Climate and Care for Nature Efforts Across Harvard

Swartz Hall and the campus green at HDS
Swartz Hall at HDS was awarded LEED Platinum certification, the highest level designated by the U.S. Green Building Council for healthier buildings. Photo: Kristie Welsh

At Harvard Divinity School, and across the University, faculty, students, and staff are prioritizing climate and care for nature as they shape new research, activities, and life and learning on campus.
 

Climate Justice Week 2024 at HDS

Now in its second year, the goal of this annual student-led event is to provide HDS and the Harvard community with opportunities to build connections, activate passion around environmental justice, and understand the critical role that religion, spirituality, and the Divinity School play in the conversation around climate.
 

Religion in Times of Earth Crisis: A Series of Public Online Conversations

For the spring 2024 semester, Diane L. Moore, MDiv ’84, associate dean of Religion and Public Life at HDS, hosted a series of conversations with HDS scholars to explore what an expansive understanding of religion can provide in these times of Earth crisis. Each scholar responded to Professor Mayra Rivera’s American Academy of Religion 2022 presidential address, “What is the Role of the Study of Religion in Times of Catastrophe?” from their individual areas of expertise.

  • A Procession of Catastrophes Mayra Rivera, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Religion and Latinx Studies
  • Ancestors and Climate in Our Boston Backyard Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity
  • Animal Stories, in Crisis Teren Sevea, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies
  • Apocalyptic Grief: Reckoning with Loss, Wrestling with Hope Matthew Ichihashi Potts, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church
  • The Practice of Wild Mercy: Something Deeper than Hope Terry Tempest Williams, HDS Writer-in-Residence

Recordings of each conversation can be watched at hds.harvard.edu/news/religion-times-earth-crisis.
 

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability serves as a fulcrum for collaboration across Harvard’s many areas of expertise, pursuing practical, real-world solutions that address all aspects of the climate crisis. Led by the Institute in collaboration with Schools and centers across the University, Climate Action Week invites climate experts, leaders, and stakeholders to come together and explore solutions to the most complex and challenging dimensions of the climate crisis. HDS connects to and collaborates with the wider University community of faculty, students, and staff through this agora for courses, events, opportunities, projects, student organizations, and student programs related to climate, nature, and sustainability.
 

University-Wide Sustainability Efforts

Harvard is accelerating its adoption of systems and practices that protect the climate and environment, advance a more equitable society, and promote the well-being of people at Harvard and beyond. One of the many investments in University-wide sustainability efforts is an emphasis on Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) construction. As of 2023, Harvard had 148 LEED-certified buildings on campus, more than any other higher-education institution in the world. Harvard Divinity School’s Swartz Hall earned LEED Platinum certification with the renovation completed in 2021.

—By Suzannah Lutz, ALM ’21 

 

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