The Sierra Club publishes an annual ranking called the Cool Schools Ranking to measure which schools are doing the most towards the Sierra Club’s broader sustainability priorities. Any schools not participating in the STARS program received a score of zero for the sake of this exercise. Because STARS is self-reported, institutions can continually make improvements and resubmit for a higher score. Dozens of different metrics are included in the STARS measurements, including in the categories of curriculum (e.g., whether the institution offers sustainability-focused degree programs), campus engagement (e.g., whether sustainability-related outreach campaigns are held on campus), energy use (e.g., availability of clean and renewable energy sources on campus), transportation (e.g., inclusion of alternative fuel or hybrid electric vehicles in the institution’s fleet), and many more that are found in the credit checklist.īased on performance based on these metrics, each school can earn up to 100 points and a corresponding rating of STARS Reporter, STARS Bronze, STARS Silver, STARS Gold, or STARS Platinum. STARS is completely voluntary, transparent, and based on self reporting. The mission statement of STARS details how it “is intended to engage and recognize the full spectrum of colleges and universities- from community colleges to research universities- and encompasses long-term sustainability goals for already high-achieving institutions as well as entry points of recognition for institutions that are taking first steps towards sustainability.” The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) uses its Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) to measure how successfully institutions have been performing in sustainability matters. The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System The same metrics will be used to determine winners in this article that were used to determine the field for the previously described Green March Madness Tournament, so if you’ve already read that (or if you don’t care to read the methodology and just want to skip to the end to see if your school has bragging rights in this alternative method to crowning a champion) then feel free to skip over this recap of the three sets of metrics used to determine the rankings.Īfter research into the topic, I found three prominent third-party measurements that score and rank the efforts of institutions of higher learning in the United States to incorporate sustainable practices, energy-saving measures, and environmentally-friendly practices (with the latest version of each score pulled in later February 2018). Who would be the Cinderella teams, the major upsets, and the National Champion if all the players in the tournament lost their talent in a ‘Space Jam’-like incident and the winners of each game were instead determined by each school’s efforts towards sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmentalism? But now that the real 2018 field of teams has been set based on actual basketball measures, we can use the same sustainability ranking system play out the tournament if sustainability determined the winners. In setting the field this way, some teams made the tournament (and made deep runs) that would normally never get a chance in the actual NCAA Basketball Tournament (including crowning American University as ‘2018 Green March Madness Champion’). Energy efficiency is usually restricted to comparing washing machines or power generation, but what if each team in the NCAA Basketball Tournament was scored on the energy efficiency of its institution, as well as metrics ranking them on sustainability, environmental stewardship, and other ‘green’ factors?Ī few weeks ago, I posted an article that ranked all 351 schools eligible to participate in March Madness and showed what the field of 68 teams would look like if they were based on the average of three different sustainability scores. When efficiency is brought up regarding basketball predictions, you’d typically expect to hear about offensive efficiency or defensive efficiency, statistics that measure how effectively a team or player scores or prevents others from scoring, respectively.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |