Earth Day was founded in 1970. U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin called for a nationwide demonstration in the spring of 1970 aimed to raise awareness of environmental issues. It worked. The first national Earth Day was April 22, 1970.
October 29, 2025
To celebrate Earth Month this year, the Office of Energy and Sustainability organized a series of events. In addition to our annual One Healthcare EcoChallenge and the Stop and Swap, we led a waste infrastructure tour of the Belfer Research Building, co-hosted a Sustainable Lab Product Expo, and organized a Street Tree Care info session.
One Healthcare EcoChallenge
The One Healthcare EcoChallenge is a free, virtual, and friendly month-long competition between healthcare organizations to promote healthy, sustainable habits during Earth Month. 50 people participated from Weill Cornell Medicine this year (an increase from the 44 in 2024), collecting a total of 5,559 points and placing 19th out of 46 organizations.
Our team's achievements:
- 526 lbs of CO2 avoided
- 255 items recycled, 150 pieces of paper avoided, 46 pieces of cutlery not sent to a landfill, and 45 items donated
- 41 meatless or vegan meals consumed and 120 more servings of fruit and vegetables
- 1071 minutes not spent in front of a screen and 125 minutes spent being mindful and/or meditating
- 19 random acts of kindness were made
Congratulations to the One Healthcare Ecochallenge 2025 top scorers: Kimberley Crevecoeur (The Office of Compliance) and Daniel Margolis, MD (Radiology Department), who won gift cards from EarthHero, an online sustainable marketplace.
Stop & Swap
The third annual Stop & Swap aimed to reduce waste by providing clothes and books a second life. This year, we also accepted small appliances. WCM staff and students dropped off clothes and books they no longer needed and browsed for free items donated by others.
During the event, a total of 1118 lbs were collected (a 30% increase over last year) and exchanged within the WCM community. The 300 pounds of leftover clothes were donated to the WCM student-run clinics, which provide accessible healthcare to uninsured adults through consultation, treatment, preventative care, and referral services, at little or no cost. Books were donated to The Book Cellar, a used bookstore run by volunteers of the Webster Branch of the New York Public Library. The rest was donated to the Salvation Army.
A special thank you goes out to the volunteers who donated their time to make the event a success, especially the WCM Environmental Health Collective (ECO)—students who work to support environmental health education, activism, and conservation at WCM—who helped run the event.
(Photo of the Volunteers)
Avantor Sustainabile Lab Product Expo
For the second year in a row, we teamed up with Avantor/VWR at the BRB Café to showcase their most sustainable products for Earth Day. VWR, a division of Avantor, is Weill Cornell Medicine’s contracted and prime distributor for laboratory supplies and a crucial partner in reducing energy use and waste. The event spotlighted the following vendors: Azure Biosystems, Corning Life Sciences, Cytiva, Eppendorf, Stirling Ultracold, and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The sustainable products showcased ranged from lab plasticware made with less plastic, biobased plastic, or a more energy-efficient manufacturing process, to energy-efficient equipment. Thank you to the vendors and reseacrhers who came and made the event a success.
Tour of the Belfer Waste Infrastructure
During the Tour of the Belfer Waste Infrastructure, we explored the waste management systems in this building, where most of the waste from the Upper East Side campus ends up, and walked through the spaces where the different waste types are stored, and learn about waste-related challenges and what happens to waste once it leaves our campus.
Street Trees Care
The Street Trees Care event consisted of a short walk around the neighborhood to learn how to keep NYC street trees healthy and strong for generations to come. During the event, Olivia Keenan, a former Senior Research Assistant in the Ghosh Group and NYC Parks Tree Steward, taught us simple ways to care for NYC street trees and how to become a tree steward. This event was facilitated by the “Cool Trees” team in the Division of General Internal Medicine, who are researching how NYC can use trees to reduce heat-related health issues.
