Students examine plants in a field of corn.

Stewarding Our Planet’s Resources

Penn State will be a leader in developing comprehensive, evidence-based, and community-informed sustainable solutions that aim to provide safe, just, and livable environments for diverse populations. By deploying its resources in scholarship, outreach, education, business and governmental partnerships, and extension we will empower society to draw down pollution, limit human-induced climate change and its harmful impacts, and help provide safe and abundant water, clean and renewable energy sources, and plentiful and nutritious food.

“Pennsylvania’s public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. As trustee of these resources, the commonwealth shall conserve and maintain them for the benefit of all the people.” – The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Article I, Section 27.

With service to the citizens of the Commonwealth as an institutional obligation, we embrace the challenge of environmental stewardship articulated in our Constitution. To meet this challenge, Penn State commits to helping our communities achieve the vision of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Climate change is recognized worldwide as one of the most critical issues of our time, and Penn State will be a leader in addressing and solving this challenge. In addition, food, water, and energy consumption are expected to increase significantly. These urgent and interconnected challenges call for research, development, and implementation that effectively, ethically, economically, and sustainably address them. For example, it is necessary to engage and serve the needs of impacted communities, strive for an energy transition that is just and inclusive, and enable access to clean and abundant water and sustainable agricultural practices.

Penn State’s unique expertise and community involvement offer profound opportunities for the University to address these challenges, lead by example, and shape future local, national, and global priorities, in ways that respect, protect, and ensure a livable environment.

Lead by Example

Penn State will model resource stewardship in the day-to-day operations of the University. Drawing on the collective energy and expertise of our people, and the resources of the university, our campuses will serve as innovative living laboratories that will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions, minimize waste, regenerate our lands, operationalize nexus thinking, and embody sustainability through its policies, procedures, and practices to ensure a prosperous future for generations.

Drive fundamental science relevant to critical problems.

The world faces pressing fundamental science and engineering questions, the solutions to which underpin the development of sustainable technologies and practices. Across a range of topics—ecology and the Earth system, clean energy production and storage, natural and technological carbon removal and use, water security, regenerative agriculture, nutrition, and food security—Penn State faculty will perform the fundamental research necessary to help develop urgently needed new knowledge, technologies, techniques, and policies.

Develop technologies for implementation.

Penn State will explore and pursue physical, biological, agricultural, engineering, social, behavioral, and organizational science to develop and implement technologies, practices, and designs that respond to environmental, economic, and sustainability challenges. We will accelerate the development of, for example, technologies for energy distribution and management, practices and policies for energy efficient design, urban mobility, and restorative land use. We will support the adoption of sustainable and equitable technologies, practices, and designs through research into human systems, including inclusive decision-making and economic systems.

Improve measurement and modeling capability.

Modeling and metrics will be critical to understanding problems, prioritizing and planning solutions, tracking trends, and identifying partners, best practices, and successes. Penn State will continue to improve predictive models of the water‐energy‐food triad that include interconnected environmental, economic, social, policy, geophysical, and climate-related systems. We will develop methods of building models responsive to stakeholder needs, connecting these models with stakeholder decision-making processes, and assessing progress toward their goals.

Fully engage our research infrastructure.

Institutes, colleges, campuses, centers, laboratories, and libraries at Penn State have distinctive research and infrastructural capacities that will increasingly combine to enhance our society’s ethical stewardship of Earth’s resources. All will have important roles in resolving the fundamental scientific, technological, integrative, and policy challenges and opportunities of stewarding the living world.

Forge broad and relevant partnerships.

Penn State will fully engage our stakeholders and decision makers, including industry, government and international organizations, communities, and businesses. Using our vast and varied research, outreach, finance, and extension infrastructure, we will seek out and empower organizations and affected communities in forging an ethical and sustainable future that solves water, energy, pollution, and food challenges, expands opportunities, and respects planetary boundaries.

Educate our students and communities.

We will fulfill our mission as a land grant institution and draw on the full scope of our educational capacities to educate our students and communities about the interconnections between human and natural systems upon which human flourishing depends. In response to the complex challenges of navigating a transition to a sustainable world, Penn State will equip our students and communities with the knowledge, skills, and competencies that will enable them to make sound environmental decisions at home, at work, and in the public sphere to promote a more sustainable society.

Formulate and promote policy solutions and best practices

Technology and modeling alone will not be enough to address climate driven challenges: human agency and organizing power will build a sustainable future. We will develop organizational methods and social practices to formulate effective, environmentally positive, equitable, and empowering policy solutions through engagement with our communities.