Are "Green" Universities becoming standard?

According to the newly released white paper "Green Building Trends in Higher Education" by Yudelson Associates, there are more than 3,000 LEED-registered projects across the country on College campuses. This accounts for about 15% of the entire LEED market.

In addition to this new white paper, the Sustainable Endowments Institute (SEI) has released it's 2010 College Sustainability Report Card, the first website of its kind to start ranking colleges by their energy efficiency and green movements on campus.

With the release of these two new reports it is easy to assume that going green on college campuses is no longer just a trend but it is becoming standard. And even more so, colleges are being racked and stacked against each other on sustainability measures across the board.

The big questions are:

1. How are all of these projects being funded?

2. Are they being funded by the savings created?

3. Are private Universities using their endowments to finance the projects? How?

4. Is there a blend of financing being used with the traditional ESCO model?

5. Who is making the payback and performance guarantees?

6. Who tracks and validates the guarantees?

7. What institute benefits from the funding?

The green university standard is here, but what is the best standard to follow when it comes to funding the projects?

Another interesting sustainability tracking system was created by AASHE, called STARS.