From bee enthusiasts and climate lecturers to aspiring entrepreneurs, Climate Week at Penn was a hotspot for creativity, dialogue, and bold ideas. One standout moment? Transform Penn: A Green Fund Pitch Competition, where five student groups presented exciting ideas for advancing campus sustainability at Penn to a live audience and panel of judges.

The event was held on Tuesday, October 14th and organized by the Penn Sustainability Office (PSO) and the Environmental Innovations Initiative (EII) as part of Penn’s sixth annual Climate Week. It was inspired by an energy and sustainability course taught by Lorena Grundy, a practice assistant professor in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. During the course, students worked on real-world projects that could produce quantifiable environmental benefits, such as meatless Mondays in the dining halls or installing solar panels on a computer lab. Excited about this new avenue for student innovation, the Climate Week organizing team developed the Transform Penn event to provide an opportunity for these ideas to receive financial support through the Penn Green Fund. Managed by Penn Sustainability, the Green Fund offers Penn students, faculty, and staff up to $30,000 to seed their innovative ideas for environmental sustainability into the Penn community at large.

The event also marked the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Penn’s sustainability mission: Campus as a Living Lab (CLL). The CLL program aims to transform Penn’s campus into a testing ground for real-world, sustainability solutions by blending academic inquiry with hands-on experimentation. The initiative directly supports Penn’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan 4.0, a five-year strategy for reducing the University’s carbon footprint and enhancing campus-wide sustainability. At Penn, CLL will provide funding and logistical support to new and existing projects, expand environmental academic opportunities, and foster greater collaboration between faculty and students. Transform Penn not only supported innovation, but also imagination for how research and experiential learning fit into Penn’s sustainability.

Under the Climate Week Tent on College Green, Nina Morris, Penn’s Sustainability Director welcomed and introduced attendees to the event and its five finalists, followed by Katie Unger Baillie’s, director of EII, introduction of the new CLL program. The rest of the event featured lively, entertaining performances from the student groups, Shark Tank style. Teams like GREEN OR proposed ways to reduce the environmental impact of operating rooms, while COW and Don’t Do It Solo reimagined how to repurpose waste from dining halls and social events. Other teams focused on air quality, pitching ideas like a micro-algae wall and a campus-wide bike loan and maintenance service. Each idea showcased the power of student innovation to create sustainable change.

The judges panel - composed of Penn Engineering’s Grundy, the School of Arts & Sciences’ Professor and faculty lead organizer of Climate Week Simon Richter, and PSO Sustainability Analyst Austin Studner - crowned team Don’t Do It Solo as the winner! The team’s Nicholas Kwok, Kasey Lee, Sandro Mocciolo, and Naddy Teo will soon meet with Morris and Baillie to develop their idea into a full-fledged Green Fund proposal with the goal of bringing itto life this academic year. Green OR earned the event’s Audience Choice Award, and all five groups were encouraged to seek further support from the Green Fund for their ideas.

In the coming months, EII will be spotlighting more sustainability projects that are embracing Penn as a living lab, including Green Lab’s Freezer Inventory project, Bird Friendly Penn, and a Waste Dashboard initiative. Amidst uncertain times, the future of sustainability at Penn is bright.