The University of Southern Maine’s sustainability program is being brought to the next level: USM has been selected as one of about 90 colleges nationwide to participate in the pilot stage of a new rating system.
This Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) is being developed as a means to measure and compare sustainability progress throughout college campuses nationwide.
While similar to the LEED rating system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a program that has awarded certification to a handful of USM buildings, STARS is a program that takes into account the sustainability processes of the entire campus, from building materials to food, curriculum, finances and more.
STARS is being developed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), and has been launched to the testing stage this semester after approximately two years of preparation.
Ultimately, the completed program will give college campuses a system on which to base their sustainability measurements. Once this common system is in place, schools will be able to compare ratings and progress – even between schools that are very different from each other in all other aspects.
STARS works by creating a series of categories and subcategories in which the school can earn points based on its sustainability data. Some of these categories may change substantially before the testing is complete, but that’s why this testing phase is so important.
“It’s about involving people and finding out which processes work and where the barriers are,” says Dudley Greeley, USM’s sustainability coordinator.
These categories and points will become the standard upon which schools will base their ratings.
Greeley says that STARS will help USM to collect and control its data. “It’s important,” he says, “to create a common baseline by which you can compare your own situation from year to year; that’s the way it’s most useful.”
Once implemented, STARS will allow USM to eliminate waste and track its own sustainability information more efficiently.
“We’ve had problems with how to measure our ability to recycle, or buy more responsible flooring, or paint our walls with less problematic paint, and get some policies and systems developed, and this process is going to help move that forward, help formalize it, and help get more people involved.”
The testing phase began this semester. In order to participate, USM needed to be a member of AASHE – which carries a $1000 annual price tag. Due to a donation, the university was able to join and sign on to the STARS pilot stage.
While there are plenty of other “green” programs going on around campus, Greeley believes that this one has the potential to help organize the other campus efforts and create more community. One of the long-term benefits would be to keep sustainability programs on-track as students come and go over the years.
Right now, Greeley and other faculty and staff are involved in coordinating the data, much of which is gathered by students.
Travis Wagner, assistant professor of Environmental Science & Policy, is getting students from his 300-level class involved in gathering data for the STARS project. Most of them are helping with the environmental categories of STARS, but others have looked for information from food services and other areas.
“This has been a difficult task, actually trying to find this data,” Wagner says. “You would think it’s pretty readily available and it’s not.”
Moving toward a more sustainable and environmentally “greener” campus can be difficult, says Greeley, because “it’s not going to change overnight. Measuring a campus’s sustainability indicators is not an easy task.”
Eventually, however, he believes that not only will this program help USM become a more sustainable campus, but it will also allow all participating schools to learn more efficient processes and be able to compare notes more easily.
“Ultimately,” Greeley says, “it’s about culture change. This process is saying, ‘let’s change this around; let’s start to measure more than just the money.'”