Environment & Sustainability

Interdisciplinary approaches are needed to sustainably resolve environmental problems. Our visionary faculty and passionate students make this possible at Cornell.

Defy disciplinary boundaries

The Environment & Sustainability major spans perspectives needed to build a world with more sustainable environmental conditions. As a cross-college major in CALS and Arts & Sciences, we bring together students and faculty with diverse skills and common purpose.

A group of students walking through a wooded area — CALS students Katie Sims ’20, left, and Alex Ding ’21, in white hat, follow county forester Jim Frohn and Carrie Deegan of the Forest Society. Ding and Sims participated in the maple seedling project through a Cornell Engaged Undergraduate Research Grant. Photo by Paul Hayes.

Intellectual exploration

Experiences on-campus and throughout the world emphasize active, engaged and experiential learning. Core courses provide fundamental understanding of environment and sustainability issues. Six concentrations provide depth in environmental science and environmental studies perspectives.

A group of five students working collaboratively in a group during class — Students in Sustainability Science NTRES 3301.

Environmental justice

We foster awareness of policies and practices that link environmental degradation to inequities in resources and power available to different groups of people.

Environmental justice course opportunities

Warning sign near sewer overflow area in Washington DC

We explore the past, consider the present and plan the future.

We contrast modern and ancient cities, as in this distant view of St. Louis from Monks Mound, central structure of the largest city of the Mississippian culture that prevailed across the eastern U.S. for centuries, prior to European colonization.

We span boundaries between humans and sensitive environments.

We work to understand the capacity for humans to share the earth with the vast diversity of all living things. This sign at the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes Complex in coastal California alerts beachgoers to nesting California least terns and Western snowy plovers.

We get our feet wet.

We aim to experience all kinds of environments in all kinds of weather. We are ready to look at what thrives, whether the weather is hot, cold, wet or dry.

We go where decisions are made.

Each year our students meet and work with decision-makers in New York City, Washington D.C., Bonn and throughout the world. Here we meet with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley.

We explore food security across the globe.

Food sold in this Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia outdoor market reflects the multiple contrasts of food availability throughout the world.

We examine how cultural practices develop.

This advertisement in Beijing, China was part of a campaign to stop the illegal trade of ivory.

We evaluate restored habitats.

We examine altered biophysical processes in disturbed landscapes, such as this clear-cut forest in coastal Oregon, along with the economic impact of boom-and-bust natural resource extraction on nearby communities.

We compare inequities associated with environmental degradation.

This sewer outfall in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol highlights the issue of environmental justice and communities that disproportionately experience environmental degradation.

We engage the arts to understand people and their environments.

We use literature, art, music and forms of human expression that impact knowledge and action to reflect upon divergent visions grounded in human imagination, narration, reflection, and persuasion. “Water Dreaming at Kalipinypa” (copyright The Estate of Johnny Warangkula, courtesy of The Aboriginal Artist's Agency) was created by Australian aboriginal artist Johnny Warangkula. This and many other works by Warangkula focused on Kalipinypa, a location where water – a scarce resource in the central Australian desert – gathers after infrequent storms.

Distant view of St. Louis from Monks Mound

Warning sign on beach dune that reads "Do Not Enter"

A group of students in a conference room with Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley.