True green: celebrating Earth Day at the Legacy Garden in 2024. The garden is part of a broad range of sustainability initiatives at Saint Mary’s—two of which recently received special recognition. / Photo by Francis Tatem
Top 10 National Recognition and Local Hero: Sustainability at Saint Mary’s
For the second year in a row, SMC is recognized as a leader in sustainable food and dining practices. In the Bay Area, Sustainable Contra Costa County honors SMC and partners for a model program to reduce waste and positively benefit the environment.
When it comes to offering environmentally-conscious meal options, as well as reducing waste when it comes to move-out at the end of the academic year, Saint Mary’s College has earned special recognition on both the national and local levels. For the second year in a row, Saint Mary’s earned a top 10 ranking nationally for its sustainable food and dining practices in the 2024 Sustainable Campus Index, a publication produced annually by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, Sustainable Contra Costa County honored SMC and partners at the 2024 Leadership in Sustainability Awards for “Sustainable Move-Out,” an effort the College has led for the past two years.
Top 10 in the Nation When It Comes to Sustainable Dining
For the second year in a row, Saint Mary’s College has earned a No. 8 ranking nationally for its sustainable food and dining practices. The accolade appears in the 2024 Sustainable Campus Index.
The index highlights top-performing colleges and universities overall and in 17 categories, as measured by the AASHE STARS (the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) program, a self-reporting framework for institutions to measure, report, and strengthen their contributions to global 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. Saint Mary’s top ranking is based on the STARS program, in which SMC most recently earned an overall gold rating.
“It’s exciting to see Saint Mary’s recognized in this way as one of the best universities in the country.”
—Saint Mary’s President Roger Thompson
Saint Mary’s is the only Catholic university to make the top 10. And as the index notes, efforts like those undertaken by Saint Mary’s help “support a sustainable food system, encourage environmentally friendly and humane farming methods, help eliminate unsafe working conditions, and alleviate poverty for farmworkers. These actions reduce environmental impacts, preserve regional farmland, improve local food security, support fair and resilient food systems, and reduce food waste.”
“It’s exciting to see Saint Mary’s recognized in this way as one of the best universities in the country,” says SMC President Roger Thompson. “Being a leader in environmental justice and sustainability is a key priority for the College. And providing delicious and healthy dining is one of the ways we make sure we provide the best student experience possible.”
This repeat national honor comes as part of a partnership Saint Mary’s launched with The Good Eating Company, known for its chef-driven culinary practices, sustainable ingredients, and farm-to-fork ethos. The College has staked out strategic sustainability and climate action goals for the next several years, and this partnership was formed to prioritize those goals in food and dining practices.
2024 Leadership in Sustainability Award Winner
In May of 2022, Saint Mary’s College, Republic Services, Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery, and RecycleSmart began collaborating in a partnership around a program known as Sustainable Move-Out. This year, Sustainable Contra Costa honored SMC and the partnership as part of the 16th Annual Sustainability Awards Gala, held on September 18. The awards were created to recognize sustainability heroes in the community.
So what’s the story behind Sustainable Move-Out? Every May, hundreds of SMC students move out from campus residence halls and off-campus housing in the Moraga area. When it comes to furniture, clothing, household goods and appliances, and other items, Saint Mary’s formed a partnership to minimize waste, maximize reuse, and ensure that recyclable materials get to where they should be. On the SMC campus, there’s outreach and roll-up-the-sleeves work by Saint Mary's Climate Action Corps Fellows, Sustainability Interns, and the College’s Sustainability Director.
There are donation bins for lightly used items—as well as the SMC Free Store, which operates throughout the year to provide donated clothing, food, and more to SMC students. Move-out also means more paper, cardboard, and other recyclables, so Mt. Diablo Resource Recovery and Republic Services provide additional recycling bins on campus.
Outreach is a big part of the effort, making sure students know where to bring items and making the path to sustainability as easy as possible.
Green School and Lasallian Leader
Alongside the latest accolades, Saint Mary’s has been a certified Fair Trade campus for the past decade. During that period, the College has also earned increasingly higher marks from AASHE for sustainability accomplishments overall, going from Bronze to Silver to Gold since 2020. SMC has also been recognized by The Princeton Review in its guide to green colleges and included on a “Cool Schools” list in Sierra magazine, published by the Sierra Club. Last year, the College also led a conversation for Lasallian universities around the world on how to leverage the global community to advance sustainability initiatives.
Steven Boyd Saum is Executive Director of Strategic Communications & Content at Saint Mary's. Write him.
