What does campus sustainability look like at schools across the country? For inspiration, we have rounded up some of the top examples showing how colleges and universities are reducing waste and improving their environmental footprint. With large, diverse populations and year-round events, these schools face unique challenges—yet many are innovating and leading. No matter what your business is, or if you are a student, faculty member, or part of the administration, these examples can help spark ideas that will work for your institution or business.

Keep an eye on this page as we will update it with more campus sustainability examples as we find them.

TIP FOR SCHOOLS: What should your campus sustainability plan include? If you are formulating your campus sustainability plan for the first time or working to adjust and enhance your initiatives, make sure to include waste reduction as part of your campus sustainability plan. A December 2022 study by College Pulse noted that “waste management” was one of the most-cited categories of sustainability that students wanted their institutions to improve. Moreover, with rising waste costs, prioritizing waste reduction and moving towards Zero Waste just makes good business sense.

Campus Sustainability Ideas

Reducing Single-Use Plastics

Plastic Bottles/Cups:

• At Duke University, researchers found that by installing 50 water bottle refilling stations around campus, the school could avoid using more than 400,000 plastic bottles.
• At Penn State University, students can take advantage of more than 100 water refilling stations around campus. Students save money and reduce plastic bottle waste at the same time.
• The University of Southern California’s ban on single-use plastic beverage bottles on campus in 2022 has kept over 3 million bottles out of landfills. The campus has replaced single-use plastic beverage bottles with alternatives made from glass and aluminum, and is encouraging the use of hydration stations such as water fountains.
• Princeton University has more than 250 filtered water bottle-filling stations on campus. The campus also offers discounts to those who use their own reusable mugs instead of disposable cups.

Food Containers:

• Washington State University reports that their reusable containers program has diverted almost 65,000 single-use containers and over 6,000 pounds of waste from the landfill, and saved nearly 42,000 gallons of water, and prevented over 43,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.  Students use their phones to access ReusePass (a system also used by Brown University, Ohio State, Delaware University and others) which tracks reusable containers with QR codes. This makes it simple for students to check out (borrow) containers and return them after use. The dining team then scans, washes and sanitizes the containers. Students return 97% of the containers so they can be used again.
• Lehigh University’s Reusable Eco-Container program is aimed at reducing the use of disposable clamshell take-out containers. Students enrolled in the program receive a sticker on the back of their student ID. Used containers are returned for sanitation. The program is expected to reduce some of the 80,000+ disposal clamshell products discarded on campus each semester.

Reducing Food Waste/Organics

Food Recovery:

• Colorado State University implemented a food recovery program that allows students, faculty and staff to receive text messages when there are leftovers at catered school events. About 500 people signed up to receive the texts the first day it was publicized.
• At St. Lawrence University, students and community volunteers turn food that would otherwise be wasted (from campus dining halls and local farms) into meals that help to meet the needs of families in the community. The university is one of many nationwide that do this under the banner of the Campus Kitchens Project/Food Recovery Network.
• At Kent State University’s Campus Kitchen program, one of the largest campus‐based food recovery and distribution operations in the country, about 64,110 pounds of food was recovered and distributed during the pandemic. During this time, pantry‐usage tripled, reaching thousands of individuals and households.

Going Trayless:

• Cornell University says that going trayless in their cafeterias has saved them water, money and labor (in addition to reducing food waste). An Aramark Higher Education study found that out of 186,000 meals served at 25 colleges and universities over the course of an academic year, trayless days saw a 25 to 30 percent reduction in food waste per person.

Composting (Food and Landscaping)

• University of Vermont has a comprehensive composting program that collects food scraps from dining halls, campus kitchens, residence halls and more. In an average week UVM diverts 15 tons of food scraps and compostable materials from the landfill and sends it to Green Mountain Compost.  Some of the compost is used for campus landscaping.
• At Luther College in Iowa, there are no trash cans in the cafeteria. Instead, staff separate all compostable food waste and napkins in the dish room, where they are rinsed into a trough, sent into a pulper, and collected in buckets. Compostable scraps created in the food preparation process (such as stems and peels) are also collected for composting. Some of the food waste is taken to the campus farm.
• Duke University has bins for compostable waste in buildings across campus and in dining halls. In 2019, Duke gardens installed an innovative system offered by O2Compost, which pumps air through pipes placed under the piles, allowing material to decompose twice as fast, making on-site composting feasible.
• Lehman College has been composting its gardening waste since 1996. It’s 37-acre campus produces approximately 35 tons of leaves, 11 tons of lawn clippings, 3 tons of tree and shrub branches, and 2.5 tons of wood chips a year. The high-quality compost is used for gardening on campus.

