Ben-Gurion University’s Goldman Sonnenfeldt School of Sustainability and Climate Change directs climate work through universities, ministries, corporate offices and international institutions. Its programs reach researchers and teenagers, train government officials and send a delegation to the United Nations’ climate conference. The school’s head, Prof. Shimon Rachmilevitch, says it’s “much more” than a school. Its machinery is broad. Its channels are institutional.
Climate work, by committee
The school organizes more than 190 researchers from engineering, medicine, literature, social work, agriculture, energy, water studies and geography. It builds on five decades of dryland research at Ben-Gurion University, which the university brought together into an interdisciplinary mission five years ago. “Only when you work together can you really get answers,” Rachmilevitch said.
Some of that work tackles practical problems. His team studies sweet potatoes and their roots, which he calls the “hidden herb” of agriculture, and has found ways to increase yields by at least 50%. Researchers are also developing easier harvesting methods and studying nutrition, the crop’s history and policy recommendations. Medical researchers, food anthropologists and policy experts work on the project together.
Other projects seek to reshape dairy cattle gut microbiomes to cut methane emissions by as much as 20% to 30%, and turn urine into fertilizer amid water and nitrogen scarcity. The school invests over NIS 1 million annually in postgraduate scholarships. It’s also launched a sustainability bachelor’s degree that students can pair with fields from physics to archaeology.
The model puts climate action in offices, too. Rachmilevitch envisions that “in just a few years, every company, every institution will have a sustainability office, and a head of sustainability.” He named IBM and Microsoft as large high-tech companies that already have sustainability departments. In this account, the path from climate research to action runs through institutional posts, policy recommendations and corporate departments.
Young people, official channels
Ben-Gurion is the only university that sends a committee to the UN Climate Change Conference each year and broadcasts live from the summit to roughly 5,000 Israeli high school students. That work led to the annual Youth Climate Conference, which BGU created in 2025 with the Education Ministry. Each year, organizers select 40 schools to present sustainability projects. BGU mentors the students before they present to the president of Israel at his climate forum, and the school awards an annual stipend for the best environmental high school thesis.
The university also works with the Health Ministry and the Heschel Center for Sustainability to train senior officials in climate management, including sending participants to Europe to study international models. Its public climate-data platform, ipcc.bgu.ac.il, uses interactive graphs to track temperature, wildfire activity and other indicators. The article describes these official and university-led routes. It gives no account of community-led climate organizing.
Money, diplomacy and the disclosure
Much of the school’s growth followed Michael Sonnenfeldt’s commitment to donate $1 million annually for 20 years. Rachmilevitch said the donation helped attract further government and international investment: “Money brings money when people see that things are happening.” He added that the government and the Kenyan government start to invest when they see seriousness behind the work.
The school’s international reach includes working relationships with Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Cyprus, and a high school climate conference model exported to Kenya, with Malawi under consideration. Alongside the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the school leads Israel’s delegation to conferences related to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, including one in Mongolia in August. Its biennial Drylands, Deserts and Desertification conference, which it runs jointly with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, draws roughly 1,000 participants.
Rachmilevitch said the war has diverted budgets and made some international partners more hesitant to collaborate with or visit Israel. He argued that BGU’s academic reputation reduces the effect of the political situation on its international efforts. The account also discloses that it was written in cooperation with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and that the Jerusalem Post’s environment portal is produced in cooperation with the school, while the Jerusalem Post maintains editorial decisions. That disclosure matters. The institution described as a climate hub is also part of the article’s production and funding context.