Samantha Blons
Assistant News Editor
Pepperdine is moving in the right direction, but it isn’t yet making top grades on “green” issues, according to the Green Report Card, which ranks it below at least 160 colleges and universities. When the Sustainable Endowment Institute released its 2009 online sustainability profiles for 300 schools this week, Pepperdine received a C, up from a D- in 2008.
However, University officials said they are proud of Pepperdine’s green initiatives, which include recycling 100 percent of the wastewater generated on campus, reusing plant waste in landscaping practices, planting native vegetation, offering free trade coffee and local foods in the Waves Café and incorporating “green” building standards into construction projects.
“We are proud of the measures that we have done here at the university … but we can always do more,” said Rhiannon Pregitzer, director of Regulatory Affairs, who functions as the university’s sustainability officer. “We incorporate these measures because it’s the right thing to do, not because of some trend or some external pressure. We’re not doing things in order to respond to surveys.”
The survey examined administrative policies, energy use, food, recycling, green building practices and other sustainability issues on campus. Pepperdine’s highest grade was an A for “investment priorities,” because the school invests in renewable energy funds and considers sustainability in real estate decisions. Its worst marks were Ds for administration, energy, green building and shareholder engagement.
Though Pregitzer said she thinks the survey is “a fantastic tool” to view a snapshot of a school’s environmental policies, she finds it lacking in that it is “very narrow in scope.”
“A lot of the questions in the survey don’t allow us to incorporate a lot of the really important measures here on campus,” Pregitzer said.
Specifically, the survey does not take into account Pepperdine’s 30-year commitment to water conservation, or its use of native vegetation.
“Some of the things we do just frankly don’t get included in their survey,” she said. “If it ends up that [our projects] are not included in the survey and don’t count for anything, that hurts our grade.”
Underscoring this point is a different “green” rating by the Princeton Review, scoring Pepperdine higher, with 80 points out of 99.
Pepperdine fared better in the Green Report Card than some of its rivals. Loyola Marymount received a C- and University of San Diego scored a D+. But, when comparing it with Santa Clara, which received a B, and Stanford’s A-, Pepperdine has room for improvement.
According to Lisa Chase, senior communications fellow at the Sustainable Endowment Institute, which released the survey, Pepperdine is taking initial steps toward sustainable practices.
“[Pepperdine] probably just has some work to do to implement them,” Chase said. “I mean, obviously it takes time. As [University officials] make more progress on undertaking those initiatives, the grades will go up.”
10-02-2008