Back in May, I wrote about Oberlin College’s Seed House, a green residence hall designed to help students conserve energy and resources on an everyday basis. But if you thought Seed House was the only on-campus initiative around, Sarah Lawrence College, Wake Forest, Rollins College, UCSD and a number of other universities would have you know that they’re doing their part to help out the environment. It seems like institutions of higher learning are really taking one of two approaches to the growing demand for sustainable living and learning environments: either spend money on renovations, green products and building projects to attain LEED certification or save money by organizing recycling drives and creating eco-friendly dorms where students police their own energy and resource use.

So what’s the best way for colleges to respond in the face of growing peer pressure to go green? On one hand, it makes sense for colleges like Sarah Lawrence and Oberlin to save money and let the demand dictate the supply of greener housing. Students can designate certain dorms as eco-conscious and encourage each other to compost, save water, conserve electricity, and monitor their everyday behavior to promote sustainability within the cozy confines of on- or off-campus residence halls. If it turns out that going green is more than just a passing fad and more students want green furniture, LEED certification for school buildings, and larger investments in a more sustainable campus, the college can then assess its budget and entertain more ambitious initiatives.

On the other hand, colleges can already see the high demand for on-campus sustainability based on the growing multitude of student-initiated activities, projects and programs, as well as the significant steps taken by their peer institutions in response. Many schools, especially private colleges with wealthy alumni and large endowments, can probably afford to take the plunge and move forward with a LEED-certified building project or a larger scale effort to purchase green furniture and other eco-friendly products. As Megan K. Scott’s AP article suggests, doing so could actually attract more students from the growing pool interested in helping out the environment. In any case, schools and colleges need to do their homework in the years ahead to decide whether or not it’s worth it to jump on the green bandwagon. And they need to do it soon, or they may risk losing out on incoming tuition from prospective students and donations from future and current alumni wondering when their alma mater will finally get with the program.

(Photo courtesy of FreePhotosBank)