COA tops green college list for sixth consecutive year

College of the Atlantic, with a 36-acre campus in coastal Bar Harbor, Maine, two organic farms, and two island research stations, is the greenest college in the country according to the Princeton Review's 2022 Guide to Green Colleges.

A focus on sustainability is at the heart of COA’s human-ecological education, which explores humans’ relationships with their natural, social, and built environments. Over the school’s 50-year history, this focus has enabled student-led initiatives to divest from fossil fuels, ban single-use plastics, and strive toward a zero-waste campus, among others.

Utilizing the COA campus as a laboratory for exploring sustainability across these areas gives students the time and tools to merge theoretical learning with experiential practice, while being able to focus on real-world results, said COA President Darron Collins ’92.

As the #1 green college, COA shares a commitment with other top sustainable schools to utilize regional and organic foods in campus food systems. “The combination of intellectual understanding and learning-by-doing is a powerful tool that prepares students to become active, involved citizens, and helps them launch tremendous careers,” Collins said. “Our commitment to sustainability is at the very core of who we are as an institution, and we are honored to have our work on campus and our innovative academics recognized by The Princeton Review.”

The twelfth-annual guide ranks schools on their recycling and conservation programs, use of renewable energy, relationships with local food systems, and more. COA and Ecoleague partner Dickinson College hold the first and second spots on the Top 50 list.

As a group, the top 50 schools share impressive statistics with respect to their commitments to sustainability, Princeton Review Editor in Chief Rob Franek said. Seventeen percent of their total food purchases are from local sources and/or organic; 51% of their waste is diverted from incinerators or solid-waste landfills; 96% offer a sustainability-focused undergraduate major or degree; and 100% have a sustainability officer.

“Given the sobering indicators of climate change and global calls to prioritize sustainability, we are pleased to shine a light on these schools and recommend them for their exceptional commitment to the environment,” Franek said.

COA students take part in a workshop on activism as part of the COA Henry David Thoreau Environmental Leaders Initiative. COA's integration of sustainability into the curriculum contributes to the school's #1 ranking in the 2022 Princeton Review Guide to Green Colleges.COA became the first carbon-neutral college in the U.S. in 2007. It has committed to becoming fossil fuel–free by 2030. Through its All College Meeting participatory governance structure, students have led the creation of initiatives and policies on fossil fuels, disposable plastics, green cleaning and landscaping products, and more.

“We strongly recommend College of the Atlantic to students who care about the environment and want to study and live at a green college,” Franek said. “College of the Atlantic offers excellent academics and demonstrates a commitment to sustainability that is exemplary on many counts.”

The Princeton Review chose the 420 schools in the guide based on its survey of administrators at 835 colleges in 2020-21 about their institutions’ commitments to the environment and sustainability. The company’s editors analyzed more than 25 survey data points to select the schools.

The top 15 schools on The Princeton Review’s ranking list of Top 50 Green Colleges for 2022 are:

1. College of the Atlantic (ME)
2. Dickinson College (PA)
3. University of California—Santa Cruz
4. Chatham University (PA)
5. Bates College (ME)
6. Emory University (GA)
7. Cornell University (NY)
8. Colorado State University
9. State University of New York—College of Environmental Science and Forestry
10. University of California—Santa Barbara
11. Stanford University (CA)
12. University of California—Berkeley
13. University of San Diego
14. Loyola Marymount University (CA)
15. University of California—Merced

COA ecology and natural history professor John Anderson and students celebrate Pride month at the COA Alice Eno Field Research Station on Great Duck Island. Social justice as a pillar of sustainability is an important part of the COA ethos.

Franek noted that The Princeton Review has seen an increasing level of interest among students in attending colleges with green practices, programs, and offerings. Seventy-eight percent of the more than 11,000 college applicants that participated in The Princeton Review’s 2021 College Hopes & Worries Survey said that having information about a college’s commitment to the environment would affect their decision to apply to or attend a school, a 12% increase from the previous year.