Sierra Club designates SUNY Fredonia a "cool school"
SUNY Fredonia is one of three SUNY schools placed among the Sierra Club’s ranking of “Cool Schools” in recognition of its commitment to environmental sustainability. Points were assigned by the Sierra Club in the following categories: co-curricular, education/research, energy, transport, waste, water, purchasing, food, planning, investing and innovation. SUNY Fredonia achieved an overall score of 273.40. The range of scores was 126.76 to 709.17, with a maximum 894.50 possible.
The campus placed 85th among 96 schools on the Sierra Club’s list of America’s greenest colleges based on information submitted to the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, or STARS, a self-reporting framework for colleges and universities developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
“We’re very excited. It’s a very good thing for us to be included among the schools that are doing so much. It shows the amazing efforts of everybody on campus,” said Sarah Laurie, environmental safety and sustainability specialist at SUNY Fredonia.
AASHE, which uses its own matrix for evaluating schools on their sustainability focus, awarded SUNY Fredonia a bronze rating, based a 35.4-point total, in 2012. The campus also achieved a bronze rating in 2011, the first year that data was submitted, with 34.69 points. AASHE makes STARS information available to organizations such as the Sierra Club.
“There’s room for improvement by better tracking of what we’re already doing, improving the things that we are already doing, and starting new projects,” Laurie said.
Information on sustainability programs at SUNY Fredonia is available at www.fredonia.edu/gogreen.
