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PLU Recognized by Arbor Day Foundation and Princeton Review Guide for Commitment to Sustainability
PLU Recognized by Arbor Day Foundation and Princeton Review Guide for Commitment to Sustainability
Image: Pacific Lutheran University’s Red Square (Photo: John Froschauer/PLU)
By Zach Powers '10
PLU Marketing & Communications
TACOMA, WASH. (April 17, 2015) Pacific Lutheran University has earned 2014 Tree Campus USA Recognition from the Arbor Day Foundation and will be included in the 2015 edition of The Princeton Review Guide to 353 Green Colleges.
“PLU has long been recognized as a leader in defining the work of sustainability in higher education,” said PLU Sustainability Lead Nick Lorax. “It is our privilege and our challenge to discern how we translate our leadership into action on campus and beyond.”
Tree Campus USA is a national program created in 2008 by the Arbor Day Foundation to honor colleges and universities for effective campus forest management and for engaging staff and students in conservation goals.
PLU achieved this honor by meeting Tree Campus USA’s five standards, which include maintaining a tree-advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning projects.
The recognition from the Princeton Review identities PLU as one of the 353 most environmentally responsible colleges in the United States. The education services company chose the schools for the sixth annual edition of its “Green Guide” based on data from its 2014 survey of hundreds of four-year colleges concerning the schools’ commitments to the environment and sustainability.
“We strongly recommend PLU and the other fine colleges in this guide to the many environmentally minded students who seek to study and live at green colleges,” said The Princeton Review’s Robert Franek, Senior Vice President Publisher.
Franek noted the growing interest the company has seen among college-bound students in green colleges. “Among nearly 10,000 teens who participated in our 2015 College Hopes & Worries Survey, 61 percent told us that having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the college.”
Sustainability at PLU focuses on three key components: care for people, care for the planet and prosperity, both now and in the future. These values emphasize the inseparable relationships between environmental, economic and ethical principles that call on all individuals and communities to ensure that our present way of life leaves the world a better place for all.
Additionally, PLU signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment in 2007, pledging to achieve carbon neutrality by 2020.
