Stewardship

Land, Water, Life

The Yale campus and its surroundings contain many unique urban green spaces that offer opportunities for relaxation and recreation, and education.

Yale’s Efforts

  • Inspired by student research and recommendations, Yale has installed multiple urban meadows and rain gardens throughout campus. 
  • More than 8,000 trees have been planted in the City of New Haven through the Urban Resources Initiative, a not-for-profit-university partnership. Over 130 of the these are on campus, 48 of which recognize Yale employees for long-term service. 
  • Yale’s Water Management Plan recognizes water as a critical resource, promotes metering, conservation technologies and conservation research, and prioritizes adaptive management strategies. 

What You Can Do

  • Join the many students, faculty and staff who participate annually in bird walks on campus and citizen science events to survey and record biodiversity on campus.

Our Objectives and Goals

Urban Growth and Campus Planning

Develop transformative approaches to urban growth and campus planning that address financial, environmental, and social imperatives

The Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) hosted a month-long exhibit by artist and iconographer Angela Manno focusing on threatened and endangered species in Spring 2023. The exhibit, entitled “Sacred Biodiversity: Icons of Threatened and Endangered Species,” elevated discussions around biocentrism: a worldview that gives inherent value to all living things. The exhibit was sponsored by ISM’s new initiative Religion, Ecology, and Expressive Culture, which launched in January 2023 to amplify connections between arts, culture, and ongoing ecological crises. The exhibit affirmed the important role Yale’s collections’ community plays in advancing sustainability through connecting with people’s values and emotions in an inclusive way.

This Objective is supported by the following goals. Progress reflects activities and accomplishments from July 2022 - June 2023: 
Goal: 

Campus Land Use Planning Guidelines

ON TRACK

By 2025, complete the update to the Framework for Campus Planning.

Progress: 

In 2023, we initiated a supplement to the Framework for Campus Planning that will summarize Yale’s planning work over the last twenty years in anticipation of the 2025 update to the Framework. The 2025 update will set the campus planning direction for the next quarter century.

Goal: 

Efficient Campus Growth

ACHIEVED

By 2020, develop and implement planning strategies to efficiently accommodate increased campus population and programmatic expansion.

Progress: 

This goal was achieved in 2020, when Facilities Planning adopted an approach to new buildings and ren­ovations that maximizes efficiency using flexible workspace principles. Working within Yale’s flexible work model approach, Yale is assessing impacts and implementing projects based on shared workstations.

Land and Water Management

Develop innovative approaches to land and water management that enhance human health, biodiversity, and environmental vitality

This Objective is supported by the following goals. Progress reflects activities and accomplishments from July 2022 - June 2023: 
Goal: 

Landscape Management and Use

ACHIEVED

By 2021, define standards for innovative landscape management to enhance care and use of Yale land inside and outside of New Haven.

Progress: 

This goal was achieved in 2021. In 2023, Yale earned Tree Campus Higher Education recognition from the National Arbor Day Foundation based on implementation of Yale’s robust Tree Management Plan; over 500 hours of volunteer tree planting by students, alumni, faculty, and staff; and hosting an annual campus-wide celebration to enhance learning about the benefits of trees.

Goal: 

Stormwater and Water Management

ACHIEVED

By 2020, implement recommendations as proposed in 2016 supplements to campus Stormwater and Water Management Plans in explicit alignment with municipal, regional, and state priorities.

Progress: 

This original goal was achieved in 2020. Yale has since begun development of a campus-wide Stormwater Master Plan, which will guide implementation of priority stormwater mitigation projects, is nearing completion. We have identified highly vulnerable areas and are mapping out short-, mid-, and long-term solutions for mitigation.

Goal: 

Biodiversity Plan

ON TRACK

By 2025, establish campus best practices, standards, benchmarks, and biodiversity goals and strategies to meet and measure performance to create a campus biodiversity plan. 

Progress: 

Although progress on the plan was delayed due to staffing challenges, renewed work on this goal will be advanced with a new Facilities Open Space Committee. In addition, cur­rent projects have highlighted and prioritized biodiversity, including the Marsh Botanical Gardens Master Plan and the Divinity School Living Village.