Sustainability Assessments
The President’s Sustainability Commission has been conducting a set of sustainability culture surveys of both the student body and the employee population since 2017.
In spring 2025, CSU’s Institute for Research in the Social Sciences in collaboration with the PSC. IRISS obtained representative sampling frames from CSU Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness, receiving a sample representing 20% of both students and faculty/staff. The student survey was distributed to 5,083 students including both graduate and undergraduate students. The employee survey was distributed to 1,837 employees, including faculty, administrative professionals, state classified, part-time and temporary staff. IRISS Both surveys were administered via the online platform Qualtrics. The student response rate was 12%, with 621 respondents, and the employee response rate was 26%, with 484 respondents.
Results from this assessment are used to inform sustainability curriculum development and for the university’s STARS reporting.
CSU 2025 Sustainability Assessment (PDF)
Some highlights from this report include:
97%
of students strongly or somewhat agree that sustainability is important to CSU.
55%
of students say CSU’s reputation around sustainability was moderately to extremely important in their decision to attend CSU.
76%
of employees indicated an increase in understanding of sustainability since working at CSU.
STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) is a transparent self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance. STARS is a comprehensive benchmarking tool that includes academics, research, engagement, operations, and administration. CSU uses the report to gauge how well our sustainability efforts and campaigns are performing at a global scale. In 2015, CSU became the first institution in the world to earn a Platinum rating and has now achieved five back-to-back Platinum ratings.