Mission and History
Established in 2005, the Office of Sustainability works to promote the tenets of sustainability at Yale, in New Haven, and around the global higher-education community. By facilitating the development and implementation of best practices and encouraging innovative collaboration, teaching, and scholarship on sustainable themes, we seek to position Yale at the vanguard of the field and help it make the environmental, social, health, and economic benefits of sustainability a reality on its campus and around the world.
Mission
To advance sustainability by fostering innovation, helping to streamline operations, and preparing tomorrow's sustainability leaders.
Charge
To position Yale as a national and international model and leader in institutional sustainability - through education, outreach, research, and partnership.
Approach
The Yale Office of Sustainability strives to meet its charge and mission through five organizing principles: Policy and Governance; Systems and Operations; Campus Engagement; Academic Integration; and Strategic Partnerships. These principles give us a cohesive, thorough strategy for the 21st century’s most important issue. For more on our organizing principles, read about our strategy.
Sustainability at Yale: A History
The founding of the Office of Sustainability in 2005 is only an inflection point in the rich timeline of Yale’s engagement with sustainability to date. Yale’s intimate engagement with the environment started in 1900 with the founding of the School of Forestry, America’s first such institution, and has since evolved into an institution-wide movement that incorporates building construction; waste management; energy production; research; classroom instruction; local, national, and international collaboration; and much more. With the establishment of our office came the unification and augmentation of existing sustainable endeavors. Since then Yale has clarified its institutional vision for sustainability and codified its commitment to realizing that vision. Following is a timeline of notable events in the history of sustainability at Yale.
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1900 |
The first forestry school in America, the Yale School of Forestry, is established by the first and second chiefs of the US Forest Service, Gifford Pinochet (Yale College, 1889) and Henry S. Graves (Yale College, 1892). |
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1909 |
Aldo Leopold, a pioneering ecologist, conservationist, and environmental activist, graduates from the School of Forestry. |
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1970 |
On the inaugural Earth Day, an undergraduate begins recycling paper on campus. |
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1972 |
Acknowledging the influence of environmental scholarship and teaching, the School of Forestry adds “& Environmental Studies” to its name. |
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Yale economists William Nordhaus and James Tobin are the first to comprehensively incorporate the costs of environmental degradation into an economic model. |
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1980 |
Yale Recycling becomes an official undergraduate organization. |
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Yale Recycling becomes a full-time operation of the Facilities Department. |
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1994 |
The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy is jointly founded by the Yale Law School and the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. |
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The years that follow see the establishment of the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, the Center for Green Chemistry & Engineering, the Yale Project on Climate Change, enironmentally-focused joint degree programs, and extensive interdepartmental cooperation. |
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1995 |
The Yale Student Environmental Coalition hosts the Campus Earth Summit. Summit attendees draft a plan for making college campuses models of environmental behavior. |
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1998 |
Undergraduate students produce the Yale Green Plan and submit recommendations to Yale administrators. |
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2001 |
The Advisory Committee on Environmental Management (ACEM) is established. |
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2002 |
Yale makes its first formal commitment to broad-based, institutional sustainability when it approves a set of Environmental Principles proposed by ACEM. |
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2004 |
Office of the Provost endorses seven environmental targets proposed by ACEM. |
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The first, full-time adminstrative position dedicated to furthering Yale's sustainable efforts is created and Julie Newman, is hired as the Sustainability Director. |
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2005 |
The Yale Office of Sustainability is created with Newman as its director. |
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President Levin commits Yale to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 43 percent by 2020, despite an estimated 15 percent growth during that period. |
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Work finishes on the Chemistry Research Building, Yale’s first LEED certified building, and the Sterling Hall of Medicine C3 Laboratory, the first ever LEED-certified lab. All new campus construction now conforms to sustainable building standards. |
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2006 |
Yale becomes an inaugural member of the International Alliance of Research Universities, a group of 10 institutions that exchange ideas and practices on a range of topics, including sustainability. |
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2008 |
Yale President Richard C. Levin gives a landmark speech on climate change at the University of Copenhagen. |
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2010 |
President Richard C. Levin announces Yale's Sustainability Strategic Plan 2010-2013 in an effort to strengthen the foundation of the University's sustainability commitment. |
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2011 |
Progress Report on Yale's Sustainability Strategic Plan 2010-2013 is released. |