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Over the last few years, the pressure to go green has led colleges and universities to make big changes. The threats posed by climate change are encouraging campus leaders to push beyond early efforts, such as recycling, to become models of sustainability. Today, in the interest of reducing their environmental impact, many campuses are seeking to overhaul their entire infrastructure. Although many students, faculty, staff, and administrators are excited by these new challenges, some question this need to go green. Is it worth the money? Is it promoting “a moral and behavioral agenda rather than an educational one”? (Butcher). In fact, greening will ultimately save institutions money while providing their students with the educational opportunities necessary to help them solve the crisis of their generation. Colleges should make every effort to create green campuses because by doing so they will improve their own educational environment, ensure their own institution’s survival, and help solve the global climate crisis.

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Although the green movement has been around for many years, green has become a buzzword only relatively recently. Green political parties and groups began forming in the 1960s to promote environmentalist goals (“Environmentalism”). These groups fought for “grassroots democracy, social justice, and nonviolence” in addition to environmental protections and were “self-consciously activist and unconventional” in their strategies (“Environmentalism”). Today, however, green denotes much more than a political movement; it has become a catchall word for anything eco-friendly. People use green to describe everything from fuel-efficient cars to fume-free house paint. Green values have become more mainstream in response to evidence that human activities, particularly those that result in greenhouse-gas emissions, may be causing global warming at a dramatic rate (“Call for Climate Leadership” 4). To fight this climate change, many individuals, businesses, and organizations are choosing to go green, making sustainability and preservation of the environment a priority.

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Greening a college campus means moving toward a sustainable campus that works to conserve the earth’s natural resources. It means reducing the university’s carbon footprint by focusing on energy efficiency in every aspect of campus life. This is no small task. Although replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones and offering more locally grown food in dining halls are valuable steps, meaningful sustainability requires more comprehensive changes. For example, universities also need to invest in alternative energy sources, construct new buildings and remodel old ones, and work to reduce campus demand for nonrenewable products. Although these changes will eventually save universities money, in most cases, the institutions will need to spend money now to reduce costs in the long term. To achieve this transformation, many colleges are—individually or in cooperation with other schools—establishing formal “climate commitments,” setting specific goals, and developing tools to track their investments and evaluate their progress.

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Despite these challenges, there are many compelling reasons to act now. Saving money on operating costs, thus making the school more competitive in the long term, is an appealing incentive. In fact, many schools have made solid and sometimes immediate gains by greening some aspect of their campus. For example, by changing its parking and transit systems to encourage more carpooling, biking, and walking, Cornell University has saved 417,000 gallons of fuel and cut costs by $36 million over the last twelve years (“Call for Climate Leadership” 10). By installing geothermal wells and replacing its old power plant with a geothermal pump system, the University of Central Missouri is saving 31 percent in energy costs, according to a case study in Climate Neutral Campus Report (Trane). These changes were not merely a social, or even a political, response, but a necessary part of updating the campus. Betty Roberts, the UCM vice president for administration, was faced with the problem of how to “make a change for the benefit of the institution . . . with no money.” After saving several million dollars by choosing to go green, Roberts naturally reported that the school was “very happy!” with its decision (qtd. in Trane). There is more to be gained than just savings, however. Oberlin College not only saves money by generating its own solar energy (as shown in Fig. 1) but also makes money by selling its excess electricity back to the local power company (Petersen). Many other schools have taken similar steps, with similarly positive results.

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Attracting the attention of the media, donors, and—most significantly—prospective students is another practical reason for schools to go green. As one researcher explains, “There is enough evidence nationwide to detect an arms-race of sorts among universities competing for green status” (Krizek et al. 27). The Princeton Review now includes a “green rating,” and according to recent studies, more than two thirds of college applicants say that they consider green ratings when choosing a school (Krizek et al. 27). A school’s commitment to the environment can also bring in large private donations. For example, Carnegie Mellon University attracted $1.7 million from the National Science Foundation for its new Center for Sustainable Engineering (Egan). The University of California, Davis, will be receiving up to $25 million from the Chevron Corporation to research biofuel technology (“Call for Climate Leadership” 10). While greening certainly costs money, a green commitment can also help a school remain financially viable.

