A renovation of the first and second floors of Vance Hall has received LEED for Commercial Interiors Silver Certification. This building, located at 3733 Spruce Street, was constructed in 1972 and houses the Wharton School's graduate education program.
Design and program elements of Vance Hall that...
The Morris Arboretum’s permeable parking lot is being renewed and rededicated after 25 years of service. The original parking lot used innovative and, for its time, unique construction techniques to create an asphalt surface that permitted water to sink right through the pavement and filter into...
Penn’s Green Living certification program recognizes students for their individual efforts to live a sustainable lifestyle, awarding Gold, Silver, and Bronze level certifications and rewards from neighborhood restaurants such as Picnic and Shake Shack. Since introduced in all College Houses and...
At the close of Dr. Bethany Wiggin’s spring 2013 course, Utopian Visions, students wanted to know what she was going to do for an encore. Dr. Wiggin, Associate Professor of German in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, had used the study of German and American utopian communities...
As part of its goals under Climate Action Plan 2.0, the Office of Sustainability has been meeting with faculty members to expand the opportunities for teaching, learning, and researching sustainability. This has included one-on-one meetings, partnering with Penn’s Center for Teaching & Learning...
The Faculty & Staff Eco-Rep Program is taking on a new management structure. The group has grown since its creation in 2010, both in size and capabilities. To better meet the needs of this evolving organization, three Co-Chair positions have been created. The Co-Chairs will work with Penn’s Office...
The airwaves in Philadelphia buzzed on Sunday, February 8 with the voices of Penn’s sustainability leadership. University Architect David Hollenberg and Dan Garofalo, Penn’s Sustainability Director, were guests on The Green Hour, a weekly radio program on 900AM WURD. The program’s mission is to...
Penn’s Division of Human Resources has announced the 2015 Models of Excellence Program Award winners, an initiative introduced in 1999 to recognize notable staff member accomplishments at Penn that reflect initiative, leadership, increased efficiency, and a deep commitment to service.
One of this...
URBAN NATURE, NATURAL CITY: THE URBAN RANGERS PROJECT
FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015
10:30AM 2:00PM
CLAUDIA COHEN HALL ROOM G17
The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities presents a series of events exploring what we mean by nature in the age of the human, the Anthropocene, on 4/10...
It’s time for all of us to get outside!
Sign up for Penn’s 30x30 Challenge.
Commit to spending 30 minutes outdoors each day for 30 consecutive days.
Sign Up: March 3-25 via the online form. (bit.ly/Penn30x30)
Go outdoors for 30 minutes per day: April 1 – 30
On average, Americans spend...
Gregory and Harrison College Houses won this year’s College House competition with a 1.67% and 2,518 kilowatt hour reduction respectively. View details on the College House competition webpage.
The winner in the % Reduction in Electricity Use was Law School with a 4.6% reduction. The winner in...
As the Power Down Challenge reports results from Week 3, Rodin College House still leads the competition in both categories with a 2.11% and 2355 kWh/day electricity reduction. As for campus buildings, 3815 Walnut (SP2) and Levine (SEAS) are winning in percent change and change per square ft. with a...
The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has finished in first place in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s nationwide College and University Green Power Challenge in news released in January 2015.
EPA began its Green Power Challenge for higher education institutions in 2006, and...
Week Two is complete in Penn's Power Down Challenge, and energy savings are on the rise! In the College House Competition, Rodin College House is winning in both categories with a 2.53% and 1727 kWh/day electricity reduction. Levine Hall is leading the Campus Building Competition, in both percent...
PennMoves, the University of Pennsylvania's Move-Out collection and donation program coordinated by Residential Services, is seeking an additional partner for its 2015 program! Each year, PennMoves partners with Eco-Reps in College Houses to collect unwanted student belongings, such as clothing...
The 2015 Power Down Challenge begins today, February 2. All Penn College Houses and nine campus buildings will compete to see which buildings can decrease energy usage over this month-long competition.
A few details:
- Houses are compared to a baseline of their normal electricity usage taken prior...
The Greek Power Down Challenge is a month-long energy reduction competition hosted by Greek Eco-Reps, which takes place during the month of November. Thirteen chapters participated in the pilot program during 2014.
Congratulations to DKE and Fiji for winning the 2014 competition in percent...
This semester, the Green Living Certification program partnered with a team of MGMT 100 students. Their goal was to promote the program through increased student engagement, as well as recommend ways to sustain interest in the program for years to come. As part of their social media efforts, they...
The Green Living program at Penn, which encourages and rewards students for living an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, is the subject of a case study published on the AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education) website, aashe.org. Now availalbe on this site...
Braving a damp, drizzly day, volunteers joined Penn’s Urban Park staff to plant trees as part of a new fruit orchard in Penn Park. Designed for research, this orchard will be used to study the development of fruit-bearing plants in urban environments. Bob Lundgren, University Landscape Architect...
The partnership between Penn and the Philadelphia Orchard Project continues to grow. In September, nearly 20 volunteers joined POP staff to pick close to 40 lbs of crabapples from three clusters of trees on Penn’s campus. According to Robyn Mello, Education & Outreach Director at the Philadelphia...
Wharton Operations announced in September that Steinberg Hall-Dietrich Hall won the Philadelphia BOMA 2014 TOBY Award – Best of the Best for Green Practices. The Outstanding Building of the Year (TOBY) Awards were created in 1985 by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) to salute...
Chem ‘73, the 1973 Wing of the Chemistry Laboratories in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences, is the first building in which a comprehensive mechanical and lighting systems renovation under Penn’s Century Bond program has been completed. This 150,000 square foot building is home to lab, lecture, and...
The SAS Sustainability team started last summer a new Furniture Reuse Process in the School of Arts & Sciences. The goal is to divert serviceable SAS furniture from landfills — achieved through reuse within the School when possible, then through the Netter Center for Community Partnerships via...
Anxious to get started “being green” after hearing about the launch of Penn’s Climate Action Plan 2.0? Then this fall’s ReThink Your Footprint campaign was the perfect way to begin.
The goal of the annual ReThink Your Footprint campaign is to raise the level of conversation about waste management...
Greek chapters at Penn have participated in their own version of the Power Down Challenge. This month-long energy reduction competition, hosted by Greek Eco-Reps in partnership with the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, took place in November. Thirteen chapters competed to see which fraternity...
Now in its second year, the Green Living Certification program offers enhanced rewards for students making conscious decisions to reduce their environmental footprint at Penn. Partnerships with four local restaurants in University City offer a selection of discounts and incentives to certified...
As the official student umbrella group for environmental sustainability, the Student Sustainability Association at Penn (SSAP) was founded in 2010 to foster cohesion among environmentally focused student groups, develop strategies for impacting campus performance, and create a unified student voice...
Lisa Jackson, Apple’s Vice President of Environmental Initiatives and former Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, gave a special presentation at Penn on November 7 entitled “The Private Sector as Public Servant.” Lisa described her journey from a child growing up in New...
Penn’s Staff & Faculty Eco-Reps came face-to-face with the literally mountainous volume of waste generated in our city during their visit to Waste Management’s Philadelphia Material Recovery Facility.
Geared up in hard hats, safety vests, glasses and ear plugs, the Eco-Reps and Andrea Kreiner, Penn...