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.


2-mile borehole to reveal viability of campus’s geothermal future

Cornell is one step closer to determining the feasibility of using deep geothermal energy to heat the Ithaca campus now that drilling has commenced for the Cornell University Borehole Observatory.

United Airlines, Dimensional Energy reach green fuel pact

United Airlines will fly greener through its friendly skies, as the airline agreed to buy at least 300 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel from Cornell startup Dimensional Energy.

Houlton: Invest in ag research to fight climate change

Benjamin Z. Houlton, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, testified June 15 to the U.S. House Agriculture Committee on the role of climate research in supporting agricultural resiliency.

The 2030 Project offers fast grants to accelerate faculty-led climate solutions

New funding option for Cornell faculty reflects the urgency of climate research

Around Cornell

Five companies ‘graduate’ from Cornell incubators

As the pandemic pomp and COVID circumstances dissipate, Cornell’s McGovern Center and Praxis Center incubators graduated five startups, putting them on the road to success.

AI reveals scale of eelgrass vulnerability to warming, disease

A combination of ecological field methods and AI has helped an interdisciplinary research group detect eelgrass wasting disease from San Diego to southern Alaska, and determine that it’s caused by warmer-than-normal water temperatures.

Gomes receives ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award

Carla P. Gomes, the Ronald and Antonia Nielsen Professor of Computing and Information Science, is the 2022 recipient of the ACM – AAAI Allen Newell Award, given in recognition of her foundational contributions to artificial intelligence (AI) and for founding and developing the field of computational sustainability.

Around Cornell

Study to focus on climate impact of NYS ponds, wetlands

Meredith Holgerson, assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, is working with New York state to quantify the climate impact of ponds and wetlands, as part of the state’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Finger Lakes Land Trust, once a master’s project, conserves 28K acres

Alumnus Andy Zepp started the Finger Lakes Land Trust one night in a Fernow Hall lecture hall. Now executive director, he’s preserving the region’s iconic landscapes one acre at a time.