The Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure was founded in 2008 by a generous donation by siblings Paul and Joan Zofnass, and was housed at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for 15 years. In 2022, the program moved from Harvard to the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
The mission of the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure is to develop and promote methods, processes, and tools that quantify sustainability for infrastructure. Its goal is to facilitate the adoption of sustainable solutions for infrastructure projects and systems, and expand the body of knowledge for sustainable infrastructure.
The Zofnass Program prides itself on the collaborative nature of its research efforts. In addition to providing the generous on-going gift that founded and supports the program, Paul and Joan Zofnass have been advising the program’s research direction. The research team includes a core group of faculty from across Harvard and student research associates from undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs.
The Zofnass Program is supported by the industry through an Industry Advisory Board and by research foundations. The strong support provided by the industry through the Advisory Board makes the Zofnass Program unique and relevant: the collaboration of academic experts and industry specialists has led to the development of the Zofnass Rating System, that has been integrated into the Envision™ system of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
Through an innovative collaboration between the academia and the private sector, practicing leaders involved in planning, engineering, construction and financing of infrastructure have provided invaluable support to the Zofnass Program and have worked closely with the Harvard’s professors and researchers. This collaboration of leading firms and their representatives is essential to the development and implementation of a system that can be accepted industry-wide and have a fruitful contribution towards sustainable infrastructure.
The Zofnass program seeks to provide a series of resources and tools, and host events to facilitate sustainable project planning and design, as well as rate the sustainability of infrastructure projects. The Zofnass Program aims to serve as a clearing house for information collected from projects, both in its pilot phase and after the system is launched and utilized.
Paul and Joan also developed a Tree Identification Program for NY’s Central Park, by funding and designing the Zofnass East Side Tree Walk, which identifies 100 different species of trees, plants and shrubs down a two mile path on the East Side of Central Park, parallel to Fifth Avenue, entering at 85th St and running down to 60th St.
In the early 1990’s, Paul Zofnass played a proactive role in creating the Harvard University Center on Environment, an interdisciplinary department that brought together professors from all the other departments whose disciplines were critical to understanding the issues of protecting and maintaining a healthy environment. (One of the other leaders of this initiative were Paul’s college classmate, Al Gore.) The first year the new studies major was offered, it received 250 applications for roughly 25 spots. Paul also contributed the first Scholarship in Environmental Studies, in memory of his father, Jesse E. Zofnass, class of ’25. He served on Harvard’s Visiting Committee to this Center for many years, and continues to serve as an adviser to their Director. (He has also served on Harvard’s Committee on University Resources, since the early ‘1980’s, and also has served as Co-Chair of his Harvard College Class Reunion Fund Drives, since graduation in 1969.)
Paul has financed and helped create a major, permanent multi-media exhibition focusing on the natural history, environmental significance, historical development, and conservation of New England forests at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. “New England Forests: The Zofnass Family Gallery”, which opened in 2011. It is visited annually by roughly 200,000 people. Unlike the more traditional displays of museums, which tend to show the difference between different species of flora and fauna, the Zofnass Exhibition attempts to demonstrate the interactivity and interdependency between the various flora, fauna, and the surrounding physical environment.
The Zofnass family has also created a 150-acre nature preserve in Pound Ridge, NY, one hour north of New York City. Paul has designed and built an eight-mile long wilderness hiking trail (also known as The Westchester Wilderness Walk) that runs throughout the Preserve. One of the attractions of the trail is that at no point can any reflection of civilization be seen. The Preserve was created through a combination of land gifts and conservation easements organized by Paul and donated by Paul and his neighbors, in roughly 7 separate parcels and put together over a 15 year period. The preserve is open to the public.
You can still see the original Sunday New York Times article about The Westchester Wilderness Walk/Zofnass Family Preserve.
Paul serves on the Board of Riverkeeper, an organization largely developed through the efforts of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. For the past 30 years, Riverkeeper has taken on the responsibility of cleaning and preserving the Hudson River and NY Watershed. It also has approximately 150 affiliated organizations around the world, inspired by Riverkeeper and Kennedy, with similar purposes.
Paul serves as a permanent trustee and Faculty Member of Harvard’s Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department, founded in the 1840’s by Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, following Darwin’s explorations and development of the theory of evolution.
Paul served for roughly 20 years on the Board of the Westchester Land Trust, during which time, he assisted in the strategy and preservation of over 5,000 acres of land in Westchester County, just north of New York City. This wonderful organization has had a huge impact on the preservation of this beautiful part of New York.
In addition to the Environmental Scholarship that Paul established at Harvard College, he also endowed an annual Zofnass Environmental Prize at both of his pre-college schools: Belmont Day School and Belmont Hill School (where he also serves as a member of the Corporation).
In 2014, Paul was recognized as one of 50 HBS alumni, to receive the HBS “Making a Difference” designation, for “his combining a successful business career with his passion for environmental preservation”.
Paul serves on the Board of Directors of Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, MA, the oldest landscaped cemetery in the United States (in the 1840’s), and designed in part by Frederick Law Olmstead. He also serves on their Horticultural Committee and on the Visiting Committee for Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum.
In September 2019, the Denver Zoo opened the Zofnass Barclay Family Nature Play Trail which provides an opportunity for immersive nature play among actual natural features. Utilizing a previously neglected area of the Zoo, bordering a lake with a cormorant nesting island, the Zoo now has another outdoor classroom to nurture the next generation of environmental stewards.
Sustainability Commitment
Our Commitment to Sustainability and the Environment
The following represent our ongoing and active commitment to the environment and the sustainability of resources: