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Our Office

The University of Pennsylvania Sustainability Office is committed to climate action, community resilience, and well-being. We serve as a catalyst for transformational change across the University, within the Philadelphia community, at the regional level, and beyond. 

The Penn Sustainability Office seeks to: 

  • Create a campus that goes beyond carbon neutrality, embraces biophilia in the built environment, and serves as a hub for innovation.
  • Encourage decisions at all levels within the University to be made with social and environmental impact as a priority.
  • Ensure that our local community, peer institutions, and other aligned organizations look to Penn as an exemplary partner in sustainability.
  • Enable faculty, staff, and students to collaborate to advance sustainability and climate action at the University and in the community.
  • Empower Penn community members play a central role in creating a sustainable community that centers humanity in balance with planetary needs.
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Penn Park Orchard

Food
Natural Environment
Faculty
Staff
Students

A community orchard aiming to educate and create access to local food next to Penn Farm.

People working in an orchard
Purpose

This community orchard aims to educate and create access to local food through a partnership with Philadelphia Orchard Project.

Get Involved

During the summer and fall, the Philadelphia Orchard Project hosts volunteer days at the orchard once per month. Check back in summer 2026 for upcoming opportunities. 

Climate Week

Civic Engagement
Energy & Climate
Alumni
Faculty
Staff
Students

Climate Week at Penn hosts events across the university to discuss, learn and innovate on the climate emergency. Join us October 13-17, 2025.

Person speaking into microphone
Purpose

The climate emergency is everyone's business. Join Climate Week at Penn to find your place in the climate movement.

Energy Week

Energy & Climate
Alumni
Faculty
Staff
Students

A week of energy-focused events across campus. 

People sitting on a Panel
Purpose

The Kleinman Center and Vagelos Institute for Energy Science and Technology host events across campus focused on energy and related issues. Energy Week 2026 is February 23 – 27.

EnviroLab

Energy & Climate
Natural Environment
Faculty
Staff
Students

EnviroLab is a workspace dedicated to supporting cutting edge graduate research on environment society relations at the University of Pennsylvania.

Person in a lab
Purpose

Drawing together research in anthropology, history, science and technology studies, urban geography and the physical sciences, EnviroLab asks: How might situated human-animal-environment relations be key sites from which to reimagine and rearticulate more just and nourishing modes of inhabiting of our climate changed planet?

Get Involved

EnviroLab supports graduate students research at all stages of their PhD, focusing on hosting workshops where students share works in progress (conferences papers, proposals, dissertation chapters and article drafts).  Envirolab also hosts events open to the public, including a monthly reading group, faculty workshops, and an annual conference. 

My Climate Story

Civic Engagement
Wellness
Alumni
Faculty
Staff
Students

My Climate Story is a public research project that encourages participants to consider global climate change on a personal scale.

Student holding renewable energy sign
Purpose

In workshops for climate storytellers from the sixth grade on up, participants are sharing how we’re making sense of global climate change. These stories connect big data to real and personal experiences. They show how local climate impacts are shaping life stories, and how they’re making us feel.

Penn Farm

Penn Park Farm
Civic Engagement
Food
Natural Environment
Wellness
Faculty
Staff
Students

Penn Farm engages stakeholders from across the Penn community around wellness, food access, sustainability, and education.

Penn Park Farm
Purpose

The Penn Farm, which originated through the Penn Food and Wellness Collaborative (PFWC), is a unique, multidisciplinary initiative that engages stakeholders from across the Penn community around four central pillars of wellness, food access, sustainability, and education.

Committee on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency (CIRCE)

Civic Engagement
Energy & Climate
Faculty

The Faculty Senate Select Committee facilitating discussion of all aspects of global warming and climate change as they pertain to faculty at Penn.

Statue of a scholar
Purpose

The Faculty Senate Select Committee on the Institutional Response to the Climate Emergency (CIRCE) was established in December 2019 for the purpose of facilitating discussion of all aspects of global warming and climate change as they pertain to faculty at the University of Pennsylvania.

Get Involved

Faculty can read, sign, and act on the Penn Faculty Climate Pledge.