Institute for Sustainability Engagement - EFC Region 2

The Institute for Sustainability Engagement is proud to celebrate the 2026 graduation of our GREEN-PR Environmental Leadership Stewardship Program! 🌱🎓

GREEN-PR offers university students a unique semester-long opportunity to support the implementation of Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) projects across Puerto Rico while gaining meaningful, hands-on professional experience.

At this year's graduation, our stewards presented the impactful work they developed throughout the semester, showcasing innovative solutions and the lasting partnerships they helped build. Collectively, this year's cohort helped divert more than 3,000 pounds of recyclable materials through community recycling initiatives, removed well over 1,300 pounds of litter from Puerto Rico's coastlines, planted 497 mangrove trees to support coastal restoration, expanded composting and recycling programs, and engaged thousands of community members through environmental workshops, trainings, and outreach events. Their work demonstrates the meaningful impact that passionate young environmental leaders can have across the island.

One of the program's greatest strengths is its commitment to workforce development. Many participants continue their professional journeys with the organizations they collaborated with, turning their stewardship experience into career opportunities that strengthen Puerto Rico's sustainability sector. Following a media training workshop provided through the program, several stewards also had the opportunity to share their experiences through local radio programs and podcasts, helping amplify sustainability initiatives and inspire broader community engagement.

This year's cohort also reflected the incredible diversity of talent within GREEN-PR. From undergraduate and master's students to participants who began the program as doctoral students and completed it as officially graduated doctors, each steward brought unique perspectives, expertise, and passion to advancing sustainability in Puerto Rico. Their creativity was equally inspiring—from designing educational campaigns and strengthening student-led environmental initiatives to developing community sustainability projects. One steward even engineered a fully functional portable air compressor using discarded parts and reclaimed materials, demonstrating firsthand how innovation and circular economy principles can transform waste into valuable resources.

Congratulations to our 2026 GREEN-PR graduates! Your dedication, leadership, creativity, and commitment to creating a more sustainable future continue to inspire us. 💚

To learn more about the incredible projects our GREEN-PR Stewards completed this semester and the impact they made across Puerto Rico, click here: http://www.prrecycles.org/green-pr-network.html

We're excited to share that the Institute for Sustainability Engagement at Syracuse University has been awarded a $40,000 Great Lakes Basin Small Grants Program grant for “Sewer-Ready Sodus Bay: Centering Community Voices to Advance Clean Water Solutions in Huron, NY” by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and New York Sea Grant.

Through our Environmental Finance Center, we're partnering with the Town of Huron and neighboring shoreline communities to engage residents in identifying practical, long-term solutions to address failing septic systems and reduce nutrient and pathogen loading in Lake Ontario's Great Sodus Bay while advancing the goals of the Great Lakes Action Agenda.

We're grateful for this opportunity and look forward to working alongside our local partners and community members over the next 18 months!

Learn more and browse the full list of projects here:

DEC and New York Sea Grant Announce Nearly $200,000 in Great Lakes Basin Small Grants Project Awards NYSDEC and New York Sea Grant (NYSG) announced $191,960 in grants for five Great Lakes basin projects.

🚰 Have you heard of drinking water backflow prevention? According to the Watts Water Technologies 2025 Backflow Awareness Survey, most people haven’t. Read this Environmental Finance Center Network blog by Zoë Eisel, Project Assistant at our Environmental Finance Center to learn what backflow is, why community engagement is critical to prevention efforts, and how municipalities and utilities can help close the awareness gap.

📖 Read “The Case for Community Engagement in Backflow Prevention: Insights From the Watts 2025 Survey” Here: https://efcnetwork.org/the-case-for-community-engagement-in-backflow-prevention-insights-from-the-watts-2025-survey/



🔗 For more multimedia, including podcasts, videos, blogs and more, visit: https://efcnetwork.org/multimedia/

In the late 1980s, the era of open dumping gave way to a generation of leaders investing in new landfills, transfer stations, waste-to-energy, recycling, and composting facilities. Forty years later, a new generation faces the same questions of investment and technology as aging infrastructure gives way to the future.

How do we move forward?

As part of this next generation, our team is exploring sustainability through a holistic approach, recognizing all the pieces — from citizen to community to larger institutions — working together to achieve mutual benefit and shared goals.

At the 6th Annual Larry Swanson's 2026 Solid Waste Symposium held at Suffolk County Community College, our Director Melissa Young shared how students, faculty, and community partners can collaborate on initiatives related to waste reduction, reuse, recycling, and community sustainability in an interconnected way, bridging the gap between research, education, and implementation and strengthening the role of higher education as a driver of sustainability impact.

