Institutions are graded in nine categories, ranging from Climate Change & Energy, Green Building and Food & Recycling to Administration, Investment Priorities and Shareholder Engagement. Tech, maintaining its role as a Campus Sustainability Leader, earned an "A" grade in seven of the nine categories. Last year, the Institute scored a "B" in the Climate Change & Energy and Transportation categories. The Institute again scored an "F" in both Endowment Transparency and Shareholder Engagement.

In 2007, Institute administration created the Office of Environmental Stewardship and named Marcia Kinstler director of sustainability. For the last two years, she has worked to aggregate and compile all data regarding sustainability efforts across academics, research and operations at Tech. Due in part to her office's efforts in reporting, Tech rose from an overall "C" grade in 2008 to a "B" grade last year.

"We knew Georgia Tech was a leader in many areas of sustainability, and many people across campus were doing extraordinary things, but we weren't able to articulate our leadership," Kinstler said. "It is only when we tell the whole story that people realize Tech has a stronger, deeper and broader sustainability program than many others who are more recognized and written about."

More than 330 schools were judged in nine categories, which in turn were equally weighed on a 4.0 grading scale. The highest grade earned by the 26 schools judged as Overall College Sustainability Leaders is an "A-". Comparing peer schools, Stanford University scored an "A-" overall, University of Michigan—Ann Arbor scored a "B+", and Emory University and the California Institute of Technology scored a "B".