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.


Treated fibers clean dye-polluted waters

A cheap and simple process using nanoparticles with natural fibers can almost completely rid water of harmful textile dyes in minutes, report Cornell and Colombian researchers.

Food, poverty research are focus of Sept. 17 event

Symposium to showcase program that trained students to use interdisciplinary approaches to food systems and agriculture issues that contribute to extreme poverty.

Experts to focus on food security in a vulnerable world

“Food Security in a Vulnerable World” will be a daylong symposium Sept. 12 that will include World Food Prize laureates, World Food Prize Youth Institute alumni, journalists and researchers.

Ithaca may kindle America's budding hydrogen economy

A new hydrogen filling station – nestled in Ithaca – could help to activate a new, national energy economy, since automakers plan to begin selling fuel-cell cars by 2016.

Engineering launches 'Think Big, Live Green' campaign

Cut-out, smackdown, payback, tune-in and turn-off: It’s time for “Think Big, Live Green,” a major energy conservation and sustainability campaign being launched Sept. 4 by Cornell’s College of Engineering.

Breeders, seed savers advance organics movement

Cornell scientists and alumni are part of a participatory plant breeding movement that seeks to produce organically gown seeds for crops appropriate to local climate conditions.

Project aims to lure locavores to the wild side

Researchers and extension educators are working to help promote regional wild fish and game species to locavores as healthy food options, by adding the data they've collected to nutritional databases and starting a Wild Harvest Table initiative.

'Fountain of youth’ for leaves discovered

Cornell horticulture professor Su-Sheng Gan has identified an enzymatic fountain of youth that slows down the process of leaf death and lays the foundation for the genetics of freshness.

Freeing pet catfish can devastate ecosystems

A new Cornell study explains why aquarium catfish can change the structure and function of ecosystems when pet owners set them free and they become abundant in non-native waters.