As more Americans get interested in sustainability and reducing their carbon footprints, future university students have started assessing prospective schools based not only on their academics and recreational offerings, but on how green they are. Universities have responded in a range of ways, with some schools striving for carbon neutrality, some creating sustainability strategies, and many fighting to come out as the clear eco-friendly choice. There’s even been enough eco-activity at universities that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started to rank them by renewable power purchases in 2006.

But now the quest for a greener school is starting to shift to an even younger demographic—the primary and secondary set—and the EPA has released their first ever list of the Top 20 Green Power Purchasers in the K-12 category.

In total, the EPA found that K-12 schools purchasing renewable energy are helping reduce to the equivalent of the carbon emissions from the electricity of 11,000 Americans homes in a year, and that Texas and New York are both home to multiple high ranking green schools. In fact, the Austin Independent School District ranked number one for their large purchases of biogas and wind energy (New York’s first appearance on the list is in the number three spot with the Rochester City School District).

The rankings are part of the EPA’s Green Power Partnership, a voluntary program that includes a variety of participants, from Fortune 500 companies to government organizations. For Top 20 Rankings, the EPA measures the annual green power purchases (defined as renewable energy from sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biogas) of the sector in questions (in this case, primary and secondary schools).

Other schools in the top 5 of the rankings include the Round Rock Independent School District (in second), the athletic alum-heavy Bullis School in Maryland (in fourth), and the famous Dalton School in Manhattan, which ranked fifth. Both the Bullis School and the Dalton School get all their power from renewable energy, and both get that renewable energy in the form of wind power. You can read the full list of the Top 20 Schools here.

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