2 minute read
Spring 2025 Miss Porter's School Bulletin
With climate change becoming an increasingly urgent concern for humanity, more and more businesses are working to shrink their carbon footprint and find opportunities for growth. Among the key players supporting their efforts is longtime environmental champion Sarah Penndorf ’99.
Penndorf’s own environmental ambitions took shape in her earliest years while playing in the backyard of her family’s modest home in West Hartford, Connecticut, where she fashioned mini-bridges out of popsicle sticks to help worms cross puddles. Her lifelong vegetarianism was sparked at age 10 after reading about the harmful practices of the meat industry. Meanwhile, cycling the wooded trails of the nearby reservoir inspired her lifelong love of nature. Her working-class parents’ encouragement to reuse and not waste, she adds, helped shape her conservation ethic.
At Miss Porter’s School, she found an ideal outlet for her curiosity about nature through courses in biology, chemistry and environmental science. In the latter, she recalls conducting an in-depth study of lichen as an air quality indicator, a project that involved measuring levels of the plantlike organism near the Farmington River and in other parts of campus. She says her academic success was nurtured by teachers who valued her input and promoted her independence.
“Having access to such a strong science education provided me with an excellent foundation and confidence to continue my learning in this area,” says Penndorf, who later earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental science at Connecticut College and a master’s degree in environmental studies at Brown University. “I felt so heard and respected at Porter’s. I was treated like someone with an independent mind who mattered.”
A desire to advance environmentally responsible corporate practices has shaped most of Penndorf’s career. She was previously a senior leader at a startup organization that used consumer activism to reward environmentally and socially responsible businesses.
