2040 Now Events Calendar

An evening of music, moving images, and spoken word performances to celebrate the beauty of our planet, offer hope and positive solutions for a better future, and reinforce that through music, everyone has a voice.

The SGA Sustainability Committee hosted a Sustainable Period Product Giveaway, where they distributed free sustainable period products and educational resources! Products ranged from disposable sustainable products, to menstrual cups, and reusable pads.

The Inter-Residence Hall Council (IRHC) is the umbrella organization for all hall councils, and student organizations within each residence hall at NYU. They were available to answer any questions the NYU community had!

The Director of Sustainability for Chartwells at NYU, Arianna Cooper, was available to answer questions about dining at NYU.

NYU Information Technology (NYU IT), consisting of eight departments, provides IT solutions and support to the NYU community, in partnership with school and local IT teams, to promote and enable teaching and learning, research, and administration. They were available for all questions from the NYU community. 

The NYU community was able to learn about sustainable hygiene products perfect for college students from Generation Conscious in the 2040 Now Center.

Chisara Ehiemere from NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Roshan Poudel and Charlotte Sheridan from the Environmental Medicine Interest and Advocacy Group explored the bi-directional relationship between healthcare and the environment.

Zahra Biabani performed a brief reading of her newly published book,  Climate Optimism: Celebrating Systemic Change Around the World,  followed by a Q&A session in the 2040 Now Center.

This panel discussion brought together experts from a variety of fields to discuss strategies for staying safe and resilient in the face of climate-related disasters.

Hosted by Professor Talia Mota, this interactive sustainable futurism workshop focused on how environmental sustainability will help prevent the next big pandemic before it even starts.

NYU's Scholars of Finance chapter collaborated with NYU 2040 Now to host an event discussing the future of sustainability in business. Now more than ever it is important to make meaningful strides towards achieving net-zero emissions and business has a critical role to play.

The NYU community was invited to learn how to ride a bike, explore micromobility devices, and become informed about sustainable transportation advocacy opportunities in New York City.

The Climate Script Pitch Booth was an opportunity for students, faculty, staff, and any other member of the NYU community to pitch an idea for a screenplay, stage play, or episodic series that addresses climate change.

 The Climate Change Research Symposium brought together NYU researchers to discuss near- and long-term opportunities for collaboration in climate change research and actions. Speakers included outstanding experts from across NYU schools and global campuses. Presentations delved into a range of topics including the Causes and Impacts of Climate Change; Climate Change and Global Cities; Food, Energy and Water; Vulnerable Communities; and the Role of the Private Sector.

The Inter-Residence Hall Council (IRHC) is the umbrella organization for all hall councils, and student organizations within each residence hall at NYU. They were available to answer any questions the NYU community had!

SemegaChange is a non-profit that is developing an empire of Black & Women of Color cultivating change through the intersectionality of their identity & passion for STEM for environmental & societal change. 

NYU Information Technology (NYU IT), consisting of eight departments, provides IT solutions and support to the NYU community, in partnership with school and local IT teams, to promote and enable teaching and learning, research, and administration. They were available for all questions from the NYU community. 

The NYU Bookstore is the official bookstore serving New York University students, faculty, staff, administrators, and campus visitors. NYU partners with Follett Higher Education Corporation to provide course materials, school supplies, stationery, NYU-branded clothing & gifts, general trade books, and more.

Ian Adler, Andrei Stoica, and Rohan Bajaj visualized how they imagine the NYU campus if it was designed to be pedestrian focused, rather than car focused. By replacing streets with green spaces designed for pedestrians, they can create a campus that improves the mental and physical health of the residents of NYU and the surrounding Greenwich Village community while also furthering NYU’s sustainability goals.

These Gallatin students created this assignment as part of Peder Anker’s Design with Climate Change course.

In this 4-hour exercise, students were challenged to consider complex climate change impacts and to incorporate geopolitical, technological, and policy trends, and other potential black swans that could impact reaching our carbon-neutral goals.

Working with faculty, industry experts, and practitioner mentors, students were divided into quadrants within an “uncertainty matrix” to build a climate storyline scenario that is both plausible and consistent with the conditions and consider options for personal and policy action.

Last fall, as a response to David Opdyke’s monumental postcard mural Someday, all this, premiering in the Climate Museum Pop-Up, the museum’s resident poet John Linstrom led a series of workshops for high schoolers on the art of writing postcard poetry for the climate. On postcards reproduced from Opdyke’s mural, participants wrote poems expressing the urgency of the climate crisis in human terms, which were then sent to elected representatives to convey that urgency to them. 

In this workshop, John described the pedagogical philosophy of the postcard poem exercise and also led participants in writing their own postcard poems.

