Northfield, Minn.––Carleton College is one of only 26 higher education institutions nationwide to receive an A- on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010.

The group rated Carleton an “A” in the categories of food and recycling, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, and investment priorities. The report card graded Carleton a “B” in administration, climate change, and energy and green building.

Carleton was one of three Minnesota higher education institutions to receive an overall “A-“ grade, joined by Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, on the top-performers list. Carleton has received a top grade of “A-“ the last three years, the only Minnesota school to earn that distinction.

In the leadership categories, Carleton was an Overall College Sustainability Leader, Campus Sustainability Leader, and Endowment Sustainability Leader. The report highlighted a number of areas where Carleton excelled in the different categories. In the food and recycling area, the report notes the College spends a quarter of its annual food budget on local items including produce, meat, and organic greens, and that both dining halls compost pre- and postconsumer food waste. In student involvement, the College has a theme house, Farm House, that promotes sustainable living and is home to the campus garden. Student groups have created a thrift store, advocated for tray-less dining halls, work in the campus garden, and run a Green Wars dorm energy- and water-use competition. Carleton’s transportation efforts includes four hybrids in the campus fleet, parking spots reserved for faculty and staff who carpool to work, and free student shuttles to Northfield merchants. There is a communal bike-sharing program, and students can rent campus fleet vehicles. Most parking is located on the edge of campus to encourage walking and biking. In the area of endowment transparency and investment priorities, the College makes a list of all holdings available online to trustees, senior administrators, and other select members of the school community, while equity holdings information is available to the public. A list of votes cast on proxy resolutions on a company-specific level is accessible online to the public.

Now in its fourth year, the College Sustainability Report Card covers the colleges and universities with the 300 largest endowments in the United States and Canada, as well as 32 additional schools that applied for inclusion.  The profiled schools have combined holdings representing more than $325 billion in endowment assets, or more than 95 percent of all university endowments.