Last year was the first time UofL received the QS global ranking, and it was established relying solely on publicly available information.

“This is the first year that sustainability data was intentionally gathered and reported to QS with the encouragement and assistance of the Office of Institutional Research,” said Justin Mog, assistant to the provost for sustainability initiatives.

Mog said this newest metric complements the steady progress UofL has attained every three-year measurement period under the framework developed by the AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher ����ֱ��).

President Gerry Bradley said a sustainability mindset is critical to a university’s policies, procedures and culture. “Anything else means that we are not actually creating the better world that we say we want for our students and our community.”

According to STARS, UofL has remained in the top 100 most sustainable schools on the planet, consistently maintaining the highest STARS rating of any school in Kentucky and ranking fourth among its official benchmark institutions. The next STARS ranking will be announced in April.

Recently, UofL was also granted two core recertifications. For a fourth time, UofL was named a�� (a rating valid 2025-2029) by the League of American Bicyclists, and for the 16th consecutive year recognized as a Tree Campus Higher ����ֱ�� institution by the Arbor Day Foundation.

Since UofL first signed onto the Climate Commitment and formed the university-wide Sustainability Council in 2008, it has launched a wide variety of campus sustainability initiatives making meaningful impacts on the lives and learning of our campus community. A few of these include: ��

• Degree programs in sustainability
• Slashing greenhouse emissions by half
• UofL Free Store and Cardinal Cupboard
• Campus gardens and community composting
• Farmers Markets and CSA programs
• EcoReps and Ecolympics
• Sustainability Roundtable
• Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste Scholars

Mog said rankings like STARS and QS help UofL recruit sustainability-minded students and employees and help to prioritize and better understand where to invest limited resources.

“If you think about it, UofL ‘s reason for being is to create a better future for our students, to conduct research that will make the world a better place, and to engage the community in mutually beneficial ways,” Mog said. “Sustainability is key to crafting that future every day.”

Interested in finding out more about sustainability and what you can do to help? Visit ��

UofL Superintendent of Grounds, Greg Schetler, defines a rain garden as, “an area that retains water and filters it during a rain event that slowly releases after the rain has stopped. This area would act as a natural water filter, support wildlife,��and��reduce mowing, while providing aesthetic value.”

About 30 fraternity members worked on the rain garden last semester, as well as a handful of volunteers from several sororities on campus and employees from the grounds department. The initial phase of the project was completed in four days.��

According to��Tyler Hoffman, Sigma Pi member and coordinator of the project,��the goal is to keep the garden maintained with a few workdays each semester.��

“We will pull weeds, replace any plants that have been damaged or removed and overall just make sure it is in good condition,” he said.��

The fraternity has worked closely with the UofL Sustainability Council��throughout the past two years to develop and complete��its ACE (Altruistic Campus Experience) project. The rain garden is one of six different projects they could have chosen from.

“We felt that the rain garden was both the biggest task to tackle and the one that would have the longest noticeable results and would benefit the campus for the longest,” Hoffman said.��

He expects that the rain garden will require less maintenance and yield fully developed native plants within three years.��Milkweed was also planted and is the only plant that the monarch butterflies will lay its larva on, so he expects��more monarchs on campus soon as well. Sigma Pi members plan to participate in maintenance days in the near future to help the garden grow and prosper.��