A joint webinar co-organized by Tongji University and Yale focused on the topic ‘Sustainable Land development’ took place on April 15, 2021. Professor Li Fengting, Executive Deputy Dean of UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development, delivered welcoming remarks.

Yale’s Director for East Asia, Ms. Fawn Wang, reviewed the collaboration between Yale and Tongji, including a two-day symposium on building the sustainable campus with over 30 Chinese university leaders and senior administrators attended in Jan. 2008. She also highlighted a joint program called China Studio, a three-way collaboration among the architecture schools of Yale, Tongji and University of Hong Kong. Ms. Wang also emphasized the challenges on global health and urgent environmental issues that the world is facing today which call for continued collaboration such as this joint webinar’s focus on ways Yale, Tongji, and other partners are working together to find solutions.

A featured presentation was given by Dr. Gaboury Benoit, Grinstein Professor of Environmental Chemistry, faculty director of Yale’s Hixon Center for Urban Ecology. He covered the concept and practices detailed in his book, Land and Natural Development (LAND) Code, which offers a pioneering quantitative method to develop sites in harmony with natural processes including the carbon benefit that helps reduce carbon footprint to curb the climate change crisis.

More than 130 faculty members and students from Tongji University, Fudan University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University, and other universities in Shanghai attended the webinar.