In green practices and policies, the UW comes in at the top of its class.

The University earned an average grade of “A-” on the 2008 College Sustainability Report Card, an independent environmental sustainability evaluation of campus operations and endowment investments.

Of the 200 schools evaluated on the report card, the UW is tied for the highest average grade with Harvard University and Dartmouth, Middlebury and Carleton colleges, and the University of Virginia. The Sustainable Endowments Institute, a special project of the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, published the report in October 2007.

“We’re very proud of it,” said Norm Arkans, executive director of media relations for the UW, of the UW’s grade. Noting ongoing efforts to further reduce the UW’s carbon footprint, he added, “We’d like to see the minus go away; we’d like to see straight A’s.”

The institute commended the UW for administrative actions such as signing on to the Presidents Climate Commitment, where the UW pledged to achieve carbon neutrality, and for forming the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee (ESAC), which makes recommendations to the University to reduce its carbon emissions.

The UW is also a founding member of the Seattle Climate Partnership (SCP), a voluntary pact among Seattle-area employers to reduce their emissions and help Seattle meet Kyoto Protocol guidelines. To this end, the University purchases 100 percent renewable electricity for the Seattle campus.

The institute noted that the UW dining services spends millions of dollars annually on locally produced organic and natural foods. To reduce the impact of carbon emissions from transportation, the UW encourages its population to use public transportation with the U-PASS program, and it maintains a fleet of more than 300 alternative fuel, hybrid, electric, and biodiesel-powered vehicles and trucks.

The UW’s grade on the report card is up from a “B-“ from the previous year.

UW Provost Phyllis Wise is pushing for the University to take an even greater lead in environmental stewardship and sustainability.

Wise is working to have an interdisciplinary College of the Environment at the UW in the near future. If the college is founded, Wise said, the UW would be one of the premier colleges on the environment in the country — if not the world.

The college would pull together faculty and students from many departments — primarily from the natural sciences and social sciences — to focus on the science of and solutions to contemporary environmental issues like global warming.

Wise says she will propose plans for the college to the UW Board of Regents in June.

While the report card reflects the UW’s efforts to reduce its own environmental impact, the college would enable the University to increase its already significant impact on environmental policies and practices in broader society. The college would produce research that might affect policies and teach students to be effective stewards of the environment.

“Ultimately, if we’re going to do anything to steward the environment, we’re going to have to change human behavior,” Wise said.

Stephanie Harrington, senior development director of the UW Earth Initiative, has been charged with helping to form the College of the Environment. She says the college would pull together the University’s existing strengths in environmental studies.

More than 50 UW researchers, faculty and students contributed to reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which won the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore in 2007.

“We’re a powerhouse University in climate research,” Harrington said.

[Reach reporter Jacob Olson at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]

See tomorrow’s paper for a preview of the UW’s Focus the Nation event.