KEVIN MENZ
Associate News Editor

In a recent report that ranked 322 universities and colleges throughout the U.S. and Canada on sustainability, the University of Saskatchewan finished in the least sustainable third of all schools and tied for second worst sustainable school in Canada.

The College Sustainability Report Card 2011 was released in late October by the non-profit research organization Sustainable Endowments Institute. It outlines schools’ performances in nine different categories: administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities and shareholder engagement.

According to the report’s website, greenreportcard.org, information on the report “comes from publicly available documentation, as well as through four surveys sent to school administrators and student leaders.”Â 

This is the third year in a row the U of S has been included in the report card. It is also the third year in a row it has received only a C+ ranking, while 52 of the included schools received rankings of A- or higher.

The school received the second lowest grade among the 19 Canadian schools ranked, tying Carleton University and the University of Waterloo, and finishing above the University of Manitoba. The University of British Columbia, the University of Calgary and the University of Toronto all finished among the top Canadian schools with a grade of A-. Seven schools finished at the top of the report with A grades, including Brown University, Yale University and the University of Minnesota.

Since last year the U of S has seen a drop in its administration ranking and its student involvement ranking. The first concern was that the university does not have a formal sustainability policy and while organizations like the U of S Student’s Union and the Biology Club are involved in sustainable initiatives, there are not many sustainability challenges that promote behavioural changes in the student community. Brown, for instance, has bi-annual conservation competitions.

“That’s totally something I’d be willing to look at,” said USSU vice president student affairs Leon Thompson. “I came in on a policy to engage students and hopefully next year that grade improves.”

The U of S also finished below average in the climate change and energy category because it has yet to complete a greenhouse gas emissions inventory and it has not achieved a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. UBC, on the other hand, reduced its emissions by four per cent from 2000 to 2007.

While the university utilizes bus passes to promote public transportation and is associated with carpool.ca, it does not have any knowledge on what percentage of students bike, bus, carpool or drive in single-occupancy vehicles to school, which hurt its ability to analyze future sustainable opportunities.

It was positive to note, however, that the university only buys local free range eggs; organic, local fruits and vegetables; and offers compostable dishware. Still, the fact that the university does not know the dollar amounts it spent on local and organic food hurt its ranking — not to mention the fact that it does not offer any vegetarian-fed animal products, any hormone-free meat or dairy products or any seafood that meets Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch guidelines.

The university also finished low in sustainable investment priorities because it does not have any policies that promote sustainable and environmental investment funds.

Its lowest grade came in the shareholder engagement category as proxy voting on environmental issues consists entirely of investment managers and not on administration committees or the university community.

The highest grade the university saw was an A in the endowment transparency category. This refers to how the institution releases information regarding endowment investments and shareholder voting.

“We’re transparent and accountable — cool. We just need to get going on sustainable practices,” said Thompson.

In spite of the below-average scores, the university’s improvement in the green building category was a positive — there are many recently finished and current construction projects on campus that are green. The College of Law building is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold level certified and four buildings currently under construction are awaiting LEED certification: the University Learning Centre, Place Riel and the D and E expansion wings of the Academic Health Sciences building.

President Peter MacKinnon recently signed the University and College Presidents’ Climate Change Statement of Action for Canada which will provide the university with a formal sustainability policy for next year’s report — this year’s report only anticipated the signing.

Thompson feels that this is the first step to improving the university’s grades for next year — though he acknowledges moving towards sustainability is a slow process.

“Sustainability isn’t just, ”˜click,’ and it’s on. It takes time,” said Thompson. “There is a commitment from people here, but we can do better.”

– –
image: submitted by a Sheaf volunteer