SLU Named a Top Green School by ‘The Princeton Review’

11/12/2021

Saint Louis University has made the list of the nation's environmentally responsible schools in The Princeton Review’s 12th annual Guide to Green Colleges.

The guide debuted in 2010 for students interested in attending colleges with strong commitments to the environment and sustainability. This year’s Guide to Green Colleges, the 2022 Edition, profiles 420 colleges the company chose out of 835 schools it surveyed for this project. 

The survey was conducted during the 2020–21 academic year. It included questions covering more than 25 data points.

Saint Louis University has greatly increased its green power use through a student-led initiative. Green power is electricity generated from environmentally-preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, eligible biomass, and low-impact hydro. 

In 2018, SLU became Missouri’s first institution of higher education to commit to matching all electricity used in student residence halls with renewable energy through Ameren Missouri’s Pure Power Program.

SLU students voted to tax themselves $20 a semester to reduce their carbon footprint to help defray the cost of purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates to replace energy used in residence halls.

In 2019, the University committed to purchasing 125 million kilowatts of renewable energy certificates.

SLU’s green-power approach was recognized in 2020 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). SLU was named as one of the agency’s 12 top Green Power Partners during its 20th annual Green Power Leadership Awards program. 

Smaller projects have also helped SLU go green. In early 2021, Saint Louis University maintenance workers from several crews retrofitted all lighting in McDonnell Douglas Hall to LED, an energy-saving alternative.