Climate change is an ever growing concern, and at times it can be confusing to know how we can help make a difference. Sustainability practices are the key to accessible and effective progress in our planet’s health, and UMBC is dedicated to this effort by enhancing campus’s culture of sustainability, engaging and empowering UMBC’s community to get involved, and serving as a sustainability leader within the University System of Maryland and nationwide. 

Check out how faculty, staff, and students—often under the leadership of the Office of Sustainability—are going green through grants, campus installations, research, and community service projects:

Powered by the sun

UMBC received a $1.2 million solar energy grant from the Maryland Energy Administration to support solar power installations and additional sustainability initiatives on campus. The clean, carbon-free energy generated by the solar installations will meet roughly 2.5 percent of the campus’s current annual electricity demand, reducing UMBC’s carbon footprint by roughly 500 tons per year in support of the university’s Campus Clean Energy Master Plan.

Butterflies welcomed

Recently, UMBC revealed a new pollinator garden at the Center for Well-Being. Planted in June 2025, the garden qualifies as a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat and a Monarch Watch Waystation. In fact, monarch butterflies have already moved in. The pollinator garden will further promote ecosystem health on campus and bring UMBC closer to achieving the next level in the Green Grounds certification program. 

Benefiting the community

PFAS, also called “forever chemicals,” are found throughout the country in water, soil, air, food, cleaning products, clothing, and even our bloodstreams. They are linked to a range of health problems, including decreased fertility, developmental effects in children, reduced immune function, and increased risk of cancer and obesity.

UMBC Library Pond. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

Like in most bodies of water now, PFAS were found close to home in the Baltimore Harbor. Under the leadership of Margaret Siao, M.S. ’25, chemical engineering, UMBC students used PFAS samplers installed around the harbor to measure how much of the chemicals were present and identify possible sources. 

Fruitful campus connections 

As an initiative of Retriever Essentials, a faculty, staff, and student partnership to tackle food insecurity within the UMBC community has been planted. Ariel Barbosa, program coordinator for Retriever Essentials at UMBC and a master’s student in community leadership, worked hard to ready seven garden plots for crop production in an effort to provide the UMBC community essential nutrition they are not receiving from canned food alone. Namely, The Garden remains a student organization that maintains the beds near the UMBC Police Station and works to address problems such as food waste and food insecurity through service opportunities.

Ariel Barbosa, left, helps get a garden plot cleared for the growing season. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

The slow, steady work of removing invasive species

Over several weeks in fall 2022 and again in spring 2023, Isabel Dastvan ’22, geography and environmental systems, in collaboration with Facilities Management staff, completed on-the-ground surveys, created maps of invasive species, identified the most urgent invasive threats, and determined the best ways to combat their spread. Dastvan’s work revealed that there are at least 100 invasive plant species present in natural and managed spaces on campus, which can threaten native species, reduce ecosystem functions like pollination and water filtration, and increase the chance of fires by thickening vegetation. The end result of her work, completed as a Sustainability Fellow with Climate Corps, is a 187-page, comprehensive Invasive Species Management Plan for UMBC, which continues the school’s legacy of prioritizing sustainability and stewardship of the land the university occupies.

Let’s take a walk

In 2021, a $1 million grant from the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund, combined with about $1.4 million of university investment, funded a major stream restoration on campus to address deterioration caused by decades of growth at UMBC and in the surrounding community. The restoration project raised the streambed and added natural features, slowing the stream’s flow and reconnecting it with the floodplain. The project not only created and enhanced wetland and stream habitats and functions, it also provides recreational enhancements such as walking trails with stream access and connection to other existing trails.

Retrievers can access the Herbert Run Greenway by a walkway that skirts the CEI Arena. (Marlayna Demond ’11/UMBC)

UMBC’s commitment to earth-friendly research

Across the world, energy consumption is associated with an increased standard of living—but burning fossil fuels to produce much of that energy increases the concentration of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. 

Getting more energy from the sun could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but since the sun doesn’t always shine, we also need ways to store that energy and share it on the power grid. Three recently-hired researchers in the College of Engineering and Information Technology will build on the college’s strength in environmental research and expand faculty expertise in important areas such as energy storage.

Learn more about UMBC’s commitment to sustainability and how you can be involved.