The Princeton Review is out with its top picks for the nation's most environmentally friendly schools, and the University of California, Santa Barbara is among the top picks.
The 2014 version of the publications Green Colleges Guide includes 330 institutions of higher education in the United States and two in Canada that demonstrate a strong commitment to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities, and career preparation. In addition, just 22 schools are chosen for the so-called Green College Honor Roll.
Nearly a third of those universities named on the honor roll are located in California, including UCSB (see Calif. list below).
The university was picked for its long running and comprehensive environmental practices. George Foulsham is the director of media relations at UCSB and says students deserve a lot of the credit.
"We have an extremely environmentally friendly student body," said Foulsham. "They came up with the campus water action plan that has gotten a lot of attention and has been recognized with many awards."
Foulsham says the university doesn't need to enact any special drought measures this year because students, staff and faculty have already done such a great job of cutting back on water usage. In addition, he says nearly 90 percent of the UCSB campus uses reclaimed water for irrigation.
Other California schools making the honor roll include:
- Chico State University
- Pomona College
- Stanford University
- UC Irvine
- UCLA
- UC Santa Cruz