The Office of Sustainability signed on to a letter this month asking green-rating institutions to be more accountable for their rating systems, a University official confirmed.

Sophie Waskow, the stakeholder engagement coordinator for the Office of Sustainability, said GW signed the letter to urge green surveyors to be more transparent in their scoring processes and to use uniform criteria in their assessments. Waskow said these changes would allow colleges to better understand the ratings they receive and how they can better improve their sustainability efforts.

“We believe the issues raised in this letter will lead to better accountability and improvements in measurements of sustainability outcomes,” Waskow said.

Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Paul Rowland told the Chronicle of Higher Education that Sustainability offices spend as much time “filling out surveys” as “doing things that the surveys are supposed to judge.”

“With respect to the contents of the letter, AASHE supports the criteria listed in the letter and hopes to work with others in implementing these criteria,” Rowland said in an e-mail to The Hatchet.

GW was lauded by an expert for the release of its Climate Action Plan in May, but was not included in an April Princeton Review green-ranking publication because GW did not submit the proper paperwork.

“I hope that changes in response to the letter help colleges and universities better communicate their goals and progress and engage with their stakeholders on making even more progress,” Waskow said.

She added, “The schools that signed this letter agree that there is a valuable role for sustainability evaluation organizations and are offering to support them if they commit to reaching for standards of excellence.”

The University ranked 81st in the Sierra Club’s 2009 ‘Cool Schools’ rankings and received a B from the College Sustainability Report Card in 2010.