + [NextStudent]

Photo credit: Warren Wilson College

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