{"id":19634,"date":"2022-09-08T16:26:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=19634"},"modified":"2023-09-07T16:53:12","modified_gmt":"2023-09-07T20:53:12","slug":"furman-ranks-third-in-aashes-nationwide-sustainability-index","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-ranks-third-in-aashes-nationwide-sustainability-index\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman ranks third in AASHE&#8217;s nationwide sustainability index"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Furman University has been recognized as the No. 3 overall performer in the 2022 Sustainable Campus Index, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/09\/10\/furmans-green-goals-gain-gold-from-stars\/\">continuing its hold on the third spot<\/a> in the national rankings among baccalaureate institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Furman also achieved a top performer rating in the Campus Engagement category this year among all types of institutions. Only two universities in the Southeast earned spots in the top 10 performers; the other was Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n<p>The 2022 Sustainable Campus Index, a publication of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aashe.org\">Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education<\/a> (AASHE), recognizes top-performing colleges and universities overall and in 17 sustainability impact areas, as measured by the <a href=\"http:\/\/stars.aashe.org\">Sustainability Tracking, Assessment &amp; Rating System (STARS)<\/a>. The report also highlights innovative and high-impact initiatives from institutions that submitted STARS reports in the most recent calendar year.<\/p>\n<p>AASHE\u2019s STARS program is the most widely recognized report card in the world for grading sustainability performance in higher education. Furman currently holds a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/stars.aashe.org\/institutions\/furman-university-sc\/report\/\">STARS \u201cGold Rating\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in recognition of its sustainability achievements, and is one of just a few institutions in the Southeast to reach this rating.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Bain, associate director of sustainability assessment at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/shi-institute\/\">Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities<\/a>, points to the inclusion of sustainability in academics and curricula \u2013 the seedbed for research \u2013 as driving forces in Furman\u2019s high ranking, and why Furman is the only four-year institution in the top performers representing the South.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFurman is one of the only liberal arts institution in the United States that offers a bachelor of science degree in sustainability science,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd all students, regardless of major, are required to take a course that explores humans and the natural environment. Plus many of our courses include a sustainability topic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Also contributing to Furman\u2019s strong showing in the index, Bain says, are Furman\u2019s \u201crobust\u201d outreach and education programs such as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/sustainability\/programs\/green-office\/\">Green Office Program<\/a>\u00a0for employees and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/sustainability\/programs\/eco-reps\/\">Eco-Reps<\/a>\u00a0program for students.<\/p>\n<p>More broadly, she says sustainability is woven into long-term planning beginning with the 2009 Sustainable Furman master plan, which has taken on additional components over the years including diversity initiatives, procurement guidelines and wellness programs.<\/p>\n<p>The full Sustainable Campus Index report is available at this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aashe.org\/sustainable-campus-index\/\">link<\/a>\u00a0(see page 43).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2022 Sustainable Campus Index, a publication of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), recognizes top-performing colleges and universities overall and in 17 sustainability impact areas, as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment &amp; Rating System (STARS).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":19635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shi-institute-for-sustainable-communities","category-sustainability"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}