At first glance, it looks like Maine colleges and universities got snubbed in the latest ranking of green campuses.

The Sierra Club published a list of its top 10 eco-minded American colleges in the November/December issue of Sierra Magazine. There are no Maine schools on the list, which is based on energy efficiency, recycliung, food choices and other factors.

Curiously missing is the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, which was ranked the greenest college in the entire world last summer by Grist, an online environmental magazine. See our previous post about that.

Sierra didn’t overlook the school, however. It just decided that including COA wouldn’t be fair to the competition. In fact, it disqualified all colleges that make up what is called the Eco League, a consortium of five environmentally themed colleges that includes COA.

“Founded in 2003, the Eco League consists of five small liberal arts institutions (Alaska Pacific University, College of the Atlantic, Green Mountain College, Northland College, and Prescott College) spread from Alaska to Maine but unified by an emphasis on environmental learning and hands-on experience” according to Sierra. “On any given day, students at Eco League schools might be on ‘lamb watch’ at a farm, reading Silent Spring, or canoeing on the Yukon River for a senior project. Students can also explore different ecosystems by spending up to two semesters at other schools in the consortium.”

Here is Sierra’s list of the best of the rest:

1. Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio)
2. Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)
3. Warren Wilson College (Swannanoa, N.C.)
4. University of California System
5. Duke University (Durham, N.C.)
6. Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vt.)
7. Berea College (Berea, Ky.)
8. Pennsylvania State University
9. Tufts University (Medford, Mass.)
10. Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pa.)

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