The University of Mary Washington has been ranked among the nation’s top “green colleges” in a report published Thursday, April 16, 2015. The ranking appears in the 2015 edition of The Princeton Review’s Guide to 353 Green Colleges. The University of Mary Washington was recognized for its robust on-campus sustainability program, which has been spearheaded by the UMW Sustainability Office and the President’s Council on Sustainability. The Princeton Review also recognized UMW for the following achievements:

• 100 percent of new campus construction has been LEED-certified.
• 18 percent of the university’s food budget is spent on local and organic food.
• The university has a waste diversion rate of 30 percent.
• 10 percent of graduates have taken a sustainability-related academic course.

“We strongly recommend the University of Mary Washington and the other fine colleges in this guide to the many environmentally-minded students who seek to study and live at green colleges,” said The Princeton Review’s Robert Franek, senior vice president and publisher. In the past year, UMW has participated in Virginia’s 2015 RecycleMania competition, hosted community shred events and collaborated with the City of Fredericksburg on a campaign against cigarette butt litter. Mary Washington received international recognition in the annual RecycleMania competition and was named a Virginia Green Travel Leader. Currently, the university is working on a Tree Campus USA designation for the Fredericksburg campus, a certification awarded by the Arbor Day Foundation. This annual publication identifies colleges with exemplary commitments to sustainability. Selected from nearly 900 institutions, each school is rated based on a 2014 survey of college administrators that asked about sustainability-related policies, practices and programs. To see the full list of institutions included in the guide, visit www.princetonreview.com/green-guide.