Sustainability and creation care at EMU
EMU students live in LEED-certified, energy efficient residence halls. Our library draws power from the first-installed commercial-scale solar installation in the state. Dining hall guests compost food scraps to later nourish campus gardens, which provide fresh produce.
Campus initiatives
- Campus gardens, edible landscaping, composting
- Recycling
- Solar power
- Energy-efficient buildings and LEED-certified dorms
- Bike friendly campus
- Cycling club
- Earthkeepers club
- Sustainable Food Initiative
- A Climate Action Plan to achieve climate neutrality by 2035.
Sustainability is not just extracurricular
EMU emphasizes sustainability in degree programs, too:
Sustainability and creation care are incorporated across the undergraduate core curriculum and are part of EMU’s core values.
- Our conservation photography class is an example of how the arts can support sustainability.
- Professors develop sustainability-focused courses such as green design and compost research and applications
Check out EMU’s awards and recognitions and our sustainability reports.
Part of our history
Read about how Professor Robert Lehman led the way for EMU’s sustainability focus and EMU’s 100 years of commitment to sustainability and creation care.
We’ve been pioneers in constructing energy-efficient buildings and installing innovative heating and cooling systems since the 1980s.
“EMU was among the first schools involved in groundbreaking work that is raising awareness about institutional nitrogen footprints,” said Laura Cattell Noll ’09, a graduate student in environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, on the “N-Print” project. Read more here.
Residence hall Cedarwood set a college precedent in 2011 when it received LEED “gold” certification, one of the highest environmental standards construction can attain. Gold level LEED-certified renovations to Elmwood and Maplewood residence halls followed soon after.
