Welcome to the Zilkha Center for the Environment
Zilkha Center for the Environment (ZCE) oversees campus sustainability efforts, manages Hopkins Memorial Forest in partnership with a committee of researchers and other stakeholders, offers time-honored co-curricular initiatives such as the student summer grant program, Log Lunch, and Maple Fest, and is the administrative home of the Environmental Justice Clinic.
Protecting the environment and building sustainable societies and economies takes all of us. The ZCE works to achieve Williams College's strategic sustainability goals. We emphasize engaging students in this work and—through our co-curricular programs and management of the Hopkins Memorial Forest—extend the opportunities for experiential learning, applied research and community engagement beyond our campus borders.
News & Updates
Log Lunch Summaries
Community Engagement Intern, Morgan Eigel ‘27, has been working with Buxton School Day Camp to bring campers on campus and spend the day at the Envi Center! Today campers foraged for ingredients and cooked a vegetable pasta salad, made shirts with stamps made from leaves in our garden, and made plant pots made from newspaper! 🪴☀️⛱️
On June 18th, staff from the Williams Dining Team used funds from the REC Revenue project to attend a training session with Leslie Cerier, internationally renowned farm to table chef, specializing in vegan and vegetarian cooking!
What’s the REC Revenue project, you ask? Good question.
In 2023 the college began to arbitrage its Farmington, Maine solar PV renewable energy certificates (RECs) with Green-e certified solar PV RECs from dirtier grid regions (you can read more about this on our website)! An integral part of the program is to use the net revenue generated to fund additional climate-beneficial projects on campus. This training fits nicely because shifting from animal-based proteins to plant-based proteins decreases GHG emissions associated with the food that Dining purchases, which is one component of our Scope 3 emissions.
HMF Caretakers and ZCE Campus Sustainability Interns familiarized themselves with Hopkins Forest Today and did some fun tree hugging games. 🙂 Thank you to Elise Leduc-Fleming, Hopkins Memorial Forest Manager, for bringing us on a walk!
⭐️ Introducing our summer internship cohort! ⭐️
⭐️ Introducing our summer internship cohort! ⭐️
⭐️ Introducing our summer internship cohort! ⭐️