University of Washington

College Sustainability Report Card 2007

In August 2004, newly-arrived University of Washington President Mark A. Emmert created an Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee, an Environmental Stewardship Coordinator position, and formalized a Policy on Environmental Stewardship to give full institutional support to the cause of campus sustainability. UW works to integrate sustainability objectives into every position and community member in order to demonstrate the concept by example. The campus had been working on energy conservation measures since the late 1980s.

All of the Seattle campus’s electricity purchases are from renewable and carbon-neutral sources. Since the early 1990s, the University has been working with the Seattle City Lights utility company—which has a portfolio that is 93 percent renewable and 100 percent carbon-neutral or carbon-mitigated—to reduce energy use on campus. In May of 2006, the University began paying a premium for renewable wind energy for the remaining 7 percent of its electricity needs, making it among the top ten largest higher-education purchasers of renewable energy credits in the country.

The University is able to request that their distributor purchase from certain local food sources as part of the Socially Aligned Partnerships program. Last year, $475,000 worth of fruits, herbs, and vegetables, grown locally by 46 farmers, was supplied by Charlie’s Produce, a local employee-owned company. The University provides a large array of organic products including milk, potatoes, coffee, tea, chocolate, cereal, pasta, and poultry. Food scraps are composted; unused food is donated to local charities; and “Scram,” an end of the year donation program, donated over 20,000 pounds of reusable material such as clothing, books, and furniture to local charities this year. Future projects may include converting used cooking oil into biodiesel and a reusable mug program.

In compliance with the State of Washington's High Performance Building legislation, the University of Washington declared that all new building will be LEED Silver-certified at a minimum. The University has acheived one LEED Certified and two LEED Silver-rated projects, totaling over 325,000 square feet. Three additional projects currently under construction, totaling 320,000 square feet, are targeted at LEED Silver and LEED Gold ratings and an additional four registered projects totaling 215,000 square feet are targeted at LEED Silver or higher. In addition, the University has over 50 LEED Accredited Professionals, 30 of whom work directly on the design and construction of new and renovated buildings.

The University has no known policy of disclosure of endowment holdings or its shareholder voting record.

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.