STARS
Since 2012, VCU has participated in Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), a program of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, which measures sustainability achievements in five areas: academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, and innovation and leadership.
VCU has earned a STARS rating five times, with the most recent Gold Rating awarded in November 2024. View the 2024 report here.
STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their overall sustainability performance. STARS is designed to:
- Provide a framework for understanding sustainability in various sectors of higher education.
- Enable meaningful comparisons over time and across institutions using a common set of measurements developed with broad participation from the international campus sustainability community.
- Create incentives for continual improvement toward sustainability.
- Facilitate information sharing about higher education sustainability practices and performance.
- Build a stronger, more diverse campus sustainability community.