IGNITE is a movement of young women who are ready and eager to become the next generation of political leaders. People were able to stop by their table to learn about how to get involved in environmental change.

The NYU community was invited to learn how to eliminate food waste with this teaching kitchen featuring Banana Bread and Banana Peel Bacon from Chef Natalia Acosta. 

The panel discussion featured David Holland, Melissa Lott, Miles O'Brien, Al Roker, and Professor Peter Terezakis in conversation about individual and collective actions that could make significant contributions towards a Net Zero future.

Extreme weather events, from blizzards to hurricanes, are presenting massive challenges to the U.S. transportation system on an increasingly frequent basis. The NYU Rudin Center for Transportation held a panel discussion to further explore this topic.

Beyond Meat’s Ethan Brown and NYU’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Cecil Scheib dove into an exciting conversation about sustainable food and plant-based options while the NYU community was invited to sample Beyond Meat products. 

For Wednesday, April 19, 2023, Downstein had a plant-based menu. Visit NYU dining locations and explore different plant-based meals and delicious ways to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions.

A presentation from Zara Gounden, ERJN Seed Funding recipient, to learn about the ways your makeup products could be hurting you and how the beauty industry in the USA is committing racial and environmental injustices against women of color as well as a free product giveaway.

For just 1 meal swipe, the NYU community was able to receive an NYU Eats reusable bag to fill with fresh produce and bread.

SemegaChange is a non-profit that is developing an empire of Black & Women of Color cultivating change through the intersectionality of their identity & passion for STEM for environmental & societal change. 

The Liberal Studies program explored ways to reduce campus waste, promote repurposing old items, and provide affordable options for students, faculty, and staff to acquire household items. 

The NYU community was invited to this virtual panel to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton planted a new tree to commemorate 2040 Now and highlight the importance of taking action to combat climate despair.

Recycled City was a two-hour sustainability and art workshop in which participants transformed waste products into art, a practice in thinking critically about consumption and waste. The intention was to disrupt the waste stream by transforming trash into treasure and constructing a reimagined city/campus for NYU 2040 Now.  

A showcase of climate action artwork from New York University‘s 2040 Now sustainability initiative and Crafting Sustainable Futures: Collaborative Visions in Bobst Gallary. NYU Libraries' spring exhibition, this show creatively imagined our shared responsibility for preserving the planet we call home, featuring works by NYU students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

People were able to hear from NYU alumni who have built careers working on climate and sustainability-related issues in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors, as well as their current work and tips for building a career path around climate and environmental issues.

NYU community members were invited to analyze case studies centering on environmental and racial justice and relevant best practices and recommendations for taking action. Dinner and prizes will be provided.

The average US consumer throws away 82 lbs of clothing every year. In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste – equivalent to 85% of all textiles – end up in landfills on a yearly basis. The Re-Fashion Show: Buy Less, Choose Well, Make it Last, hosted by Plant Kween, featured students' designs that illustrate how we all can use creativity, expression, and fashion to inspire action against climate change.

Daniel Humm is the Chef and Owner of Make It Nice, a New York-based hospitality group behind Eleven Madison Park and Eleven Madison Home.  In 2003, Daniel moved to the United States and became the Executive Chef at Eleven Madison Park in 2006. Since reopening after the pandemic shut down Eleven Madison Park, the restaurant now features a plant-based menu.

Xiye Bastida, just turning 21, is a Climate Justice Activist from a community in Central Mexico. After moving with her family to NYC, she became an organizer for the Fridays For Future strikes in NYC 2019. In 2020, she co-founded Re-Earth Initiative to push for personal and systemic change. Xiye has spoken in many spaces, including the Biden Climate Summit in April 2021, Global Citizen, UN Climate conferences, and more. 

The two had a riveting conversation on creating more equitable, sustainable food systems.

For Thursday, April 20, 2023, Third North had a plant-based menu. Visit NYU dining locations and explore different plant-based meals and delicious ways to reduce food-related greenhouse gas emissions.

Catskills Agrarian Alliance partnered with NYU’s Environmental and Racial Justice Network to present Just Food Futures: the Nexus of Climate and Racial Justice. This event explicitly draws out the connection between racial and environmental justice, how these lenses intersect with our food systems, and ultimately the role of food justice and sovereignty in the New York City food shed. 

The NYU community was able to stop by the 2040 Now Center to ask the Manager of Grounds & Waste at New York University any questions relate to waste.

Through the topic of climate change, this workshop introduced Wikidata, Wikipedia, and the SPARQL query language through hands-on examples and activities.

