A few graduate students’ dream that skyscrapers will be filled with plants instead of cubicles may be becoming a reality. In a lecture Wednesday, Prof. Emeritus Dickson Despommier spoke to an audience of 30 students about how groups are beginning to adopt vertical farming to solve the planet’s climate issues. 

Starting in Spring 2014, students will be able to travel to the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in Southern India for the semester to learn about biodiversity conservation, sustainable environments and livelihoods.

Prof. Joel Sanders, architecture, Yale University, encouraged students to address the divide between the fields of landscape and architecture and consider the potential of unifying the two topics at a lecture Wednesday. 

The University was awarded its second gold Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System score — a title designating it one of the most sustainable campuses in the nation — March 8.

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences installed the University’s first solar-powered trash can outside of Roberts Hall last month in what the student behind the project touted as a step to reduce energy costs and increase environmental sustainability.

A proposed Green Revolving Fund represents "an extension of the University’s goals" for sustainability, the president of the Student Assembly said.

Over winter break, Cornell students began building an affordable and environmentally sustainable model house in  Nicaragua.

After spending a year abroad in Sweden, Anna-Lisa Castle ’14 took the University by storm her sophomore year, becoming a student leader and campus activist in groups such as KyotoNOW! and the Women’s Resource Center.

The 5,000 square-foot garden by the entrance of Mann Library was honored last month as one of 11 landscapes in the U.S. to be certified by the Sustainable Sites Initiative, a certification system that recognizes landscapes that are environmentally sustainable.

Prof. Frank DiSalvo, chemistry and chemical biology, will serve a second term as director of the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.