Empowering Solutions for a Sustainable Future

The Institute of the Environment and Energy (IoEE) at UConn brings together the expertise and passion of scientists and scholars across the University to address some of the most pressing challenges and grandest opportunities society faces in the 21st century.

The resources and expertise of the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, the Office of Sustainability, the Eversource Energy Center, the New England Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center, and the Natural Resources Conservation Academy support the IoEE’s integrated mission of research, education, and engagement. The IoEE works to advance foundational understanding and develop innovative solutions to pressing environmental challenges, to prepare the next generation as adept and agile members of a 21st century workforce, and to inform and engage the public about what are arguably the existential issues of our time.

Solving environmental problems related to climate change, sustainability, food security, pollution, and species extinction requires an interdisciplinary approach that leverages expertise from diverse disciplines across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. It requires consideration of multiple angles, from biophysical to cultural, and from legal to health perspectives.

A Living Building

Join us on an exciting and innovative philanthropic opportunity as we raise funds to construct a distinctive “Living Building” to house the Connecticut State Museum of Natural History and partners at the Institute of the Environment and Energy.

Securing a Sustainable Environmental Future Symposium

Video recordings from the October 2023 Cross College Symposium on Securing a Sustainable Environmental Future are now available here.

     

Environment in the News

Devastating effects of Coral bleaching as a result of global warming and ocean acidification. Where there once was a large area of healthy stag horn coral, now there is only the skeletal remains
Fool’s Gold: A Hidden Climate Stabilizer

“It’s intriguing to see how Earth can recover from very severe past experiences that wiped out life on the planet”

Four researchers stand outside of a large blue and white research boat.
Working to Understand Why Mercury Levels are so High in the Arctic

Researchers tackle a previously unexplored aspect of mercury at the air-sea interface

A view of a river surrounded by green scenery including grasses and trees.
After 170 Years, Thoreau’s River Observations Inform Our Changing Climate

A then-and-now comparison of the timing of seasonal events helps translate the abstraction of climate change into the reality of actual life