An environmental group gave Penn State passing grades when it comes to creating a sustainable campus environment.

Penn State received A's from the Sustainable Endowments Institute in the categories of administration and food and recycling and B's in climate change and energy and green building. It also received a C in investment priorities, but failed both endowment transparency and shareholder engagement.

Later this week, the two categories that received F's will have their grades boosted after an addendum is released in light of additional information that the institute received, according to the institute.

Because of its high grades in certain categories, Penn State is one of only 26 schools to receive a title of campus sustainability leader.

"Overall it's very impressive; Penn State is in the top quartile in the country," Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, said. "It's very exciting that Penn State is on the leading edge of sustainability."

He added that the overall grade should not be taken purely as an indicator of how well the university is doing.

Penn State's dining services received an "A" for their farm-to-college program through which the dining commons purchases locally and regionally grown produce from sustainable farmers.

However, the lack of a Central Pennsylvania farmers' co-op hinders food services from purchasing more food from local farmers.

"We really want to move forward, but you also have to understand that we're a business and when you want to feed thousands and thousands of customers a day you have to have a reliable source for those products," Bill Laychur, executive chef for housing and food service, said.

Office of Physical Plant spokesman Paul Ruskin said OPP was excited about the rating, noting that the report card gave the university good grades for operational aspects.

The report mentioned the Guaranteed Energy Savings Program (GESP), a program which gives the buildings around campus a "tune-up" to improve energy savings and efficiency.

"The money savings generated by the program from the fix-ups we do in the buildings is used to pay for the program itself," Ruskin said.

Ruskin said over the next five years, the university will probably increase the amount of alternative energy it uses.

"We would like to improve everything we're doing in the sustainable area, doing more of it, having it be more pervasive and having everybody who is using energy on campus to think about it personally," he said.

Even though alternative energy uses more sustainable resources, the university still needs to conserve energy, Mike Prinkey, OPP energy program engineer, said.

"We're better to conserve a unit of energy than to acquire it from a clean source," he said.

Penn State students and faculty need to do their part for the university to achieve its goal, Ruskin said.

"We need to increase individual responsibility and to have all our students and employees do their part to help the university be more efficient and sustainable," Ruskin said.