The Sustainable Campus Index, an annual publication by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, recognized GW in its 2020 report of top-performing colleges and universities. The report assesses 17 sustainability impact areas, as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System.
The GW, Chatham University and Cascadia College tied for the top spot for sustainable grounds. In the last year GW has built on its ESG Task Force commitment to be carbon neutral by 2030 and to remove all historical emissions. Renewable energy contributes a cleaner approach to the energy mix.
The Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System is a transparent reporting framework developed by Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education recognized for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. With over 1,000 participating institutions, it is the leading tool for measuring higher education sustainability performance. All reports are publicly accessible on the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System website at https://stars.aashe.org/.
This latest ranking is another step in GW’s progress towards being a carbon neutral school and follows the university’s June pledge to not make any new investments in businesses that derive the majority of their revenue from the extraction of fossil fuels. GW has decided to eliminate 100 percent of all such investments from its endowment fund over the next five years.
A copy of the full Sustainable Campus Index report can be seen at https://www.aashe.org/news/aashe-releases-2020-sci/.