(Photo by Robert Barossi)

by Robert Barossi

Many of tomorrow’s environmental leaders, thinkers and volunteers are today’s college students. At colleges and universities around the world, young people are getting together and getting involved. At the recent climate change march in New York City, the “Student Section” of the assembled crowd was enormous and very vocal. Many colleges have begun to implement or increase environmental stewardship programs on their campuses. And student groups are getting involved on campus and, perhaps more importantly, in their surrounding communities. At Northwestern University, the Associated Student Government’s Sustainability Committee recently held its first-ever Environmental Day of Service. A number of campus groups were invited or involved, including fraternities and sororities. While students did participate in activities to clean up their campus, they got out into the surrounding area, taking part in tasks such as removing invasive species.

For more information about colleges that are very environmentally friendly and at the forefront of campus sustainability, The Princeton Review has a Green Honor Roll that lists 24 schools. Every year, the Sierra Club puts out a list of America’s Greenest Colleges, here is there most recent list. (Proud to say that mine is on both of those lists) There’s also this list of 50 affordable eco-friendly colleges. And this one that breaks it down into greenest college by state.