This past January, two years after the introduction of STARS 2.0, AASHE released a new update to the sustainability assessment system. This is the fifth update to the assessment and contains more minor changes compared to a brand new version. It is also not yet in effect, but listed as the forthcoming edition.
The biggest change comes from what was previously the innovation category. Now labeled Innovation & Leadership, the category still has 4 total point available, but now they can be drawn from innovation (for 1 point each) as before, along with exemplary practice (for .5 points each) defined as “recognize specific initiatives that demonstrate sustainability leadership”. This also gets rid of previous categories, Hospital Network, Bicycle Friendly University, and Wastewater Management, that were often low scoring and lend themselves better to certain schools than others.
On one hand, I appreciate that this creates new opportunities for creative sustainability not otherwise recognized by STARS. Schools now have more chances to get credit for taking initiative in opportunities that may lend themselves better to a specific niche that a school occupies. Yet, it’s frustrating that the total credits available remain at 4 total for innovation and exemplary practice. For a school already fulfilling 4 innovation credits, there is no point incentive to exercise exemplary practice and vis versa. With the total credits being reduced by 10% in version 2.1, there could easily kept innovation at 4 points and added another 4 available points for exemplary practice. In addition, exemplary practice is perhaps the most vague criteria yet in STARS. While I like that is to inspire creativity in sustainability leadership, it also seems like a category for easy points. Even more so than the innovation criteria, there is no standard for what constitutes a point allowing for some college putting in less effort for the same points.
Another big change that stood out to me was the addition of the new ‘Assessing Sustainability Culture’ category for 1 point. This is an interesting category, to be assessed by a campus wide survey to test sustainability values. I think that an assessment of student values is important to sustainability and could show interesting trends in how a college affects an individual. However, this seems to encourage a singular set of ecological values rather than a diversity of ideas. This is a critical flaw in the criteria.
Also added was more consistency in the Academics category with certain courses excluded and now institution may also now opt out of the research category if research is not required for faculty. I think this is great and could help lead to a more consistent and inclusive assessment, but, in my opinion, this doesn’t go nearly far enough in that direction. In addition, a lot of changes were made to simplify the scoring process in order to reduce confusion. It is great to make STARS more accessible to more institutions, but again, AASHE could go much farther to make STARS accessible and transparent.