ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ

Sustainable Sites

Keeping our land clean, healthy, and productive is an integral part of Binghamton University's sustainability goals. The University is taking numerous actions to keep the landscape beautiful and reduce its environmental impacts.

• Operation Green Space. ºÚÁÏÊÓƵ has numerous projects that help keep our campus green and strengthen our storm water retention, water filtration, and biodiversity.
  • The University is currently pulling up the pavement and putting in the green — more than 2 acres of it!
    • Approximately 91,165 square feet of formerly paved areas on campus has been transformed into green space, including the planting of Canadian cherry, maple, and flowering pear trees.
  • Our campus boasts over 500 plant species.
  • There are numerous designated no-mow and low-mow areas around campus.
  • The University's main campus, downtown center, and pharmacy school all feature numerous bioswales and wetlands.
  • Campus holds two underground chamber systems that hold and then slowly filter out storm water to reduce rapid runoff.
• Low-mow. In 2019 as part of the University’s sustainability efforts, the campus began implementing a low-mow conversion plan that designates some areas for mowing only once per year. Read about in here.
• Walkability. In summer 2019, the Department of Transportation began construction of a connecting Bartle Drive and several locations along Vestal Parkway, dramatically increasing our campus' walkability with the surrounding community.
• On-campus Greenhouse. Did you know it's possible to walk from a desert to the tropics in less than five seconds on Binghamton's campus? You can in our 12,500-square-foot E. W. Heier Teaching Greenhouse. 
  • Features four climates: warm temperate, cool temperate, desert, and tropical.
  • Holds 6,000 exotic plants representing 1,200+ distinct species and serves as a living laboratory for plant- and ecology-related courses.
• Campus beautification. Each spring, dozens of students volunteer to beautify the campus grounds during Spring Campus Clean-Up Day. These volunteers clear out trash and debris that has accumulated on campus fields and along the perimeter of our wooded areas during the previous winter.
• Nature Preserve. The largest and best-used lab on Binghamton's campus has no workstations, sinks, computers or Petri dishes — it's the almost 190-acre Nature Preserve. Encompassing forest, woodland, and meadow areas, as well as a beaver pond and 20-acre wetland, the Nature Preserve is home to hundreds of mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds. In fact, it has one of the broadest ranges of animal and plant life in the Southern Tier. Although the Nature Preserve serves as a valuable educational and recreational resource, perhaps its most important contributions are to the environment — from flood prevention and improving water quality to supporting biodiversity and serving as a means for carbon storage.