The University of Montana's sustainability efforts received a "bronze" rating Tuesday from a nonprofit organization promoting sustainability in higher education.
UM's Sustainability Coordinator Eva Rocke says UM fell just 2.2 points shy of a silver rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. She says that offers both hope and a roadmap for improvement.
"We earned this bronze. It was hard work. I feel like the representation of sustainability efforts on campus is very accurate, and I think setting the goal of gold is an excellent goal for us to work towards."
The assessment measures how well a university is achieving its sustainability goals. It covers areas including energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and on-campus research. It also assesses class offerings, and the purchase of supplies like "green" cleaning products and recycled paper.
The report also tracks an institution's investments. Out of seven possible points, UM received zero.
Tess Gallagher Clancy is a co-coordinator of a student group that advocates for divestment from fossil fuels. She says that's a sign of a bigger problem when it comes to campus sustainability.
"I'm personally disappointed in the University's progress towards sustainability. A lot of people kind of feel like UM talks really big and sells itself as a university that is really working on sustainability and it's doing really well, and then they come here and they see a lot of issues with it."
Gallagher Clancy says her group, Reinvest Montana, is focused on transparency. A majority of UM students favor university divestment from fossil fuels. The UM Foundation has resisted both divestment and calls for transparency in its investment portfolio.
UM's Eva Rocke says that divestment and, more importantly, meaningful investment would have raised the university's score by a few points. A growing building footprint also made it difficult to reduce energy consumption. But UM's push for increased enrollment is not at odds with any sustainability measures, Rocke says. About 2/3 of the university’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating buildings and generating hot water.
"We do that for every building on campus, if there are 10 students in that building or 2000 students in that building."
You can view the report here.
