Sustainability

The Office of Sustainability collaborates with students, staff, faculty, and community partners to reduce the university’s environmental impact and promote cultures of sustainability.

Key Contributions

• Implementing Tulane University’s Climate Action Plan in collaboration with campus partners.
• Actualizing on-the-ground solutions to energy, waste, and transportation issues.
• Participating in the planning process of green building projects and long range strategic plans.
• Tracking and analyzing energy, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and aligned sustainability data.
• Serving as a resource to students, classes, student organizations, faculty, and staff pursuing sustainability projects.

Please read the following sustainability updates from Campus Services departments and student organizations.

Campus Services and Sustainability

Tulane’s new Dining Services partner Aramark Collegiate Hospitality will bring a dedicated sustainability director to reduce environmental impacts through improved operations, purchasing, and initiatives behind the scenes and in the dining experience.  

Tulane Shuttles and Transportation, in collaboration with the Office of Sustainability and the ByWater Institute, continue to present their experiential knowledge on adopting electric vehicles to regional groups.  Brian Lowe, the director of Shuttles and Transportation, will speak at the 2024 Clean Fuels Summit in Lake Charles this June. 
 

Student-Led Sustainability Practices  

Attendees to Crawfest on Saturday, April 20 will showcase student-led sustainability practices in action. Crawfest organizers have received a Keep Louisiana Beautiful Greener Grounds Grant to implement best practices for litter and waste prevention and reduction. The university is among the first 25 organizations across the state to receive Greener Grounds Grant support. The Crawfest team, supported by Tulane's operations teams, will expand compost collections to 12 multi-stream stations and provide water refill stations instead of bottled water.  

On Friday, May 3, Trash to Treasure will celebrate their 10th year of spring move-out collections with a kick-off party. The 2023 spring collections diverted 5,120 cubic feet of dorm furnishings alone to local nonprofit organizations. These figures do not include the school supplies, Mardi Gras beads, clothing, and food that were collected, sorted, and donated to local non-profits in a new partnership with the Center for Public Service. The 2024 spring collections in partnership with CPS will grow from four to seven collection stations. Join them on May 3 to celebrate these achievements and begin this year’s collections. The event will be hosted by First Year Experience, Student Affairs, and the Office of Sustainability in Pocket Park from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Spring move-out collections run from Saturday, May 4 to Friday, May 10.