Making strides in sustainability is a campuswide effort.
While purple is the brand color for St. Thomas, when it comes to sustainability, the university is pure gold. This spring, four years ahead of the schedule outlined in the St. Thomas 2025 plan, the university earned a STARS gold rating for its sustainability achievements. And earlier this academic year, Tommie East Residence Hall was awarded a prestigious LEED
sustainability into St. Thomas’ culture and align it with the university’s mission and Catholic identity. It includes the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2035. In 2020, the Undergraduate Student Government released a complementary set of intentions. The Zero Waste Resolution has a long-term goal of making the university a zero-waste campus.
Platinum certification for sustainable building design and construction. STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System overseen by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education, including academics, campus engagement and operations. “We have been working hard at achieving the STARS gold rating,” said Assistant Director of Campus Sustainability and Sustainability Advisory Council Chair Amir Nadav. “When we developed the university’s sustainability strategic plan, we were very intentional about linking our goals to what we learned from the university’s 2018 STARS report. The rating is a great affirmation that our process worked, even better than we expected.”
The university also has received accolades in the environmental arena for its transportation and community engagement. It has installed several bike repair stations, indoor secure bike parking and electric vehicle charging stations on campus within the past year. Living sustainably on campus Tommie East, a 2020-built residence hall, became one of only seven mid-rise residential buildings in the world to certify Platinum under the rigorous LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) v4 new construction rating system. This green-building rating system, the most widely used in the world, is considered an international symbol of excellence. Residents of the eco-friendly building can truly say they live in one of the
country’s greenest residence halls. The building received high marks for several features, including collection of compostable waste, carpet made from recycled content, over 8,000 square feet of vegetated roof area and energy efficiency above industry standards. “St. Thomas is doing a lot with sustainability. It’s really exciting,” said Ariana Porcello ’23, the Undergraduate Student Government sustainability representative elected by her peers. “I always say, get involved. Take action, because there are so many opportunities to do that at St. Thomas.” n
Making a plan to create change Many on campus are committed to making it a more environmentally aware place. Nadav, through the Office of Sustainability Initiatives and in partnership with the Sustainability Council, launched a brainstorming and visioning process in the fall of 2018 to receive input from across the community with the first universitywide sustainability strategic plan presented to the Board of Trustees in fall 2019. The five-year plan stems from 18 months of assessing the campus and exploringways to integrate
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