Yale’s Office of Sustainability is excited to be participating in the International Alliance of Research Universities’ (IARU) Sustainability Fellows Exchange Program this summer. As part of this program our office is hosting four students from around the globe.  At the same time Yale has sent four students to work on sustainability projects at IARU partner institutions.

The IARU is a group of ten research universities — including The Australian National University (ANU); Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich; National University of Singapore; Peking University; The Unversity of Tokyo; University of California, Berkeley; University of Cambridge; University of Copenhagen; and University of Oxford — that came together in 2006 to collaborate on global sustainability standards and inter-institutional research on sustainability. The IARU identified the opportunity for students to experience the process of campus sustainability at member institutions and exchange observations and ideas.  Last year Yale and ANU developed a pilot program whereby two students from Yale exchanged with two students from ANU for a number of weeks.  This year the program was expanded to involve Yale, ANU, Oxford and Copenhagen.  Yale sent John Hinkle SY ‘09 and Ashley Young MC ‘10 to ANU, MJ Truong DC ‘10 to Oxford and Kate Gasner SY ‘10 to Copenhagen.  Of the four students placed at Yale, Zemma Holmes-Story and Grace Foo are from ANU, Simon Billet is from Oxford and Asger Trier Bing is from Copenhagen.  The exchanges range from six to eight weeks.

Visiting fellows to Yale are learning about our sustainability initiatives and sharing information about sustainability progress and concepts from their home universities.  While at Yale, the students will have the opportunity to visit the Sustainable Food Project, tour the cogeneration power plant and renewable energy projects and work with the Urban Resources Initiative.  The projects being undertaken by the fellows range from education and outreach assignments to land, water and biodiversity focused work.

The students describe the experience as exciting and enjoyable and anticipate returning to their home universities with renewed enthusiasm and different approaches to sustainability, having shared some ideas of their own.  Hopefully over the coming years, the program will be further developed to include additional IARU partner institutions or even a staff exchange program.