By Nancy Bartosek

TCU Magazine

TCU has long been associated with purple, but in recent years the University has embraced green in a big way — and was rewarded in April for its efforts with inclusion into The Princeton Review’s Guide to 311 Green Colleges, 2011 Edition. More than 2,000 colleges were reviewed for their environmentally responsible practices, from which the magazine’s editors and their partners at the U.S. Green Building Council selected the 311 best in the nation.

 

Some say it’s past time for such recognition. After all, TCU has been “greening up” the campus for nearly two decades, starting in 1990 when money-saving efforts prompted many eco-friendly practices, especially in energy savings.

 

Back then, of course, the term “carbon footprint” hadn’t been coined, and few worried about things like using incandescent light bulbs or driving gas-guzzling cars. But utility costs were rising, so Will Stallworth, newly hired in 1989 to oversee the campus physical plant, tackled those expenses first — and put TCU on the sustainability track early on.

 

Today, the physical plant’s efforts stretch from energy-efficient lighting and heating and cooling plants to biodegradable cutlery to single-stream recycling to LEED certified buildings and “green” cleaning supplies. Click http://www.magazine.tcu.edu/OnCampus/Article.aspx?articleId=233 to read a comprehensive list of those initiatives in a 2009 report by Green Bean Analysis LLC.