Green College Spotlight: University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota is among the nation’s most sustainability-dedicated institutions of higher learning, with green projects and practices extending into all areas of campus activity. Becoming a sustainable university is a tough goal to reach when you’ve got over 60,000 students, and UMN definitely deserves some major props for all of their hard work.
President Robert H. Bruininks has played a major part in increasing the University of Minnesota’s commitment to sustainability, signing the Presidents Climate Commitment and funding research and development in renewable energy. The university also adopted a sustainability and environmental policy, and a broad-based committee oversees campus sustainability priorities.
The University of Minnesota requires all new construction and renovation projects to meet sustainability guidelines, and has already completed a 50,000-seat LEED-gold certified stadium that is due to open this September. Science Teaching and Student Services Building, and the New Bell Museum of Natural History are also seeking LEED certification. UMN is also powered partially with biomass, and solar panels were installed on the College of Design for demonstration and research.
Students, faculty and staff get around on public transportation at discounted rates, and many also ride bicycles. The university also has 75 E85 vehicles in its fleet, as well as 53 hybrids. UMN purchases B20 fuel made from waste oil and soybeans.
A member of the Heartland Food Network, UMN purchases 18 percent of its food locally and also gets some of its food from campus’s Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and UMN Cornercopia. The university recycles approximately 30 percent of the school’s solid waste and 50 percent of its debris waste.
UMN is also a great choice for students who want to become the green leaders of the future, from scientists to business people. In fact, several environment-related departments and graduate programs are highly ranked at the national level by the National Resource Council, including Evolution Ecology and Behavior, Geography and the School of Public Health.
The University of Minnesota has many more sustainability initiatives and improvements than we can go over here – learn more about their efforts at the UMN sustainability website!
Link UMN + Green College Report Card
Related posts:
- Green College Spotlight: University of Florida at Gainesville
- Green College Spotlight: University of New Hampshire
- Green College Spotlight: Arizona State University at Tempe
- Green College Spotlight: Brandeis University
- Green College Spotlight: Yale University
This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Consciousness, Green Living, Health, Science, Spirituality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
