My name is Justin Yeh and I am a third-year undergraduate majoring in mechanical engineering. On behalf of the Green Revolving Fund student team I would like to thank all of our generous donors for helping us raise more than $10,000 towards our goal of $50,000. 

My engagement with the Green Revolving Fund (GRF) started sophomore year. Walking through the Cornell club fair, I came across Energy Corp’s booth (now call the GRF). A brief chat with its members got me interested in this new club that was learning about sustainability and energy savings through the direct implementation of projects here at Cornell.

I initially joined the team responsible for finding projects on campus and doing the technical analysis to identify energy savings through commercially-available solutions. My specific role was linking the research to practical executable projects by acting as a liaison between project managers and Cornell’s facilities managers. We originally started off retrofitting light bulbs throughout Cornell, but now the GRF is pursuing larger projects that have more significant energy savings and will teach us more about building systems and energy-savings technologies.

Currently, my team is working on identifying and developing a full project proposal of Goldwin Smith Hall. A common means of wasteful energy usage comes from leaving systems running when no one is using it. Thus, our goal is to find a project that would correlate energy usage with building occupancy. After much discussion with facilities, we’ve narrowed our scope to implementing newer point-of-use electric water heaters. By implementing this project, we would heat water only when someone is using it instead of heating water 24/7.

We hope to be able to utilize crowdfunding campaign to jumpstart our Green Revolving Fund, carry out projects we identified this semester, and cycle back the returns to the fund in order to continue funding more energy-savings project.

Please consider giving to our campaign and share our project with others.

Thank you to all of the donors who have helped us raise over $12,000 towards our goal to establish the Green Revolving Fund! The GRF is not only about what we can do now, but how we can push toward the future. Every dollar we raise now will count for much more through the savings from the projects they fund. The more money we raise the more we can do! If you haven’t given already please donate on #GivingTuesday.

Hello! My name is Mayur Patel and I am a junior studying Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science in the School of Engineering. Both majors have their own way of thinking, but when you put them together, you get amazing outcomes like the development of small computers we carry around in our pockets and self-driving cars. Similarly, the GRF allows students from all disciplines across Cornell to collaborate and change the campus and minds for a more sustainable future.

The GRF, or Energy Corps as it was originally called, was one of the first organizations I joined at Cornell as a freshman. Energy Corps was just a team of four people that had a vision for a sustainable future for Cornell that would go beyond Cornell’s Climate Action Plan to establish something that would last for decades to come. I was interested in how we could change minds here at Cornell and spread ideas for sustainability in our own homes and lives. We spread the idea of a Green Revolving Fund and now, after two and a half years I have noticed more students living greener lives, using reusable water battles, unplugging devices, and changing attitudes toward sustainability. This has made me more excited about what the GRF can do in the future!

Currently, I am working on a multidisciplinary team of students on a GRF project in Sage Hall. Through data analysis, number crunching, and research, we are proposing a steam-pipe insulation project that will allow for more efficient heating and improve the building’s overall efficiency. We have been working closely with the Campus Sustainability Office as well as Cornell Facilities in developing our project and hope that you can help us with this project and many others by contributing towards our campaign. It is exciting to be a part of an organization that can lead Cornell into a brighter, greener future.

Thank you for your support!  If you haven’t already, please consider donating and share our project with others.

Students are excited to begin the Green Revolving Fund’s (GRF) second semester as a three-credit course at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management under the guidance of the  Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise. The fund remains dedicated to helping Cornell achieve carbon neutrality by 2035 through student-led energy efficiency projects. Our projects not only help make our campus more sustainable, but also provide students with the unique opportunity to develop essential leadership, analysis, and project management skills.

Last semester, the GRF teams worked diligently to identify projects in buildings across campus, creating four comprehensive energy efficiency project proposals, analyzed by members for technical feasibility and financial return. In Sage Hall, the building that houses Johnson, students discovered that twenty-three pipes and valves were not insulated in the mechanical rooms. After conducting research and analysis, the team determined this project would have a simple payback period of 11.58 months and a net present value of $8,000. Another team of students examined energy efficiency opportunities at Goldwin-Smith Hall and identified a number of potential projects including the installation of point-of-use hot water heaters. This project’s simple payback period would be between 3 and 4 years.

To make our vision a reality, in the coming months students will be working in teams to implement the initial proposals, identify new projects, and increase the GRF’s visibility in order to make the fund accessible to more students across campus.These projects would not be possible without the help of our generous alumni, colleagues, friends, and family who helped the Green Revolving Fund raise more than $13,000 through Cornell Crowdfunding.

Thank you for your support!