Alternative Transportation Operation Model for Central Transit Operations

We analyzed the viability of electric busses as public transportation in Ellensburg, Washington. We started by collecting data for the current bus transit and associated costs. Due to current inefficiencies in the bus route system, we have decided to create new routes that can be adjusted to people’s needs as well as the schedule. Rising fuel costs have encouraged us to look into fully electric busses. We calculated the annual miles driven with the new schedule and route system to compare the fuel costs with electricity costs in Ellensburg. These costs clearly showed an advantage to switch to a fully electric bus, however, to see if it is viable, we have also considered maintenance and vehicle costs. This analysis can be used in any kind of community thinking about switching to electric bussing. College of Business Presentation Award Winner

Socially Responsible and Environmentally Sustainable Investments at Central Washington University

Investors are increasingly playing an active role in influencing environmental and social impacts of companies and markets. Concerns with climate change and social movements have raised the prominence of corporate responsibility with their employees and investors alike. Shareholders promote disclosure transparency, corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability to help ensure a healthy economy and preserve sustainable long-term returns. Universities have joined this growing chorus of investors and have started to reevaluate their endowments to better fit their missions. This has been encouraged by a growing academic literature on socially and environmentally responsible investing suggesting that such strategies have performed as well or better than traditional approaches. In this study we analyze Central Washington University (CWU) financial investments and score them along environmental, social, and governance (ESG) categories. We then assess their financial performance, and compare it to potential alternatives with higher and lower ESG ratings. This research is conducted by the CWU Council on Investor Responsibility (CIR) subgroup that advises the University, through the office of the CFO, regarding environmental and social governance concerns that might influence the management of the University’s investments. The results of the study seek to provide transparency to University investment holdings and decisions, advise on relevant ESG-related investing issues to ensure the Universities holdings match its mission and values, advise the VP of Business and Financial Affairs on socially responsible investment policy issues by proposing written policies for the Board of Trustees’ consideration

Environmental, Social, and Governance Investing Policies at Universities in the PNW

To assess the potential impact of ESG investing on the CWU investment portfolio, we analyzed the relationship between company ESG scores and financial metrics of risk and return. Financial data consisted of investment returns and beta scores (a measure of risk), provided by S&P Capital IQ. Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) provided CIR with ESG scores of 42,977 companies around the globe. Using the S&P 500 and the ISS company database as benchmarks, we compared how CWU’s investments paired within the scope of a 1, 3, 5, 10, 20-year ESG-Beta and ESG-Risk relationship. CWU displayed similar results to that of the S&P500 and ISS database – the ESG-Risk and ESG-Beta relationships were nonnegative. The literature review on ESG factors and financial performance suggested that there was a largely nonnegative relationship, like our findings as a council. Furthermore, we collected information on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing policies from a sample of universities in the Pacific Northwest and found that about half of the universities maintain such policies. We identified the full range of different ESG policies across the universities. We then determined which universities were leaders in the field and performed a sentiment analysis of their respective ESG statements. CWU currently does not include investment criteria with regards to sustainability. Improving upon this, we assessed the core values of CWU and other ESG criteria bearing Universities. This provided us with a list of ESG policy tools compatible with CWU’s value framework