In recent years, Penn has expanded its efforts to recycle and conserve energy, construct green buildings and manage waste.
And now there’s one person whose job is to oversee all of these greening efforts.
Daniel Garofalo, a planner and architect in the Office of Facilities and Real Estate Services since 2002, has been appointed Penn’s first environmental sustainability coordinator and facilities planner. In his new role, Garofalo will be responsible for Penn’s sustainability strategy, including energy conservation, waste management, green buildings, transportation and planning.
This coordinator position results from President Amy Gutmann’s signing of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment in February 2007, which commits Penn to preparing a plan that leads the University towards climate neutrality over the next several years.
Garofalo, a LEED certified architect, is a founding member of the U.S. Green Building Council and current chair of the Delaware Valley Chapter, and was the founder of Community Design Collaborative, Philadelphia’s pro-bono design center. He has served twice as a Peace Corps volunteer, first in Malawi in 1992 to 1994, where he worked as the architect in charge of design for the capital city of Lilongwe, and in 2005 on a three-month assignment to Sri Lanka to assist in disaster recovery after the tsunami.
He received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Virginia, a master’s in architecture from Penn’s School of Design and a master’s in government administration from Penn’s Fels Institute of Government.
For more information about environmental sustainability at Penn, go to: www.upenn.edu/sustainability.
Originally published May 8, 2008.
