Students worry about grades, but they may not realize the University is worried about its own report card.
UNM, along with other universities in the U.S. and Canada, is graded by the College Sustainability Report Card.
This year, in the Mountain West Conference, UNM came in fourth place out of nine schools, with an overall B in sustainability - an improvement from last year's C.
UNM received an A in climate change and energy and transportation; Bs in administration, student involvement and endowment transparency; and Cs in food and recycling, green building and investment priorities.
UNM's associate director of facilities Jeff Zumwalt said the climate change and energy section was a priority for many universities. He said UNM has many groups working to change the University's energy output.
For one, UNM's Sustainability Council created a task force to help reduce carbon emissions, Zumwalt said.
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"The Carbon-Neutral Task Force is brainstorming and gathering a lot of ideas. Not just original ideas but looking at other universities and what they've done," he said. "We are trying to put together a big, comprehensive list of all the potential ideas."
Once the list is made, the task force will rank the ideas by how many tons of carbon UNM could reduce per dollar spent. The list will help dictate where the University should spend its money first, Zumwalt said.
He said the University conducted a campuswide greenhouse gas inventory in 2007, and results showed UNM uses 174,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. The task force will work with individual departments and buildings to reduce that number.
Some groups on campus have started adding green features to their offices and lifestyles to reduce UNM's carbon footprint.
Rose Chavez, Lobo Growers Market coordinator, and Terry Horger work in UNM's Sustainability Studies program and have taken steps to make their office space more sustainable and renewable.
"All of our sofas and work stations are made from recycled materials, and when we are done with them, they can be recycled," Horger said. "We created the sustainability showcase - these three rooms that we occupy as part of our program."
Building a sustainable office is not as hard as people might think, and the cost is not much higher than using regular materials, she said.
"This didn't really cost a whole lot more, maybe 5 percent more," Horger said.
UNM is investigating what it takes to improve the sustainability of older buildings on campus, Zumwalt said.
"When a building is initially built, they set up heating and cooling, and they do a balance for the whole building," Zumwalt said. "But over time, it may drift away from that optimum setting. We have men recommissioning these buildings, which can include new equipment and new technologies."
Horger said the Sustainability Studies program is also brainstorming ways to give students environmentally friendly options when it comes to meal plans and dorm life.
Chavez said the program is starting a conversation with Rudy Simchak, the director of Chartwells, and Walt Miller of Student Affairs.
"We are thinking about offering a green meal plan for students who live on campus and are required to purchase a meal plan," Chavez said.
If UNM offers students a green meal plan, students might receive subsidized coupons they can redeem at the Growers Market, she said.
Dining director Donna Provost said Chartwells and La Posada are taking on projects to provide more local food for students and to reduce food waste.
"We do a little bit of purchasing from La Montanita Co-op, and we try to buy organic vegetables," Provost said. "And we are going to start doing locally grown vegetables. As far as composting goes, we compost all of our production leftovers."
She said La Posada is also starting tray-less Mondays to determine how much food and water is wasted when students use trays. La Posada will weigh the leftover food on trays two Mondays in a row. On the third Monday, La Posada will go without trays and see how much of a reduction there is.