Zero Waste Plans

• Stanford University aims to be Zero Waste by 2030. When a 2019 waste characterization study revealed that  Stanford could send as little as 6% of their waste to landfill with proper sorting and additional programs, the University designed a campus plan aimed at doing just that. Read the University’s Zero Waste Plan.
• Arizona State University aims to be be Zero Waste by 2025.
• The College of the Atlantic has pledged to achieve Zero Waste by 2025.  They have been working to rethink waste management by training students and undergoing a three-step process which includes a campus-wide assessment (which was completed in 2020), a strategic vision plan (which was completed in 2024), and a Zero Waste action plan, which is currently in development.

Reducing Waste During Dorm Move-Out Days

• Boston University’s Goodwill, Not Landfill program is one of the largest move-out programs in the country. Over 16 years, the program has diverted over two million pounds of items from the landfill. During Spring move-out in 2024, the University diverted a record 226,000 lbs, up from a total of 146,000 lbs in 2023. Donations, from furniture to kitchenware, go to Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries of Boston. In addition, non-perishable, unopened food items go to the BU Food Pantry. The program is part of the University’s efforts to achieve Zero Waste by 2030.
• Case Western Reserve University hosts a free store stocked with student donations from the university’s year-end dorm donation program that provides students with an alternative way to dispose of items they no longer need.
• Learn more: Donating for Reuse: A Guide to Transforming Waste, Avoiding Landfills

Addressing Waste at Events

• University of Colorado at Boulder’s Folsom Field is home to the nation’s first Zero Waste athletics initiative. The school’s Ralphie’s Green Stampede program relies on volunteers to help implement Zero Waste efforts at football games that divert thousands of pounds of material every season.  Nearly all food and drink packaging at the stadium is either refillable, recyclable, or compostable. The result? A 30% drop in total waste generation in just two years!
• Learn more: Zero Waste Events Guide: 10-Step Checklist

Campus LEED Certifications

• Three new buildings at University of California, Irvine  received LEED Platinum certification in the 2020-2021 calendar year. The university currently has 32 LEED New Construction certified buildings. Featured highlights include bicycle racks, indoor plumbing fixtures that have been designed to reduce potable water use by more than 40%, and a roof area with a high solar reflectance index, meaning the “heat island effect” is reduced for the building and surrounding area.
• Montclair State University has five LEED buildings.
• Ithaca College has four LEED buildings on campus.
• Colgate University has six LEED buildings.
• Learn more: According to the USGBC, as of June 2024, there are over 9,240 LEED‐certified and registered higher education projects representing approximately almost 1.1B square feet (103M square meters) of built spaces. Learn more about applying LEED to higher education projects.

Carbon Neutral Plans

• American University is reportedly the first urban campus, the first research university, and the largest higher education institution in the United States to achieve carbon neutrality. AU achieved carbon neutrality two years ahead of its target of 2020 by reducing overall emissions, using renewable energy, and offsetting the small remainder.
• Dickinson College became the first college or university in Pennsylvania to achieve carbon neutrality in 2020.

Energy and Water

• Emory University’s WaterHub system, a water recycling facility, saves over 100 million gallons of water annually and reduces the university’s potable water usage by about 40%.
• University of California at Berkeley is reportedly generating over 1.2 MW of power from the sun. The campus is focusing on solar PV installations at existing sites and with new construction on rooftops and in parking areas.

Transportation Related

• The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign became the first institution to join the U.S. EPA’s SmartWay® Transportation Partnership, and, in 2020, the entire University of Illinois system began participating. The program provides a system for tracking, documenting, and sharing information about fuel use and freight emissions across supply chains. It helps organizations identify and select more efficient freight carriers and processes, and reduces freight transportation-related emissions by accelerating the use of advanced fuel-saving technologies. Since 2004, the SmartWay program has helped its partners save approximately 312 million barrels of oil.
• Portland State University has a robust sustainable transportation program that includes bike share programs, discounted transit passes, and extensive bike infrastructure.

Green Leaders

• University of California at Berkeley’s Zero Waste Coalition is a campus student group working to bring together waste-related organizations at the school with the goals of improving communication among them, and fostering collaboration on initiatives. They strive to be a campus resource for learning about Zero Waste and to foster a Zero Waste community.

Tree Campus USA Program

• St. John’s University participates in the Tree Campus USA program. The campus has over 3,000 trees, 500 of which came from the NYC Million Trees project (2008–11). In 2013, students planted a northeast native species campus arboretum around the softball field. Each year, the University’s Campus Tree Mapping Project grows with the help of students. Currently there are more than 1,000 trees mapped.

Campus Sustainability Plans

• Harvard Campus Sustainability Plan
• Columbia University’s 2030 Plan
• Cornell University Sustainability Plan
• Colgate University Sustainability Plan
• Lehigh University Campus Sustainability Plan

Learn More:

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Photo: Unsplashed, Scott Webb.

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