The University of Oregon is No. 43 on the Sierra Club’s annual “Cool Schools” ranking of sustainability leadership at colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

The Sierra Club ranks schools using the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System, known as STARS, managed by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. From there, the club sends out an optional survey to participating schools to further understand each institution’s contributions and measure them against the Sierra Club’s priorities.

In this year’s rankings, the UO dropped from last year’s No. 17 finish.

“Of course, we would have liked to maintain our top 25 status, but Sierra Club’s rankings program is notoriously fickle,” said Steve Mital, director of the UO Office of Sustainability. “The more important issue is our institution’s improvement over time. We continue to make progress.”

The UO submitted a detailed report and earned a Gold STARS rating earlier this year. The Office of Sustainability is leading efforts to determine how the UO can speed up progress toward a platinum rating.  

 “We have already identified numerous opportunities for improvement and will be reaching out to our partners across campus this year to discuss next steps,” sustainability program manager Robyn Hathcock said of the Path to Platinum initiative.

The UO congratulates fellow Pac-12 and Oregon schools that ranked in the top 25, including Lewis and Clark, No. 25; Oregon State University, No. 24; University of California, Berkley, No. 13; Arizona State University, No. 4; and Stanford University, No. 2.