Green Campus Initiatives (GCI) are on a steady rise worldwide.
Each day more schools and their students recognize 
that the need for implementing sustainable practices in our daily lives does not stop on campus property. While taking action is the right thing to do, identifying the areas of opportunity, developing strategies, and finally implementing them is a complex, time-consuming, and often costly process. Those who have committed to this change all know that the long-term rewards are worth every second and penny spent.
Some schools are taking it up on themselves to handle this process to turning their campus into a more sustainable operation. Others seek out help from organizations whose mission is to help educational institutions manage the many aspects of greening their campus. The GDD is recognizing these efforts by letting prospective students know whether such program exists at their school of interest or not. Where applicable, we provide a direct link to the school’s respective sustainability report.
Due to the many different standards or rather due to a lack of uniformity about what is considered sustainable, we decided to focus on highlighting the efforts managed by larger and often trans-national organizations. This, we feel is overall more transparent and comparisons can be drawn more easily.
Below we have listed the major organizations we think have demonstrated the best strategies and schemes for schools to meet the social and environmental challenges of the 21st Century:
AASHE (USA/World): List of Schools
“AASHE’s mission is to empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation. We do this by providing resources, professional development, and a network of support to enable institutions of higher education to model and advance sustainability in everything they do, from governance and operations to education and research.”
Source: http://www.aashe.org/about/aashe-mission-vision-goals
The Green Report Card (USA): List of Schools
“The Report Card is designed to identify colleges and universities that are leading by example in their commitment to sustainability. The aim is to provide accessible information for schools to learn from one another’s experiences, enabling them to establish more effective sustainability policies.”
Source: http://www.greenreportcard.org/about
ISCN (USA/Europe/Asia): List of Schools
“The mission of the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) is to provide a global forum to support leading colleges, universities, and corporate campuses in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching.”
Source: http://www.international-sustainable-campus-network.org/about/introduction-and-analysis.html
HEEPI (UK): List of Schools
“HEEPI aims to improve the environmental performance of universities and colleges by:
- Developing environmental benchmarking within further and higher education
- Running events to share best practice and build networks
- Providing an information resource”
Source: http://www.heepi.org.uk/
EcoCampus (UK): List of Schools
“EcoCampus provides support in the management of key areas of environmental impact, in particular tackling climate change and helping institutions to manage the carbon reduction target and strategy for the higher education sector.”
Source: http://www.ecocampus.co.uk/ecocampus_scheme/index.html
ULSF (World): List of Schools
“The mission of the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) is to support sustainability as a critical focus of teaching, research, operations and outreach at colleges and universities worldwide through publications, research, and assessment.”
Source: http://www.ulsf.org/about.html
EAUC (UK): List of Schools
“We will lead, inspire & equip Members & stakeholders with a shared vision, knowledge & the tools they need to embed sustainability within curriculum and operations.”
Source: http://www.eauc.org.uk/about_us
For questions please contact us or any of the listed organizations.
