Even after improvements, IU named least sustainable school in the Big Ten

IU ties for the lowest-ranking school in the Big Ten for sustainability, according to a report card issued this week.

The Sustainable Endowments Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to environmental standards and practices, gave both IU and Northwestern C+ grades, making them the lowest Big Ten schools on the scale for the 2009 report. This is still an improvement for IU from last year’s D-range grade, said Sustainability Task Force Co-Chair Michael Hamburger.

While IU ranked above average in the “investment priorities” and “student involvement” categories, it was average in areas such as “administration,” “climate change and energy,” “food and recycling,” “green building” and “transportation.”

First-year graduate student in environmental studies and Sustainability Task Force member Elliot Hayden said, from his point of view, the administration got off with a better mark than they should have.

“Frankly, I think that that C+ gave IU a little more credit than it deserves,” he said. “It really needs to be put into perspective.”

Hayden, who has studied the system, said the actual grading was far less quantitative than it seems.

“It’s not very scientific,” Hayden said. “For example, it’s not as if they’re going around and doing greenhouse gas inventories at the universities and then comparing them to other peer institutions and then saying, ‘Well, this university’s doing pretty well.’ It’s not like that at all. It seems to me to be a pretty sophomoric quantitative assessment.”

There are several steps IU could take to improve its grade. Hayden said the University needs to sign a commitment making sustainability a priority, such as the American College and University President’s Climate Commitment. After that, the administration needs to begin providing funding for the office of sustainability, he said.

“(IU President) Michael McRobbie basically gave a mandate saying, ‘We are going to create an office of sustainability, but we’re not going to give any funding for it,’” Hayden said. “‘That funding is going to have to come from not my office, but it’s going to have to come from elsewhere.’ It’s basically just a front. It’s a cover.”

However, the administration maintained that it has put an emphasis on sustainability.
“We all endorse the sustainability effort,” said Sue Talbot, a member of the board of trustees. “We feel very strongly about that and have been encouraging it for several years as a board of trustees.”

The administration has taken some steps toward greater sustainability, Hamburger said.

“The administration’s agreement to move forward with hiring of an interim director and launching of a sustainability office will add some much-needed energy into the program,” Hamburger said. “Now, I think we need to move forward from the stage of defining broad goals and a few pilot projects into broad implementation efforts. And we need to publicize the successes of our efforts. There’s a lot of good work going on at IU that deserves some attention.”

Despite progress in the grade books and movements to improve, Hamburger said IU still has to continue to work toward keeping the campus sustainable and maintaining high standards for itself.

“Our modest grade is a reminder that we have a long way to go,” Hamburger said.