University of Wisconsin–Madison
If you’ve been in Union South or Memorial Union lately, chances are you’ve met Oscar. Oscar Sort is UW–Madison’s new AI waste and recycling assistant, introduced by the Office of Sustainability’s Zero Waste Team to improve recycling accuracy on campus. If you hold up a waste item to Oscar Sort’s cameras, it’ll identify it and …
Over the last three years, 21 labs on the UW–Madison campus have committed to becoming more sustainable by limiting waste, reducing energy consumption, and using greener chemicals. Through the Office of Sustainability (OS), these labs have completed the My Green Lab Certification Program to reduce their environmental impact and become early adopters of a system …
In February 2024, UW–Madison Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin announced an ambitious set of environmental goals for campus. While several of these efforts focused on facilities and infrastructure, they also prioritized the teaching and research mission of the university. From there, the Sustainability Research Hub was born. A little over a year later, the team is …
The Midwest Climate Summit—a three-day gathering of climate leaders, researchers, and professionals focused on expanding knowledge, accelerating climate action, and catalyzing new partnerships for an equitable Midwestern response to the climate crisis—is coming to Madison from April 30-May 2, 2025 at the Memorial Union. The Summit will bring together bright minds working in government, education, …
When Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, arrived at UW–Madison 12 years ago, “the idea that we would’ve had a sustainability symposium, net-zero goals, a zero-waste commitment, graduates working at major sustainability firms around the United States,” was “hard to imagine.” “I was bombarded my first day on the job, …
This article, by Dinesh Baskaran, is part of a series highlighting members of the Office of Sustainability’s Experts Database. In a collaboration with instructor Hannah Monroe’s course, LSC 561: Writing Science for the Public, students interviewed campus sustainability experts and produced short feature stories. Accessing knowledge has become increasingly easy in recent decades. Scientific facts …
In February 2024, Chancellor Mnookin announced a groundbreaking commitment to sustainability. Mnookin laid out five goals across fields of sustainability that will guide UW–Madison over the next two decades: achieve net-zero emissions by 2048, create a zero-waste campus by 2040, achieve STARS Gold by 2025 through cross-campus involvement, foster sustainability education, and catalyze sustainability research. …
The Midwest Climate Collaborative (MCC), which launched in January 2022 with UW–Madison as a founding member, is a cross-sector organization that aims to advance climate action in the region. The MCC seeks to develop a Midwest-wide Research Agenda to identify knowledge gaps between research and practice in the climate change research space. Organizers are seeking …
UW–Madison campus laboratories can apply to participate in the Lab Certification Program from My Green Lab, a globally recognized leader in laboratory sustainability. The program will be offered for free to the first 10 labs that apply. Labs can use this form to apply; the final deadline for applications is September 30th, 2022. Apply Here About …
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has completed its second comprehensive sustainability report through the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS), which is administered by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). UW–Madison earned a Silver rating for its efforts to steward resources and advance sustainability education and research. The updated STARS …