EUGENE, Ore.—Lane Community College has earned a STARS Silver rating for its sustainability achievements, from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education.
“We are very proud to have achieved a STARS Silver rating for our sustainability performance” said LCC Sustainability Coordinator Luis Maggiori. “Sustainability is a core value at Lane.” In 2011, LCC’s Board of Education adopted a collegewide commitment of carbon neutrality by the year 2050; this includes greenhouse gas emissions from scopes 1, 2 and 3. Since, then the college has updated its Climate Action Plan to version 2.0 and closely tracks implementation and progress towards this goal.
The STARS assessment process has been a tremendous learning experience for LCC’s students and staff, said Maggiori. “The STARS rating system provides us with reliable metrics to benchmark our overall sustainability performance and track progress, in areas that go beyond carbon emissions. This project does not end here; we will now submit assessment reports every three years with the goal of continuously improving the score until we move to a Gold rating and eventually maintaining Platinum rating with every submission.”
“Thanks to our 2020 bond measure, we have the opportunity to improve the performance of our buildings significantly,” Maggiori added. “All building renovation projects have sustainability as a guiding principle. For example, our new health professions building at the main campus is in the initial design phase and with this building, we aim to outperform all of the other four LEED buildings in campus in regards to sustainability.”
With more than 900 participants in 40 countries, AASHE’s STARS program is the most widely recognized framework in the world for publicly reporting comprehensive information related to a college or university’s sustainability performance.
“LCC has demonstrated a substantial commitment to sustainability by achieving a STARS Silver Rating and is to be congratulated,” said AASHE Executive Director Meghan Fay Zahniser.
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Lane Community College educates over 25,000 students annually at six locations across Lane County and online. Students and alumni from all 50 states and 79 countries create more than an $850 million dollar impact on the local economy, helping to support more than 13,000 local jobs. Lane provides affordable, quality, professional technical and college transfer programs; business development and employee training; academic, language and life skills development; and lifelong personal development and enrichment courses.