The Yale Sustainability Plan 2025 highlights the ways that Yale demonstrates leadership in sustainability by building strong partnerships — across institutions of higher education, across sectors, and through the vast networks of Yale alumni.
Local Partnerships
Yale University is proud to call New Haven its home and has increased its partnerships with the city to build a stronger community. The Office of New Haven Affairs (ONHA) provides a front door to Yale and its resources for the people and organizations of Greater New Haven.
Working with other University departments and our neighbors in New Haven, ONHSA spearheads Yale’s partnerships to strengthen New Haven through fostering economic development, revitalizing neighborhoods, supporting public school and youth programs, and creating a vital downtown.
A 2017 survey found over 50 town-gown partnerships between the University and the City of New Haven, many of which support sustainability in our shared community, such as the Urban Resources Initiative and goNewHavengo.
Global Partnerships
International Sustainable Campus Network
Started in 2007, the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) provides a global forum to support leading colleges, universities, and corporate campuses in the exchange of information, ideas, and best practices for achieving sustainable campus operations and integrating sustainability in research and teaching.
ISCN is a paid membership group of more than 90 schools from over 30 countries on 6 continents. Member institutions participate in shared projects, knowledge exchange, peer review and exchange, and institutional mentoring.
International Alliance of Research Universities
The International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) is a presidential-level partnership that was established in 2006 as a network of international research-intensive universities. The 11 members share similar values, a global vision and a commitment to educating future world leaders. Central to these values is the importance of academic diversity and international collaboration as reflected in IARU’s principles.
IARU established a campus sustainability initiative in 2009 with the aim of promoting collaboration between member institutions and leveraging knowledge exchange to move beyond best practices to transformative change. Each member of the alliance has established programs to progressively improve the culture of sustainability on each campus, which collectively highlighting the role that universities can play in addressing global challenges. Notable outcomes of this group include a shared publication The Green Guide for Universities, and several global events aimed at fostering collaboration on global challenges.
As a part of the campus sustainability initiative, IARU is exploring the role of academia in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals. IARU hosted a special event on this topic at the 2018 International Sustainable Campus Network annual conference which resulted in a report detailing the event and possible ways forward.
The IARU Members are the Australian National University, ETH Zurich, National University of Singapore, Peking University, UC Berkeley, University of Cambridge, University of Cape Town, University of Copenhagen, University of Oxford, The University of Tokyo, and Yale University. Yale is currently a member of the IARU Sustainability Steering Committee.
National Partnerships
Ivy Plus
The Ivy Plus Sustainability Consortium is made up of sustainability officers from the Ivy League universities and additional peer universities committed to best-practice sharing and the ongoing exchange of campus sustainability solutions common to all of our campuses. The participating institutions agree that a unified effort to respond to one of the most pressing issues of our time, climate change, is essential.
The Ivy Plus group is faced with the opportunity and responsibility to develop cutting-edge model operations, engage top scholars, and educate the future leaders on issues of sustainable development and climate change.
The group was initially convened in 2007 and continues to meet on an annual basis at one of the participating institutions. The following institutions of higher education are members of the Consortium, in addition to Yale University:
Alumni Network
Yale Blue Green
Yale Blue Green (YBG) is the shared interest group for Yale University alumni who are engaged in environmental and sustainability topics and issues. YBG connects Yale alumni, students, faculty, staff and affiliates. Their mission is to support the University in its sustainability efforts and to serve as a hub for thought leadership, collaborative action, lifelong learning and inspiration on initiatives relating to the environment and sustainability.