The NYU community was able to stop by the 2040 Now Center to ask the Director of Energy Engineering at New York University any questions about energy use at NYU.

Ever wondered how much food is thrown away each day? NYUers were able to explore this question and weigh their food waste with us at NYU Eats at Third North and NYU Eats at Lipton.

The DoSomething table provided the opportunity to take a civic identity quiz and learn about ways you can take action to promote sustainability in your community! They presented their latest campaigns around the environment and the benefits of becoming a DoSomething member. 

How will bacteria, fungi, and other microbes shape and be shaped by the future in 2040 and beyond? What do microbes and fungi have to do with climate change & sustainability? This event aimed to answer these questions in the only way we know how: from an interdisciplinary perspective.

At NYU Tandon, sustainability is not a spectator sport, and we are working hard to advance engineering solutions for climate change and environmental pollution. 

The event featured a series of talks, panel discussions, poster demonstrations, and a networking reception bringing together the sustainable engineering community at NYU and beyond.

What is nature? And can this question lead to climate action?

“Pipe Dreams,” a collaborative zine created by Isabella Newlands, examines this question through student-submitted poetry and photography. To celebrate its release, three zine contributors held a fireside chat hosted by Chair of Environmental Studies Professor Colin Jerolmack to discuss all things zine making, climate anxiety, and dark ecology.

Sophia Winkler, the first NYULA Go Green Sustainability Fellow, discussed the benefits of embedding sustainability into student life and the projects that she piloted in collaboration with NYULA on local eating and textile waste.

A visioning workshop, where members of the NYU community lend their voices and sketch their ideas for a just and ecologically responsible future. Participants shared their vision of how we can redesign NYU’s Washington Square Campus by 2040 and discussed the following themes: spatial planning, environmental justice, campus sustainability, and student lifestyle.

If you’re making a game, you need to playtest! Students were invited to bring their work-in-progress game and get feedback from fellow game makers! No game is too early in development for Playtest Thursday, and all types of games were welcome.

Daybreak is a cooperative board game about stopping climate change. Co-designed by Matt Leacock (the designer of Pandemic) and Matteo Menapace (tabletop and live games designer), published by CMYK.

In this talk, Menapace shared prototypes from the creative process and discussed how he and Leacock set out to design a game of speculative optimism, in which players cooperate to build an equitably decarbonized future, where all of us can not just survive, but thrive.

The NYU community joined the green community of NYU for a street fair for the upcoming 53rd anniversary of Earth Day with giveaways, information tables, & most importantly, a celebration of the planet we live on! 

NYU community members were invited to drop by the Georgiou Library and Resource Center for Children and Literature on Friday morning and browse their display of picture books, nonfiction titles, and middle-grade and young-adult novels that deal with issues of climate change and environmental justice.

NYUers were able to learn about how to use their skills and experience to work directly on climate change while building a fantastic career for themselves. Understand the breadth of the climate economy (over 50% of the world's GDP!) and the depth of climate jobs in every imaginable function and for every imaginable skill set. Nishant Mani (Stern MBA '07, Chief Business Officer at Terra.do) shared insights gleaned by mining tens of thousands of climate jobs, and was joined by senior leaders from rapidly growing climate tech startups

NYUers were able to bring clean, reusable, portable items such as clothing, housewares, games, books, & toys that they no longer need, and take home something new-to-them, free! 

In her lecture, Würfel presented a selection of photography projects from the Anthropocene, addressing climate change, space, and time. Her most recent project, “Forests in the Anthropocene,” explores the impacts of global warming on U.S. forests. She used a large format camera and different photographic processes to invoke impacts such as warming or sea level rise.

Steinhardt’s Department of Nutrition and Food Studies held a 50-year retrospective on Diet for a Small Planet with Frances More Lappé. The author reflected on the importance of their work and was followed by commentary from a panel of 3 renowned NYU professors, Marion Nestle (Nutrition), Amy Bentley (Food Studies), and David Kanter (Environmental Studies). 

The CAS Student Council Service Committee and Second Year Class Board partnered to collect clothing donations from NYU students and resell them at a pop-up thrift shop.

The 2023 OpenAir Carbon Removal Challenge was a worldwide challenge for students to create new processes, approaches, and prototypes to remove carbon from the land, waters, or air. With guidance from researchers and industry experts, student teams developed creative solutions to the carbon pollution problem. The very best approaches from around the world were selected as finalists and presented at this in-person showcase at New York University on April 21st.

At this closing reception, the finished 2040 Now Community Mural was revealed to highlight how art can be used to generate change and combat climate anxiety. The winners of the 2040 Now Climate and Sustainability Opinion Essay Competition were announced and all that have made 2040 Now a success were recognized.