Looks like colleges and students all over the country are jumping on board the with sustainability.

This is a race not only against the inevitable march of climate change, but against other colleges and universities eager to tout their green accomplishments. A school without a sustainability office seems hopelessly outdated, a passive part of the old economy instead of a vital part of the new. Signing climate commitments, university presidents are bestowed an immediate badge of honor, one that shows they know the importance of their place in the new world.

Arizona State University’s clean cities vision comes from the top down. ASU President Michael Crow came to the campus from Columbia University committed to making the university a leader in sustainability. Five years later, the university’s Global Institute for Sustainability pushes students and faculty to find solutions to resource depletion in water-deprived, population-dense cities like Phoenix, which is a stand-in for many cities worldwide coping with desertification (a threat to some 20 percent of the world’s population). “We see campuses as living labs,” says Bonny Bentzin of ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability. “In Phoenix, we’re on the frontline as one the fastest-growing communities in the U.S. We have to figure out how not only how to have a sustainable water supply, but how to manage air quality.”

Cleaner, Greener U over at emagazine.com

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