Wesleyan College is one of America’s 399 most environmentally responsible colleges according to The Princeton Review. The Princeton Review chose the schools for this ninth annual edition of its "green guide" based on data from the company's 2017-18 survey of hundreds of four-year colleges concerning the schools' commitments to the environment and sustainability.

Sustainability is intentionally integrated into Wesleyan’s curricular and co-curricular teaching and learning. The campus community has adopted procedures to encourage greater participation in recycling by placing sorting receptacles for paper, plastic, and aluminum on each floor of the residence halls and in academic buildings and water refilling stations in most buildings on campus.

The Environmental Program at Wesleyan is highly interdisciplinary, reflecting the importance of the “triple bottom line” to sustainability efforts: people, profit, and planet. Students immerse themselves in courses in the sciences, arts and humanities, and the social sciences/professional studies. Their studies culminate in an integrative senior project in which they pull together their understanding of diverse disciplines. A minor in environmental science, with more of a scientific focus on environmental issues, is also offered at Wesleyan.

Students at Wesleyan play a vital role in maintaining the 104-acre Wesleyan College Arboretum (listed on the Morton Registry of Arboreta), a living laboratory for education, research, conservation, and recreation. They volunteer to remove invasive plant species, build benches and bridges, maintain trails, plant native shrubs and wildflowers, and help the College community celebrate the outdoors in the annual PioneerFest, held in the arboretum each November.

Wesleyan’s Education Department also offers a nature-smart curriculum that recognizes the irresistible connection that children feel for the green world, when given the opportunity to do so. These nature-smart principles are an integral part of our preparation work for the early childhood education major.

"We strongly recommend Wesleyan to the many environmentally-minded students who seek to study and live at green colleges," said The Princeton Review's Robert Franek, Editor-in-Chief.

Franek noted that college applicants and their parents are increasingly concerned about the environment and sustainability issues.  Out of nearly 11,000 teens and parents surveyed earlier this year by The Princeton Review for its 2018 "College Hopes & Worries Survey," 63% said having information about a college's commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school.