New York University
Washington Square Park and NYU Campus Campus Category
Four year and graduate institutions over 15,000 student FTE
Contact Information
Jeremy Friedman
Project Coordinator
Sustainability Task Force
Education and Research
NYU provides its 40,000+ students with an unusual toolkit of global, interdisciplinary and applied educational opportunities. This approach is expressed well beyond traditional academic areas (such as our rapidly-growing Environmental Studies Program), with environmental coursework and research integrated throughout the University. From the new Bioethics Program and the Food Studies Department to the world-renowned Center on Environmental and Land Use Law and the Wallerstein Collaborative (the first environmental education program in the US), environment-focused courses exist in nine NYU colleges across more than a dozen different programs. More than fifty NYU faculty actively teach courses directly relevant to sustainability. Students are thus equipped to incorporate sustainability into their academic lives in the most relevant ways possible.
Student enrollment in Environmental Studies has quintupled since the program’s inception two years ago. Since then, six new full-time faculty positions have been created, many as joint hires with other departments, serving to further weave sustainability into the fabric of the wider university. The number of environment-focused courses available to undergraduate students has more than tripled since 2006.
This past year, the ES Senior Capstone studied The Greening of NYU, with students drawing upon disciplines ranging from engineering to cultural analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of NYU’s sustainability initiatives to date. This partnership between Environmental Studies and the Sustainability Task Force is one of many ways that operational greening and environmental education are intertwined at NYU.
Many of NYU’s faculty are engaged in widely recognized sustainability research – they have advised the IPCC on climate change, published key findings on melting Greenland glaciers, and led studies that transformed public awareness of the childhood asthma epidemic in the South Bronx. Dr. Natalie Jeremijenko’s experimental design projects include the Urban Space Station and the Environmental Health Clinic. Professor Marion Nestle’s work has made her the recognized authority on the food industry and its implications for public and environmental health. Professor Tyler Volk has advanced our understanding of the role of biological evolution in shaping the Earth’s thermal and chemical regimes, also developing new approaches to Gaia theory.
Green Grants offer a cutting-edge way to support student and faculty sustainability research by tying the university’s intellectual agenda directly to its operational practices. Green Grants have also supported educational projects like the Outdoor Environmental Leadership Program and Radishes and Rubbish, which lead students off-campus to learn experientially, and the ITP Renewable Energy Generation project, which uses energy from rooftop solar equipment as a creative design constraint to teach students to build efficient technology projects.
NYU aims to become “the first truly Global Network University” by harnessing institutional strengths such as the highest number of students studying abroad of any US university. By taking advantage of communications technologies to bring the world into our classrooms without ecologically costly travel; by collaborating with foreign academic institutions to examine global problems such as climate change; and by furthering public understanding of the interconnectedness of our human and ecological systems worldwide, the global university initiative can yield new and exciting solutions for sustainability in the future.
Campus Operations
The largest private university in the US, NYU is deeply committed to reducing the substantial collective environmental footprint of our 60,000-member campus community. Our dense urban campus “in and of the city,” with its efficient high-rise buildings and public transportation, offers a green foundation to build on.
NYU is a Charter Signatory member of the ACUPCC, and pledged 30% GHG emissions reductions 30% by 2017 as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC Challenge. We’ve drafted a comprehensive Climate Action Plan to achieve net carbon neutrality before 2050 with minimal use of offsets. In FY2007 we reduced emissions by more than 7,300 tons. In FY2008, NYU cut electricity use by approximately 4% (5 million kilowatt-hours), while HVAC upgrades and other projects have similarly cut heating fuel use. Other University energy reduction efforts have included: building relamping; occupancy sensors; the student-led NYUnplugged conservation campaign in residence halls; and 15 energy-saving Green Grant projects. Next year, NYU’s new $120 million cogeneration power plant will reduce campus-wide carbon emissions by more than 15%.
Water conservation efforts include scheduled high-efficiency faucet/showerhead retrofits for all residence halls, a greywater reuse pilot project, and a disposable water bottle reduction campaign spearheaded by Dining Services. Administrative offices are also installing tap water filters to replace standard jug watercoolers.
