Energy, Environment & Sustainability

Cornell is a global leader in sustainability and climate change research, teaching and engagement. Our campuses are living laboratories for developing, testing and implementing solutions that address these most challenging issues.


DIY tinkerers tackle defunct tech at Earth Day Repair Fair

Visitors to the Earth Day Repair Fair can fix, donate or recycle their defunct tech - from laptops to keyboards to headphones. Anything with a cord (including the cord!) will be accepted.

Around Cornell

Atkinson Hall opens as a hub for research, collaboration

Atkinson Hall officially opened its doors with a ribbon-cutting ceremony April 9, realizing its benefactors’ vision of the facility as a home for impact-driven research across grand challenges in sustainability, cancer biology and immunology, nutrition, global health and computational biology.

Uncovering ‘terroir’: Project to explore plant-environment interactions

A Cornell grape geneticist is leading a $2.3 million multi-institutional project to understand how genetically identical grapevines are influenced by varying environmental conditions in three states. 

Cornell research designs maple sugarbush agroforestry system

The Cornell Maple Program is growing 18 species of perennial fruit- and nut-bearing plants within a maple sugarbush forest. They want to help maple producers be more resilient to economic challenges and extreme weather events, and offer unique products like maple-elderberry wine and maple-hazelnut spreads.

Around Cornell

Cornell partners with industry to better assess drought risk

The project aligns with Cornell Atkinson's core mission of supporting research that drives meaningful impact across public opinion, policy, and corporate practices.

Sunlight and seawater lead to low-cost green hydrogen, clean water

Researchers developed a low-cost method to produce carbon-free “green” hydrogen via solar-powered electrolysis of seawater, with a helpful byproduct: potable water.

Tree rings track atmospheric mercury cheaply

Wild fig tree rings offer a cheap method for tracking toxic atmospheric mercury, a byproduct of gold mining in the Global South.

Southern Ocean warming leads to wetter East Asia, Western US

The Southern Ocean – between Antarctica and other continents – will eventually release heat absorbed from the atmosphere, leading to projected long-term increases in precipitation over East Asia and the Western U.S.

New York Outcomes Fund spurs, supports growers’ sustainability efforts

Run by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, the fund delivered payments and provided support to growers who planted cover crops and reduced tillage on nearly 15,000 acres in western and central New York.