This event was co-sponsored by the Evan R. Liblit Memorial Scholarship Committee, the Suffolk County Executive’s Office, and the Waste Reduction and Management Institute at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

The Institute for Sustainability Engagement is thrilled to have been awarded funds from the NYS Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I) for their 2026-2027 Community Grants program 🎉

With NYSP2I funds and the support of our partners, ISE will reduce single-use food service waste in Monroe County and change cultural norms around reusables in the food service industry by supporting businesses in implementing “Bring Your Own” (BYO) reuse initiatives.

We look forward to sharing more about our project in the months ahead and kicking off in the fall. Read more in the article below!

NYSP2I selects 10 awardees for 2026-27 Community Grants Program The New York State Pollution Prevention Institute (NYSP2I) has announced 10 selections for its 2026-2027 Community Grants Program.

💵📋 Looking to secure funding that requires an income survey, but not sure where to start? Check out our Environmental Finance Center’s new resource, created in collaboration with NYS Environmental Facilities Corporation and New York State Homes & Community Renewal, designed specifically to help communities design an income survey that to meets both HCR’s Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and NYS EFC requirements. Don’t miss out on vital funding; start your income survey today!



🔗 Access “How to Design an Income Survey to Meet BOTH CDBG (HCR) and NYS EFC Requirements” here:https://efc.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Income-Survey-Handout.pdf



📖 Check out more publications from our EFC here: https://efc.syr.edu/resources/publications/

We're proud to share that our partnership with the Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM) at SUNY ESF continues to grow — now bolstered by a $3.25 million appropriation to the Center from New York State's Environmental Protection Fund.

With a long history leading efforts in sustainable materials management (SMM) throughout NYS, ISE helped to form and has worked closely with CSMM since it was established, together serving as statewide resources for local governments, businesses, institutions, and community organizations working to improve materials management systems and advance New York's sustainability goals.

Administered by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, this funding will support priority waste reduction and recycling projects that strengthen SMM infrastructure across the state, building on years of collaborative work between ISE and CSMM such as the Recycle Right New York Campaign, Certify Circularity NY, and much more.

“ISE is honored to have helped weave the fabric of the Center for Sustainable Materials Management since its earliest days, and this milestone funding is a testament to what a dedicated partnership can accomplish. Our conviction at ISE is that community engagement is not peripheral to sustainability work; it is central to what makes programs take root and endure. We look forward to continuing this collaboration and to ensuring that authentic, inclusive engagement remains the thread that runs through all of CSMM's important initiatives,” said ISE Director Melissa Young.

We want to recognize Kathryn Walker, CSMM Executive Director, and Mark Lichtenstein, CSMM Co-founder, for their leadership and partnership in reaching this achievement.

Read more by clicking the article below.

Syracuse Partnership to Continue Expanding Sustainable Solid Waste Management Solutions Across NYS Through $3.25 Million State Fund Appropriation - Institute for Sustainability Engagement – Syracuse University July 1, 2026 The partnership between the Institute for Sustainability Engagement (ISE) and the Center for Sustainable Materials Management (CSMM) has been longstanding since the Center’s formation in 2019. Pictured are staff and industry partners from the two organizations during “Elevating Solu...

💧 Earlier this month, our Environmental Finance Center hosted Daryl Gotham, Senior Research Engineer at the Great Lakes Environmental Infrastructure Center as he led a valuable in-person training on chlorine disinfection in partnership with the Environmental Finance Center Network. Operators and water professionals from across upstate New York traveled to the Syracuse Center of Excellence to explore the chemistry of disinfection, dosage mathematics, and regulatory compliance under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). We look forward to hosting more in-person training in the future as we continue our work to help keep New York communities’ water clean and safe!



🔗 Access resources from the training here: https://efcnetwork.org/event/ny-training-chlorine-disinfection/

We were thrilled to welcome our partners Cornell University, AguaClara Reach, and Interamerican University of Puerto Rico’s Center for Environmental Education, Conservation and Research at Syracuse University’s Joseph I. Lubin House last week.

Our work together—the VersaWater collaborative—is expanding in Puerto Rico and the Northeast and exploring new approaches for bringing safe drinking water to rural communities.

Thank you again to our partners and to those on our team at ISE for joining us in person: Melissa Young, MeiLin Luzadis, Francisco Guzmán-Alvarado, Kaira Fuentes, Tess Clark, and Susan McGrattan.

To learn more about VersaWater, visit versawater.org.

Our Environmental Finance Center, in partnership with the Environmental Finance Center Network (EFCN), is proud to launch a new Spanish-language video series on drinking water chlorine disinfection for small water systems in Puerto Rico.

Developed in response to a request from the Puerto Rico Department of Health (Departamento de Salud de Puerto Rico), these videos help make essential technical information more accessible to water system operators and managers across the island.



▶️ Explore the series and support safer drinking water for Puerto Rico’s communities here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqj_uxZ9pYMKvynw4cF0PvO0Mf_Oi9HBR