Tag Archives | ACUPCC

APUS Celebrates Earth Day and Wellness

By on April 26, 2013 in American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, APUS Sustainability Efforts, Earth Day, Sustainability in Higher Education

In the last five or six years, the prevalence of workplace wellness programs and sustainability initiatives has increased tremendously.  A 2012 RAND report sponsored by the US Department of Labor and the US Department of Health and Human Services notes that “92 percent of employers with 200 or more employees reported offering [health and wellness programs] in 2009.”  A 2011 KPMG report notes that “sustainability has moved up the corporate agenda over the past three years.”  According to the report, “sixty-two percent of companies surveyed have a strategy for corporate sustainability, up from just over half in February 2008…”  The American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) now has nearly 700 signatories (including APUS), indicating the increasing environmental consciousness within the educational community. … Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

Campus Sustainability: It’s About People

By on October 24, 2012 in Book/Resource Reviews, Sustainability in Higher Education

by Kelly Wenner

In the April 2012 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education there was an essay entitled “Campus Sustainability: It’s About People” that caught my eye.  In the article, the writer, Dave Newport, Director of the Environmental Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, comments on the state of environmentalism, and how campus sustainability is the newest vision the movement has encountered.

Pulling ideas from the essay “The Death of Environmentalism” by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (President and Chairman, respectively, of “paradigm-shifting think tank,” The Breakthrough Institute), Newport surmises that for environmentalism to become more than a passing fad it needs to focus on people, and become less “eco-centric.” Newport continues to describe campus sustainability efforts as having a three-pronged approach: environmental protection, fiscal equity, and social justice.  He notes the importance of the growth of organizations like The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).  Even the Princeton Review now assesses how “green” a campus is in its annual ratings.  However, with all of this growth in campus sustainability efforts, the focus is mainly on conservation, neglecting the other two facets of a true environmentalist effort.… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

APUS Opens New Green Finance Center

By on September 18, 2012 in American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, APUS Sustainability Efforts, Current Events, Green-Building, LEED Building, Renewable Energy, Sustainability in Higher Education

In the latest addition to its headquarters in Charles Town, West Virginia, American Public University System (a fully online university serving more than 100,000 students) is celebrating the opening of its 105,000 square foot environmentally-friendly Finance Center.  The building sits adjacent to the school’s Academic Center which opened in November 2010.  Both buildings were built to US Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Gold standards, a level above the Silver standard required of APUS as a charter signatory of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

The Progress and Promise of the ACUPCC

By on July 20, 2012 in American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, APUS Sustainability Efforts, Current Events, Green-Building, LEED Building, Renewable Energy, Sustainability in Higher Education, Sustainability Resources

by Beth Gray

As mentioned in a recent article on this blog, the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) is celebrating its fifth anniversary this year.  Our previous article explores the background of the ACUPCC and the progress the commitment has made in gaining support and membership.  Beginning with only twelve founding members, the ACUPCC now boasts nearly 700 signatories from across the country.  At the ACUPCC’s 6th Annual Climate Leadership Summit held in Washington, DC last month, participants were treated to a chronicling of the tangible progress made by those nearly 700 schools to date.  The quantitative progress made is significant and worth noting.… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

A Truly Dire 2012 Prediction

By on June 22, 2012 in American College and University Presidents' Climate Commitment, Sustainability General, Sustainability in Higher Education

by Ryan Harding

Admittedly, against a cultural backdrop in which apocalyptic narratives have considerable purchase, and have become somewhat of a cultural curiosity, the prospect that an actual global catastrophe might go relatively unnoticed, seems somewhat preposterous. In truth, although at the moment the issue of climate change may not seem as culturally galvanizing or captivating as, say, the Maya 2012 prediction, considerable research and attention—both popular and scholarly—has indeed been paid to the defining problem of our era. All of this attention, and the groundswells that have followed each spike in interest in climate change, have yet to be translated into a meaningful, coherent global, or even national movement, however.… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

Transparency and the Future of Sustainability in Higher Education

By on February 14, 2012 in Sustainability General, Sustainability in Higher Education

by Ryan Harding

Last year, Hannah Jones, VP of Sustainable Business at Nike, wrote that businesses must adjust their sights, and begin to see sustainability as a “strategic prism.” The line of thinking Jones adopts seems to be an iteration of a familiar idea: to gain a competitive advantage in today’s progressively green-minded marketplace, sustainability must be allowed to develop into a constitutive strategic element driving and leading the commercial activities of businesses. Sustainability in the 21st century, Jones reflects, has developed into “a core strategic imperative for any company that intends to thrive and grow in the years ahead.”

Beyond labeling sustainability a “core strategic imperative”, or, translated into the rather muddled parlance in which I write, a universal social imperative, Jones underscores the transformative impact of transparency in the promotion of social movements encouraging structural changes to existing cultural paradigms.… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }

The Campus Sustainability Movement

By on March 22, 2010 in Environmental Protection

By Wesley Holmes

As APUS has grown and expanded it has consistently embraced an environmentally conscious business model. The decision to achieve LEED Gold standards of performance for the new Academic Center is a continuation of this sustainable philosophy and representative of a collective movement among colleges and universities across North America to make our educational institutions more environmentally sound and economically sustainable. A quick Google Scholar search of “greening our academic institutions” reveals that the idea of colleges and universities taking a lead role in environmental sustainability emerged in the early 1990’s and has been steadily gaining in momentum over the past two decades.… Read the rest

Continue Reading • Comments { 0 }