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In addition to these practical reasons for going green, universities also have another, perhaps more important, reason to promote and model sustainability: doing so may help solve the climate crisis. Although an individual school’s reduction of emissions may not noticeably affect global warming, its graduates will be in a position to make a huge impact. College is a critical time in most students’ personal and professional development. Students are making choices about what kind of adults they will be, and they are also receiving the training, education, and experience that they will need to succeed in the working world. If universities can offer time, space, and incentives—both in and out of the classroom—to help students develop creative ways to live sustainably, these schools have the potential to change the thinking and habits of a whole generation.

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Many critics of greening claim that becoming environmentally friendly is too expensive and will result in higher tuition and fees. However, often a very small increase in fees, as little as a few dollars a semester, can be enough to help a school institute significant change. For example, at the University of Colorado–Boulder, a student-initiated $1 increase in fees allowed the school to purchase enough wind power to reduce its carbon emissions by 12 million pounds (“Call for Climate Leadership” 9). Significantly, the students were the ones who voted to increase their own fees to achieve a greener campus. Although university faculty and administrators’ commitment to sustainability is critical for any program’s success, few green initiatives will succeed without the enthusiastic support of the student body. Ultimately, students have the power. If they think their school is spending too much on green projects, then they can make a change or choose to go elsewhere.

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Other critics of the trend toward greener campuses believe that schools with commitments to sustainability are dictating how students should live rather than encouraging free thought. As one critic says, “Once [sustainability literacy] is enshrined in a university’s public pronouncements or private articles, then the institution has diminished its commitment to academic inquiry” (Butcher). This kind of criticism overlooks the fact that figuring out how to achieve sustainability requires and will continue to require rigorous critical thinking and creativity. Why not apply the academic skills of inquiry, analysis, and problem solving to the biggest problem of our day? Not doing so would be irresponsible and would confirm the perception that universities are ivory towers of irrelevant knowledge. In fact, the presence of sustainability as both a goal and a subject of study has the potential to reaffirm academia’s place at the center of civil society.

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Creating a green campus is a difficult task, but universities must rise to the challenge or face the consequences. If they do not commit to changing their ways, they will become less and less able to compete for students and for funding. If they refuse to make a comprehensive commitment to sustainability, they also risk irrelevance at best and institutional collapse at worst. Finally, by not rising to the challenge, they will be giving up the opportunity to establish themselves as leaders in addressing the climate crisis. As the coalition of American College and University Presidents states in its Climate Commitment, “No other institution has the influence, the critical mass and the diversity of skills needed to successfully reverse global warming” (“Call for Climate Leadership” 13). Now is the time for schools to make the choice and pledge to go green.

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Works Cited

Butcher, Jim. “Keep the Green Moral Agenda off Campus.” Times Higher Education, 19 Oct. 2007, www.timeshighereducation.com/news/keep-the-green-moral-agenda-off-campus/310853.article.

“A Call for Climate Leadership.” American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, Aug. 2009, www2.presidentsclimatecommitment.org/html/documents/ACUPCC_InfoPacketv2.pdf

Egan, Timothy. “The Greening of America’s Campuses.” New York Times, 8 Jan. 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/education/edlife/egan_environment.html?scp=1&amp%3Bsq=The&_r=0.

“Environmentalism.” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, 2015, www.britannica.com/topic/environmentalism.

Krizek, Kevin J., Dave Newport, James White, and Alan R. Townsend. “Higher Education’s Sustainability Imperative: How to Practically Respond?” International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 13, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1-33. DOI: 10.1108/14676371211190281.

Petersen, John. “A Green Curriculum Involves Everyone on Campus.” Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 54, no. 41, 2008, p. A25. ERIC Institute of Education Services, eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ801316.

Trane. “University of Central Missouri.” Climate Neutral Campus Report, Kyoto Publishing, 14 Aug. 2009, secondnature.org/wp-content/uploads/09-8-14_ClimateNeutralCampusReportReleased.pdf.