Materials
Using and Reusing Materials to Inspire
University operations and academics require a vast array of materials - from art supplies to furniture, from medical equipment to sports uniforms, from construction materials to food. Yale helps drive sustainability within this complex materials system by leveraging relationships with suppliers and using data to inspire, incentivize, and empower our community members.
Yale’s Efforts
- We continually look for opportunities to encourage reuse of products within the Yale community and beyond. Spring Salvage donates items from students leaving the University.
- Yale’s purchasing professionals play an important role in advancing responsible materials management. Learn about Procurement’s sustainability goals and initiatives.
- Managing the disposal of items leaving campus is a complex process. We strive for transparency, and look to the Yale community help us reach our goals.
What You Can Do
- Buy or sell, donate and find! Turn to the Eli Surplus Exchange to keep resources on campus.
Our Objectives and Goals
Purchasing Standards
Advance purchasing standards that promote sustainability and resilience
Banofi Leather, a Yale-affiliated startup that turns banana crop waste into a sustainable leather alternative, won the $1 million Hult Prize in the world’s largest student entrepreneurship competition in fall 2023. The startup, which aspires to combat the environmental impacts of the leather industry, was founded by alumni from the Yale School of the Environment and the Yale School of Management and supported by the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment.
Healthy Materials Purchasing
ON TRACK
By 2025, implement sustainable purchasing practices for specific commodity groups.
Universitywide, this goal has opportunity for improvement. However, as part of advocacy for healthy materials and leveraging Yale’s buying power, the Living Village project at Yale Divinity School helped influence 18 updates to disclosures around chemicals of concern. This has directly enhanced Yale’s sustainable design requirements, and led to the elimination of PVC from several consumer products.
Material Flow Systems
Promote material flow systems that employ use and disposal patterns to inform purchasing decisions
Pay As You Throw
ACHIEVED
By January 2022, create, pilot, and assess a “pay as you throw” system.
This goal was achieved in 2019. The Pay As You Throw pilot, the first of its kind at an American higher education institution, included three treatment groups and two control groups. The final analysis was completed in Fall 2019, and outcomes from the pilot continue to be used.
Targeted Waste Reduction
ACHIEVED
By 2020, identify the most impactful commodity groups that contribute to Yale’s waste stream through material flow analyses.
This goal was achieved in 2020. Material flow analyses on pallets, animal bedding, paper, cardboard, and plastic bags were completed, and a life-cycle assessment on plastic utensils and compostable utensils was conducted.
Purchasing and Disposal Decision-Making
Cultivate sustainable purchasing and disposal decisions
Materials Outreach and Engagement
ACHIEVED
By 2020, create and launch an engagement strategy to empower Yale students, staff, and faculty to make responsible materials management choices, including communications about purchasing volume for key commodities; reuse; and diversion of materials from the waste stream.
This goal was achieved in 2020, and continued reporting will be done under the new goals of “Waste Diversion” and “Green Cleaning.”
Waste Diversion
WE COULD DO BETTER
By 2025, divert 60% of materials while maintaining or reducing overall volume of waste.
We diverted 34% of our day-to-day operational waste in 2024. In our final year of this plan, we are targeting a 40% diversion rate. Not included in this diversion goal is construction and demolition waste, of which we diverted 76% in 2024.
Green Cleaning
WE COULD DO BETTER
By 2025, 40% of cleaning chemicals used, by volume, should be green-preferred or green-certified.
Data on university-purchased cleaning chemicals that were green-preferred or green-certified has been unavailable for the past several years. However, we are deploying new solutions, including technology that eliminates the need for cleaning chemicals and generates sustainable cleaning solutions using only water, salt, and electricity.
Reuse
ON TRACK
By 2025, create a suite of coordinated solutions for exploring inflow and outflow of high-volume materials by identifying opportunities for reuse within Yale, the New Haven community, and the region.
Spring Salvage, Yale’s annual undergraduate student moveout program, diverted 47,000 pounds from the waste stream in 2024.