sustainability Archives - ��Ƶ

Autumn Showcase—Celebrate Fall and Sustainability

Stephen Garone — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 16:30:00 +0000

Meet local organizations, campus groups, and others to learn about their efforts and how you can promote sustainability while decorating pumpkins.

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��Ƶ Releases Annual Impact Report on Campus Sustainability

Richard Pietras — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 16:00:32 +0000

As part of its ongoing effort to build a culture of sustainability across campus and reduce its environmental impact through engagement, education, and research initiatives, ��Ƶ’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability, along with the Campus Sustainability Council and Strategic Initiatives, released its annual Impact Report for the 2022–23 academic year.

The report highlights several benchmarks from key focus areas—campus operations, environmental justice, engagement, waste minimization, academics, nutrition, and others—while offering benchmarks and forward-thinking plans for the future.

President of the Sustainability Club and Macaulay Honors student from the Urban Sustainability Program Sofia Mariyamis presents ��Ƶ’s composting initiative with Professor of Economics Nadia Doytch during the Sustainability Fair on April 18.

“Students know climate change is a pressing issue and expect their college to take action,” said Carrie Sadovnik, the director of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability and the co-chair of the Campus Sustainability Council. “��Ƶ is accelerating its climate leadership, coupled with education and engagement, to address these concerns and build a vibrant and sustainable future for our students and the broader community.”

Stalin Espinal ’18, sustainability coordinator from the Office of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability, and Yarnelle Bauzil, coordinator for the college’s community garden, separate trash at the college’s first large campus waste audit, which will help assess recycling practices. The waste audit team sorted 506 pounds of waste: Of the total waste stream, there were 197.7 pounds of paper and cardboard materials; 34.5 pounds of metal, glass, plastic, and carton materials; 227.51 pounds of landfill-bound trash materials, and 46.3 pounds of compostable and organic materials.

Highlighting the incredible work done by scores of students, staff, and faculty, the report includes information and data that proves ��Ƶ to be a leader in environmental responsibility. Some areas where the campus shined include:

Progress on BuildSmart 2025 Goals: Improved accounting of energy savings by project with 10 of more 85 energy conservation projects completed representing, one million kWh saved.
Increased Student Engagement: More than 150 student pledges for a Plastic-Free Ocean campaign, 252 volunteers contributing 454 hours to sustainability initiatives.
Waste Reduction: Released guidelines for green events, achieved a 27.7% waste diversion rate through increased recycling and composting initiatives.
Peer Recognition: STARS Silver Rating received by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Applied Learning: Campus-based internships are available to students to work with the Sustainability Office and the ��Ƶ Eats garden. Academic programs increasingly collaborate with operational partners to use the campus as a “living lab” for both informal learning activities and rigorous research.
Improved Campus Operations: Converting to LED lighting in 20% of re-lamping locations, which represents 37 tCO2; partnered with NYC Parks to establish a native plant bed; piloted a food waste collection program.
Reduced Reliance on Bottled Water: Installed an additional five water bottle refilling stations, with more than 375,000 plastic bottles diverted from landfills.

Read the full report here.

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Green Infrastructure Test Bed Planted on Campus

Richard Pietras — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 13:49:57 +0000

(Left to right) Rami Sadovnik (student), Carrie Sadovnik (Director of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability), Stalin Espinal ’18, Paige Rushing (student), and Devlin McKenna (Office of Information Technology Services) help with the new green infrastructure project.

An innovative and environmentally friendly green infrastructure test bed received the finishing touches on June 15 when volunteers planted and mulched over 2,700 plugs of northeast native plants near the sidewalk between the Lily Pond and Whitman Hall.

The project was led by Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Associate Director of the Science and Resiliency Institute at Jamaica Bay Jennifer Cherrier, the Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center, the Office of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability, along with support from the college’s Facilities, Planning and Operations, and student, staff and faculty volunteers, including Professor of Television, Radio & Emerging Media Katherine G. Fry.

Earth and Environmental Sciences and Associate Director of the Science and Resiliency Institute at Jamaica Bay Jennifer Cherrier (right) oversees the installation of the hybrid ecoWEIR system at ��Ƶ that students, faculty and staff helped to install. The project will serve as a place for interdisciplinary research for not only the campus but the entire CUNY family and affiliated collaborators, the surrounding community, and the region to help educate and partner with them on issues related to stormwater and climate resiliency.  Helping Cherrier are students Wilson Deng (left) and Paige Rushing.

“Our campus has been long prized for its beauty. Beyond adding lush meadow greenery, Professor Cherrier’s ecoWEIR test bed bolsters biodiversity and offers transformative learning and research opportunities. This and other green space initiatives epitomize our commitment to a sustainable campus,” said Carrie Sadovnik, Director of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety/Sustainability.

The approximately 455 square-feet test bed of drought and flood-resilient plants, which also attract pollinators to further aid the environment, was designed by Office Landscape and Urban Design, a Brooklyn-based and minority-owned design firm, in consultation with Cherrier. The site will be used for interdisciplinary research by both students and faculty and functions both as a traditional green infrastructure —similar to what is currently being installed by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection throughout New York City—as well as a green infrastructure called , a hybrid system developed by Cherrier’s research.

