• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Departments
    • Bioengineering
    • Civil and Environmental Engineering
    • Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
    • Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
    • Materials Science and Engineering
    • Mechanical Engineering
    • Nuclear Engineering
    • Aerospace program
    • Engineering Science program
  • News
    • Berkeley Engineer magazine
    • Social media
    • News videos
    • News digest (email)
    • Press kit
  • Events
    • Events calendar
    • Commencement
    • Homecoming
    • Cal Day
    • Space reservations
    • View from the Top
    • Kuh Lecture Series
    • Minner Lecture
  • College directory
  • For staff & faculty
Berkeley Engineering

Educating leaders. Creating knowledge. Serving society.

  • About
    • Facts & figures
    • Rankings
    • Mission & values
    • Equity & inclusion
    • Voices of Berkeley Engineering
    • Leadership team
    • Milestones
    • Buildings & facilities
    • Maps
  • Admissions
    • Undergraduate admissions
    • Graduate admissions
    • New students
    • Visit
    • Maps
    • Admissions events
    • K-12 outreach
  • Academics
    • Undergraduate programs
    • Majors & minors
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • Graduate programs
    • Graduate Guide
    • Innovation & entrepreneurship
    • Kresge Engineering Library
    • International programs
    • Executive education
  • Students
    • New students
    • Advising & counseling
    • ESS programs
    • CAEE academic support
    • Grad student services
    • Student life
    • Wellness & inclusion
    • Undergraduate Guide
    • > Degree requirements
    • > Policies & procedures
    • Forms & petitions
    • Resources
  • Research & faculty
    • Centers & institutes
    • Undergrad research
    • Faculty
    • Sustainability and resiliency
  • Connect
    • Alumni
    • Industry
    • Give
    • Stay in touch
  • Centers & institutes
  • Undergrad research
  • Faculty
    • Faculty honors and awards
    • NAE members
    • Endowed chairs
    • New faculty
    • Available positions
  • Sustainability and resiliency
Home > Research & faculty > Sustainability and resiliency engineering for all > Sustainable resource stewardship
brown mountain ranges during daytime
Sustainable resource stewardship

Engineering with earth’s finite resources in mind

Berkeley Engineering is reconceptualizing materials with a focus on prioritizing the enhancement of public health, the development of a sustainable circular economy, and the improvement of energy efficiency.

We are working to diminish the consumption of energy and materials, thereby eliminating waste and pollution across manufacturing and service sectors, propelling the global community toward a carbon-neutral future.

Graduate student Ivan Jayapurna prepares a sample film of polylactic acid plastic

Left to right: Graduate student Ivan Jayapurna prepares a sample film of polylactic acid plastic; an undegraded film of polylactic acid plastic; biodegraded fragments of polylactic acid plastic. Read more about how materials science professor Ting Xu is re-engineering plastics for the age of sustainability

Samples containing an undegraded film of polylactic acid plastic (top) and biodegraded fragments of polylactic acid plastic

Related news

Photo of blue sky with white clouds.

Record-breaking ‘molecular sponge’ pulls carbon from air faster than ever before

Professor Omar Yaghi’s lab achieves a breakthrough in direct air capture technology
An M.D. and Ph.D. candidate at UC San Francisco, Alice Tang speaking at a dais.

Berkeley engineers among innovators featured on Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ list

Many are leading the way across AI, entrepreneurship, science and more
Top row, from left: Henry Corrigan-Gibbs, Igor Jovanovic, Asir Intisar Khan. Bottom row, from left: Scott McCormack and Kater Murch.

Berkeley Engineering welcomes five new faculty members

New tenure-track professors will bring their research expertise to multiple departments
Molecular illustrations of energy compounds predicted by Materials Project-trained machine-learning models.

The Materials Project helps usher in the AI revolution for materials science

Pioneering database accelerates new materials discovery, is the most-cited resource for materials data and analysis tools in materials science

Featured projects

closeup of a stream of water running out of a machine

Creating a platform technology for metal and oxyanion removal and recovery from water

Professor Baoxia Mi has been working to develop a new platform technology for the removal and recovery of metal and oxyanion contaminants from water. The project, which is aimed at improving the sustainability and resiliency of water treatment systems, has shown promising results in early stages of testing.
Load more projects Loading...

Related centers

  • Alt Meat Lab
  • Bakar Institute of Digital Materials of the Planet
  • Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry
  • Berkeley Center for Next Generation of Food Systems
  • Berkeley Manufacturing 360
  • Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES)
  • Ecosystems & Networks Integrated with Genes and Molecular Assemblies
  • Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI)
  • KBase Predictive Biology
  • Materials Project
  • SinBerBEST²
Berkeley Manufacturing 360 students visit ASML
BIDMaP’s Prof. Omar Yaghi was honored with the prestigious Tang Prize for Sustainable Development.
SinBerBEST² office with a wordcloud
  • Contact
  • Give
  • Privacy
  • UC Berkeley
  • Accessibility
  • Nondiscrimination
  • instagram
  • X logo
  • linkedin
  • facebook
  • youtube
  • bluesky
© 2026 UC Regents