VISION OF SUSTAINABILITY AT UNH 
To see a full-screen version of the Quicktime movie at left, click here
Read UNH President Mark Huddleston's "Embracing Sustainability" (April 2008)
Read UNH Chief Sustainability Officer Tom Kelly's "Higher Education & Sustainability: universities can have no greater mission than this" (April 2008)
The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is nationally recognized as a Sustainable Learning Community* -- a land grant, sea grant, and space grant university that unites the spirit of discovery with the challenge of sustainability across its Curriculum, Operations, Research and Engagement (CORE) --
- Curriculum: Educating citizen-professionals to advance sustainability in their civic and professional lives
- Operations: Embodying first principles and best practices of sustainability
- Research: Serving society with scholarship that responds to the most pressing issues of sustainability
- Engagement: Collaborating locally to globally with extension and outreach
-- through four initiatives designed around four foundational systems of sustainability -- biodiversity, climate, food, and culture.
- Biodiversity Education Initiative (BEI): Commitment to being a Biodiversity Protection Campus that promotes ecological and public health through the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.
- Climate Education Initiative (CEI): Commitment to being a Climate Protection Campus that pursues carbon neutrality through sustainable energy and emissions reduction policies, practices, research, and education.
- Culture & Sustainability Initiative (CAS): Commitment to being a Cultural Development Campus that promotes a culture of sustainability through a dedication to community, diversity, citizen engagement, public arts, and the conservation and sustainable development of cultural and natural resources.
- Food & Society Initiative (FAS): Commitment to being a Sustainable Food Community that promotes healthy food systems from farm to fork to health and nutrition outcomes.
These initiatives are built around the findings of the international scientific and policy communities, including the:
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) & Education for Sustainable Development
- United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO)
- Slow Food International
Sustainability provides a systematic framework focused on maintaining the integrity of these four foundational systems. The key is that we don’t look at any of them in isolation, but rather maintain the health and integrity of these four systems simultaneously. By integrating sustainability across its CORE, a university community can respond to the present and future challenges of sustainability.
* Kelly, T. (November 2003). "Building a Sustainable Learning Community at the University of New Hampshire." Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, 6(2).
* Aber, Kelly and Mallory (eds). (In press 2009). The Sustainable Learning Community: One University’s Journey to the Future. University Press of New England: Hanover, NH.
More Information
- Learn more about sustainability
- Learn more about the University Office of Sustainability (UOS), including our mission and history
- Learn more about UOS staff
- Learn more about UNH's many successes in sustainability
- Download the UOS brochure (PDF)
- See how the principles and practices of sustainability map across the entire UNH Durham campus