Dining Services’ initiatives include new organic and local menu options; a location harvesting herbs from edible landscaping planters on-site; purchase of 100% Fair Trade tea and coffee; and partnerships with local organic farms and vendors. NYU’s Trayless Dining Initiative has reduced per-meal plate waste by 44%. Our composting initiative – the largest in Manhattan – collected 34 tons of preparation scraps and plate waste in September 2008 alone! Other achievements include Recycling Services’ comprehensive waste-characterization project, the annual Green Apple Move Out donation drive, and leadership in Recyclemania’s “Waste Minimization” category.
The newly-drafted NYU Environmental Purchasing Policy includes standards for procurement of goods/services in thirteen categories, emphasizing life-cycle analysis and minimal ecological impact and affecting $100 million of annual procurement. It is accompanied by a user-friendly Environmental Purchasing Guide.
The recent renovation of NYU’s Gallatin building achieved LEED Gold Certification. Three more current building projects are pursuing high-level LEED certification, and all major future construction and renovation is committed to achieving at least LEED Silver. Our Plans 2031 strategic planning initiative will help predict university needs, ensuring that future building improves campus environmental performance. NYU’s Garden Shop provides 100% organic grounds care, plants low-maintenance native and edible landscaping, and maintains the Green Grant-funded Healthy Landscape Demonstration Garden, as well as a Native Woodland Garden which brings NYC’s distant ecological past to life.
Nearly all students use mass transit or walk to campus, less than 5% commuting by car. But we're taking additional steps to reduce transportation impacts, having launched Manhattan’s first free Bike Share Program and a host of pro-bicycle infrastructure upgrades. We’re also improving the efficiency of our already-limited campus bus fleet by consolidating routes and exploring a low-carbon fuel standard.
Administration and Finance
One of the hallmarks of NYU Sustainability’s approach is the active, deliberate engagement of all groups within the university community, so that everyone takes a leadership role in campus greening.
NYU’s core initiatives – the Sustainability Task Force, the Sustainability Advocate Program, and the Green Grants – each build capacity on multiple levels, increasing participation while improving our ecological performance and embedding environmental values into university decision-making structures.
The Sustainability Task Force is a body of 60 students/faculty/staff which recommends and implements a comprehensive annual slate of programs and policies to reduce NYU’s environmental impacts and foster a campus culture of sustainability. More than 100 Task Force recommendations have been accepted by university leadership.
The Task Force is divided into six Working Groups, each co-chaired by both a student and a faculty/staff member – one of many ways that NYU Sustainability empowers students to directly shape university policy. An additional 75+ volunteers participate in working groups.
The Sustainability Advocate Program trains and supports more than 110 employee volunteers to implement and educate colleagues about sustainable operational practices in their offices.
The Green Grants program also engages the campus community, but in a way that is quite different from the standard top-down model. The Task Force annually solicits ideas for innovative student-/faculty-/staff-led greening projects that improve operational environmental performance, foster community engagement, advance applied research goals, and demonstrate best practices and technologies. Some $250,000 has been awarded to over 35 projects during the last two years. A third funding cycle is now underway.
NYU’s endowment invests in renewable energy funds and similar investment vehicles, and is exploring community development and microlending fund investment opportunities. NYU has also invested in wind power through its landmark purchase of 118 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy credits, becoming the largest university purchaser of renewable energy in the US in 2006.
NYU’s Community Fund invests directly in our "neighborhood environment," offering $100,000 of funding annually to dozens of non-profit organizations in Manhattan. The Fund is supported entirely by donations from university employees. Community service is a cornerstone of NYU student life as well – we connect more than 5000 students annually to hundreds of service opportunities, and are participating in President Obama’s United We Serve campaign this summer.
To evaluate the impact of these and dozens of other programs and investments, NYU has put a premium on sustainability assessment. This past winter, the Task Force completed NYU’s first comprehensive Environmental Assessment Report, which included detailed data and analysis that served to baseline campus environmental impacts and benchmark progress toward sustainability goals.
Since NYU Sustainability’s launch just three years ago, four full-time employees have been hired. These staff oversee and facilitate major initiatives, spearheading key operational changes and collaborating with hundreds of other university staff. They are supported by a team of student employees and five full-time Recycling and Sustainable Landscaping staff. Continued growth is anticipated in these programs, and additional staff resources may be devoted in the future.
