Current Projects
Solid Waste Environmental Excellence Performance (SWEEP)
The SWEEP team works with LEED Green Building Rating System founder Rob Watson on a second standard for sustainable materials management, in which institutions achieve accreditation for exemplary solid waste management practices. The team creates calculators that help certifying entities achieve specific credits needed in the certification process (ex: fleet fuel-use efficiency).
Sustainable Branding
The Sustainable Branding team is dedicated to amplifying the sustainability stories of environmentally conscious companies. By developing effective marketing, branding, and revenue strategies, the team helps businesses achieve their sustainability goals.
This semester, Sustainable Branding will be collaborating with the Learning Farm on several initiatives: developing a growth marketing strategy, creating a model for a research-in-residency program, analyzing the feasibility of entering the organic juice market, and performing website updates.
Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Sustainable Entrepreneurship works with entrepreneurs who are looking to start businesses in the sustainability space. Last semester, the team helped with planning the logistics of opening an eco-museum in the Galapagos. The team conducted market research on tourism in the area and local demand for museum experiences, and researched the benefits of creating an NGO to fund the museum.
This semester, the team will research the logistics of running the museum, including membership prices and partnerships with schools.
Sustainable Tourism Asset Management Program (STAMP)
The STAMP team is building a global knowledge base, online training, and research support to help destinations manage tourism assets with social and environmental considerations.
This semester, the majority of our work will focus on developing a scalable digital tool that tourism destinations can use to track and set measurable sustainability goals. Another important function of the STAMP team is collecting testimonials and conducting interviews within Cornell's network on topics such as sustainable travel, digital platform development, and ESG metrics in tourism.
Sustainable Beverage
The Sustainable Beverage team works to improve sustainability in breweries and wineries of the Finger Lakes region by providing individualized business progress strategies on best practices through industry-specific research. The team synthesized a comprehensive report detailing best practices and current trends regarding sustainability in the brewing industry.
The sustainable beverage team is looking to expand its reach to more regional beverage businesses and increase its expertise regarding the variety of sustainable solutions in the industry.
Carbon Calculators
The Carbon Calculators team consists of undergraduate students who analyze and reduce the carbon footprints of small to midsize businesses. Using extensive data and an Excel-based tool, they calculate CO2-equivalent emissions and advise on mitigation strategies. Carbon Calculator’s efforts enable companies to become Carbon Neutral or Carbon Negative through purchases of carbon offsets.
Currently, the team is calculating the total carbon emissions for a warehousing project in Rockland County, NY, focusing on the removal of mature trees from the site and the resulting loss of carbon sinks.
Sustainable Commerce
The Sustainable Chambers subteam works with the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce to provide local businesses with tailored sustainability recommendations. As an interdisciplinary team, we work on a range of different tasks from encouraging compliance with local, state, and federal initiatives to setting personalized KPIs, and sustainability roadmaps and working on issues our clients request of us.
Currently, we are working with a local hair salon/art gallery to increase energy efficiency, and water conservation, create a new recycling system, and implement a sustainable rewards business model. We are also looking for new clients for the following semesters.