Project: Reducing Embodied Carbon in Purchasing
Elanna Mak conducted outreach to promote the switch from plastic to recycled lab supplies and explored factors impeding sustainable alternatives for compounds.
Research Partnerships
Stanford’s lands provide a living laboratory for groundbreaking research and innovation. Students, faculty, and operational staff collaborate to address real-world challenges, harnessing the university’s unique resources and diverse ecosystems to test theories and develop solutions that can make a lasting impact. Explore the meaningful ways researchers engage with the community and environment.
Codiga Project
Located on the Stanford campus near the Land, Buildings & Real Estate offices (LBRE), the William and Cloy Codiga Resource Recovery Center (CR2C) enables pilot testing of promising technologies for the recovery of resources (clean water, nutrients, energy, renewable materials) from wastes. LBRE, Stanford researchers, and groups outside the university collaborate to move solutions from the lab to real-world impact.
Cooler Research Project
The Cooler Research Project enhances the resilience of Stanford’s chilled water system through a collaboration between LBRE, the Energy Resources Engineering Department, and the Precourt Institute for Energy. The project experiments with chilled water load management down to individual rooms, enabling precise control and gradual demand reductions in non-critical areas while preserving critical zones.
Stanford Food Institute
The Stanford Food Institute (SFI), created by Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE), advances a holistic approach to food by improving what we eat, how we access it, and its role in our lives. SFI educates students, faculty, and staff to promote well-being and sustainable eating, conducts cross-disciplinary research to drive innovative solutions, and fosters culinary innovation through award-winning chefs creating forward-thinking dining experiences. Building on R&DE’s sustainability legacy, SFI engages in initiatives like Drawdown Labs, REGEN1, and the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative, advancing regenerative agriculture, inclusive practices, and systemic food solutions. By uniting diverse stakeholders, SFI accelerates pathways to a nourishing, equitable, and climate-smart food future.
Seeker Project
Seeker improves building control sequences to enhance energy performance and thermal comfort for occupants. Seeker’s diagnostics provide more accurate insights into potential building upgrades by leveraging distributed sensors and modern data-driven methods, including AI and machine learning models. New datasets will be generated through experimentation for more robust modeling. The project will culminate in an automated data-driven diagnostic toolkit to detect zones operating short of optimal thermal comfort, as well as a novel experiment protocol and software.
Explore more Living Lab Research Projects
Project: Sustainable and Equitable Travel Through Website Design
Sammy Puckett, B.S. ’22, M.S. ’24, created narrative content to encourage Transportation site visitors to visualize changes for more sustainable commutes.
Project: Travel/Study Carbon Assessment and Plan
Yuan Tang, M.S. 2024, identified promising climate action plans for the Travel/Study program within the Stanford Alumni Association by analyzing emissions data.
Project: Enhancing Stanford’s EV Readiness
Nikita Salunke helped shape Stanford’s electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure as a Living Lab Fellow.
– Loading –