Sustainability & Environment

As co-presidents of the Harvard Undergraduate Urban Sustainability Lab, Kayla Springer ’26 and Clyve Lawrence ’27 are working to advance sustainability at Harvard and in Boston.

With support from a Salata Institute seed grant, electrical engineer Gage Hills is investigating how to reduce the carbon footprint of the production and use of next-generation computer chips.

Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Fernando Reimers EdM ’84, EdD ’88—who helped shape Harvard’s climate change education plan—leads with hope as he prepares students for a green economy.

In the Harvard Thinking podcast, faculty experts in the fields of energy and economics, African studies, and epidemiology outline the challenges of meeting global and local climate priorities.

Can sea level rise be slowed? A new project called Sea Level Investigation and Management (SLIM), made possible by a generous gift from Cornelius “Neil” Prior Jr. LLB ’62, aims to find out.

The Salata Institute Seed Grant Program, supported by a gift from the Troper Wojcicki Foundation, is funding a second round of early-stage research by Harvard faculty on emerging topics in climate and sustainability, including a biologically inspired "skin" for windows that reduces building energy use, a carbon capture system powered by sunlight alone, and an analysis of the health effects of "peaker" power plants that operate when electricity demands are high.

Speaking at a Harvard Graduate School of Design symposium, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu AB '07, JD '12 offered a forceful vision for the role of urban forests in her city's push for environmental justice and climate resiliency.

Developed by Harvard researchers in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund and others, the MethaneSAT satellite will monitor methane emissions from oil and gas fields worldwide and make the information publicly available in near real-time.

Vanessa Kerry MD '05, WHO director-general special envoy for climate change and health, gave a keynote address to a diverse slate of academics, policymakers, and industry representatives at the inaugural CAFÉ Climate & Health Conference hosted by Harvard and Boston University.

Gaurab Basu, director of education and policy at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy make the case that solving the climate crisis is a public health imperative.