Caltech
Sustainability
A person with reading glasses and a short, salt-and-pepper mustache and goatee, wearing a black ball cap, a thick black zip-T, gray t-shirt, and smart watch, leans over a wooden table, holding a thick plank of unfinished oak. Five more planks are stacked on the table, and the background shows the high ceilings, dust vacuums, and tools of a large woodshop.
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Sustainable Campus

Caltech aims to be one of the world's greenest colleges, conducting research that benefits the planet and piloting sustainable campus solutions for research institutions.

Today:

  • One-sixth of the building space on campus is LEED certified Gold or Platinum by the U.S. Green Building Council.
  • Drought-tolerant plants cover 17 percent of the campus.
  • Turf replacement projects in 2021 alone save more than 380,000 gallons of water per year.
  • More than half of the Caltech community walks, bikes, or takes public transit to campus, and some employees work from home.
Explore Caltech's sustainability practices related to buildings, energy use, water and landscaping, transportation, and food.

Image, top of page: After the natural death of a four-century-old oak tree on campus, Caltech carpenters repurposed the wood to build a communal table for a campus cafe. A Caltech research group is studying samples of the wood as well.