Global Institute of Sustainability News

‘No Impact Week’ encourages students to live greener

November 15th, 2010

Arizona State University kicked off its No Impact Week on Sunday, November 14. The eight-day initiative, sponsored by the Global Institute of Sustainability, encourages students on the Tempe campus to live greener through daily themes including: consumption, waste, transportation, food, energy, and water.

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Energize Phoenix Revs Up $25M in Grants

November 2nd, 2010

The city of Phoenix began accepting funding applications Tuesday from multi-family housing owners along a 10-mile stretch of the Phoenix light rail corridor. $25 million in grants are available under the Energize Phoenix program, a joint public-private program that seeks to provide energy efficiency measures for about 2,000 homes and more than 30 million square feet of commercial and industrial space.

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Scientists From Around the Globe Convene to Address Urbanization, Land, and Climate Change

October 12th, 2010

ASU hosts two international conferences to advance sustainability efforts and progress                

PHOENIX/TEMPE, Ariz. – Reinforcing its role as a leader in interdisciplinary global environmental and climate change conversations, Arizona State University (ASU) will host conferences for both the International Conference on Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) and the Global Land Project’s (GLP) Open Science Meeting.

How have humans changed the Earth’s surface? How do urbanization and global environmental change interface? What are new pathways for sustainability that link urbanization and land change? How can we adapt to changes that have already occurred?

These themes play significantly in both of the groups’ individual and joint conferences. They are also top of mind among next-phase thinkers in the fields of environment and sustainability and are expected to play prominently in upcoming agenda-setting reports.

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ASU Classroom and Chef Serve Up Sustainability

September 24th, 2010

This year’s crop of plant biology students will use more than their brains to learn, if Arizona State University professor Jeffrey Klopatek has a hand in it.

Klopatek, a culinary savant and climate change professor in the School of Life Sciences in ASU’s College of Liberal Art and Sciences, is attempting to cultivate undergraduates’ gut instincts. To do this, Klopatek has planted a fork in the proverbial scholarly road. He has veered from the norm to create his own menu for a dynamic, hands-on plant biology curriculum built around sustainability and food choices. Read more »

New ‘Green’ Minor for Major Change

September 10th, 2010

Arizona State University broadens scope of sustainability education offerings

TEMPE, Ariz. – Arizona State University (ASU) has launched a new minor in sustainability that can complement a student’s major in another academic discipline. This unique 18 credit hour program enables undergraduate students to explore the challenges of sustainability and learn what determines the sustainability of human institutions, organizations, cultures, and technologies in different environments at the local, national, and international levels.

The minor offered this fall, 2010, marks a milestone for ASU’s initiative to make sustainability education and practices university-wide across all four campuses. Read more »