Both types of green infrastructure, traditional and hybrid, are used to help manage and filter out pollutants from stormwater runoff as well as other surface and surficial groundwater flows into aquatic systems. However, the hybrid ecoWEIR system is designed to give nature a boost to maximize pollutant removal and allow for fit-for-purpose water reuse. The ecoWEIR system is also being piloted in to remove phosphate from Prospect Park’s waterways to help offset toxic algae blooms that have been plaguing the lake for the past decade.

Current Sustainability Coordinator Stalin Espinal ’18, who studied Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences, holds up one of the plants for the project.

Cherrier added that in addition to the imminent research that her group will be doing at the test bed site—including that of Ph.D. student Nia Rene, M.S. student Paige Rushing, and undergraduate student Sarah Maria Dos Santos—the project will serve as a place for interdisciplinary research for not only the campus but the entire CUNY family and affiliated collaborators, the surrounding community, and the region to help educate and partner with them on issues related to stormwater and climate resiliency.

“While I was proud to lead the effort, I cannot thank Carrie Sadovnik, Director of Environmental Health and Safety and Sustainability, her staff, my graduate student Paige, the Facilities team, as well as other ��Ƶ and CUNY faculty, staff, and students enough for coming together this past month to help make this happen,” Cherrier said. “I am also indebted to the ��Ƶ administration for their long-term support of this project as well as to my colleagues at for their collaborative support and contributions to ecoWEIR throughout the years and, finally, I’m thankful for initial funding for this work provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.”

Rushing, an earth and environmental sciences graduate student, participated in the gardening of the green space event. Rushing has been analyzing the ecoWEIR system for her master’s thesis which explores the effects of nutrient concentrations in stormwater runoff and discovering how effective the system is as a nature-based solution for stormwater management.

“This planting event was one of the final stages in completing the installation. We planted hundreds of native perennials and have been working over the past month to fill the excavated site,” Rushing said. “Getting the system in the ground was a large task and rigorous, so it’s great that we had [��Ƶ] facilities personnel and volunteers to help with the planting and all the other stages of the installation process. There is still more to learn through the research that will be conducted in this space.”

Rushing is looking forward to watching the garden grow and is optimistic about the future of the green space.

“I’m excited to watch the garden grow throughout the next year and to work on it because I enjoy being outside in nature. I feel optimistic about future research that will happen in this new green space.”

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College Grades High for Sustainability Achievements

Richard Pietras — Fri, 19 May 2023 18:48:00 +0000

��Ƶ has earned a STARS Silver rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE).

STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System) is a voluntary self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to gauge progress toward sustainability and be acknowledged for sustainability leadership. Over 900 institutions from more than 40 countries participate in STARS on achievements in 5 areas: ��Ƶ, Engagement, Operations, Planning and Administration, and Innovation and Leadership.

��Ƶ’s report is publicly available on the AASHE .

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��Ƶ Again Named a “Green College” by The Princeton Review

Communications — Tue, 07 Mar 2023 18:53:56 +0000

��Ƶ has once again been included as one of the nation’s top environmentally friendly colleges, according to .

The Princeton Review selected 455 colleges based on its 2021-22 surveys from students and administrators at 713 institutions concerning their college’s dedication to being sustainably eco-friendly. The company’s editors reviewed more than 25 survey data points to select the top schools.

Through its faculty, ��Ƶ is a leader in sustainability related research and education. The Center for the Study of Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Urban Ecology and Environment Program, and the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay are just some of the different research initiatives on campus. The college offers a comprehensive interdisciplinary undergraduate program in urban sustainability, offering three major concentrations in environmental science, economics, and sociology for students to choose from.

The Campus Sustainability Council is raising awareness in its commitment to reduce the college’s carbon footprint through campus-based education, research, community-based collaboration, services, and operations. It works with the college’s Office of Facilities, Planning and Operations and Sustainable CUNY to develop an energy master plan and implement efficiency projects, including LED lighting retrofits and steam trap replacements. The council has also participated in identifying and pursuing green infrastructure opportunities to help manage stormwater, increase biodiversity, and reduce energy costs from cooling, including pollinator plant beds and a community garden near the Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts, which is also a LEED certified building.

The college and the Campus Sustainability Council also engages the student body in sustainability planning, implementation, policy, and initiatives, through undergraduate student government, student-led clubs and organizations, and campus events. Students are primary partners in the campus-wide initiative to eliminate and reduce the use of single-use plastics throughout ��Ƶ, in an effort to address the negative impact of plastic pollution on our environment.

The Princeton Review gave each college a “green rating” score on a scale of 60 to 99 based on the school’s overall environmental awareness. The universities that earned a score of 80 or higher were picked from the Guide to Green Colleges. Out of the 455 colleges, 421 are in the United States, 26 in Canada, two are in Taiwan, and one each from Ecuador, Egypt, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, and Morocco. Additionally, 31 out of the 455 colleges earned a green rating score of 99. The schools are listed alphabetically in the guide and are not ranked overall from 1 to 455.

The guide ranks colleges based on their commitment to sustainability and determines if the students have a healthy and viable campus quality of life and how environmental policies are being utilized. It also shows how well a campus is preparing students for jobs in the evolving green economy of the 21st century as well as for citizenship in a society that is focused on addressing environmental concerns and opportunities. More information on the methodology can be found .

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