Rice University

College Sustainability Report Card 2007

A former Rice president signed the Talloires Declaration in 1995 and the Board of Trustees adopted a sustainability policy in 2004. The University employs a full-time sustainability planner and the Facilities Engineering and Planning Department excels in green cleaning practices and in creating a socially sustainable working environment for its custodians. Rice is working to connect campus environmental performance with class projects, independent study projects, and student extracurricular activities so that the campus acts as a hands-on laboratory for students to learn about sustainability and to make real changes.

A portion of campus energy supply comes from a co-generation plant on site and the University monitors energy use in real time and is taking building-specific measures such as recommissioning and changes in building set points for better energy conservation. A Rice class conducted a carbon emissions inventory of the campus in 1999 and an update is scheduled for 2007.

Organic, fair-trade coffee is available at the campus coffeehouse, and cage-free eggs and occasional organic products are purchased by dining services. Excess cooking oil from the kitchens is used as biodiesel for campus groundskeeping vehicles and is now also being tested in a campus shuttle bus. Rice’s recycling program has a current diversion rate of 27 percent and the University finished in the upper half of an intercollegiate recycling competition.

All the University's future buildings will meet some level of LEED certification. In addition, sustainable design features are increasingly being incorporated into renovations of existing buildings, however this has not been articulated in policy.

The University has made no public statements about making endowment holdings or shareholder voting records available. Therefore, there is no known ability to access this information.

The University prioritizes investing to maximize profit and has not made any public statements about investigating or investing in renewable energy funds or community development loan funds.

The University has not made any public statements about active ownership or a proxy voting policy.