Seattle U is a ‘Top 50 Green College’

The Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges: 2021 Edition ranked Seattle University #16 in the U.S. in its latest publication examining the nation’s most environmentally responsible colleges. The university moved up five spots from last year’s ranking, which put it in the top four percent of all schools in the guide.

The schools that made a separate “Top 50 Green Colleges” list “share superb sustainability practices, a strong foundation in sustainability education and a healthy quality of life for students on campus,” according to the publication. The Princeton Review chose its Top 50 based on a combination of school-reported data and student opinion, collected in 2019–2020 via institutional and student surveys. The full methodology can be found here.

Details about Seattle U’s sustainability efforts can be found here in the Princeton Review’s profile. It notes the university’s ecological gardening techniques, food purchasing choices, compostable to-go ware and composting programs, among others.

The Princeton Review chose a total of 416 schools to rank based on a survey of administrators at 695 colleges in 2019–20 about their institutions’ commitments to the environment and sustainability. Editors analyzed more than 25 survey data points in the process of choosing schools for the guide.

Last month Seattle University continued its run of top rankings for sustainability by once again being named a Sierra “Cool School” for 2020. It earned a spot in Sierra magazine’s Top 20, placing #20 of 312 colleges and universities—Top 7 percent overall—that participated in the latest survey of sustainability practices. Seattle U is the only university in the Northwest to place in the top group.

And in August, Seattle U was the only college in the Northwestern U.S. to earn a spot in the Princeton Review’s 2021 Green Honor Roll of 30 colleges that earned the highest scores by the publication for their sustainability efforts.