Sustainability News

How might climate change affect Arizona? A decrease in crop yields, for one thing, according to Andrew Berardy – a postdoctoral research associate with the Food Systems Transformation Initiative – and Senior Sustainability Scientist Mikhail Chester.

After studying the food-energy-water nexus that governs agriculture in Arizona, the pair found that the state's yields could drop more than 12 percent per 1 degree Celsius. This would have cascading effects – including more irrigation and increased food prices – that would be felt throughout the region.

In light of roll-backs in environmental protection by the Trump administration, Berardy and Chester advise that farmers upgrade to more efficient irrigation methods like drip irrigation. Their findings were published in IOP Science.

We’ve portioned out more of the Colorado River’s water than it can deliver. What now?

Senior Sustainability Scientist Dave White, who directs ASU's Decision Center for a Desert City, delivered his ideas for staying afloat in a March 2017 KED Talk. He demonstrated how the lessons he learned while rafting the Colorado River in 1998 are applicable to today's proverbial water rapids – namely drought, climate insecurity, population growth and overallocation.

"The solutions to these problems will require courage, skilled and experienced leadership," says White, "....and the recognition that the vitality of the American West depends on everyone paddling together."

Spotlighting the Sustainability Teachers' Academy – a program of the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives – ASU was recognized with a 2017 Best of Green Schools award from the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council.

The award, presented in collaboration with the Green Schools National Network, acknowledges the importance of cultivating lifelong awareness by planting the sustainability seed early and, particularly, ASU's efforts to achieve just that through community education.

The annual Best of Green Schools awards recognize 11 individuals, institutions, projects and events representing the best environmental efforts in schools across the country. ASU was honored in the higher-education category.

An interdisciplinary ASU research team is exploring what water means around the world. In the most recent phase of their research program, the Global Ethnohydrology Study, students and faculty worked together to survey residents from the United States, New Zealand, Fiji and Bolivia regarding local perceptions of water risk, scarcity and solutions.

In honor of the World Water Day 2017 theme “Wastewater,” the team focused on the need to treat and reuse wastewater to safeguard people and our environment. It found that perceptions about water quality and quantity, as well regarding wastewater usage, vary depending on the region's level of development.

Kelli Larson, senior sustainability scientist and School of Sustainability professor, explained, "The implications of our research suggest that collective actions and policies in using wastewater may be more popular in developed areas, whereas individual practices and technologies may be more effective in less developed regions."

As a key program within the Knowledge Partnership between the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes and Conservation International, ASU welcomed seven Professors of Practice in March 2017.

These scientists will devote time to teaching, mentoring and service initiatives at the university, all aligned toward advancing the three goals of the partnership: protecting biodiversity; promoting sustainable development, particularly in food production and fisheries; and training the next generation of conservation biologists.

“Right now we’re in a race, a race that will not be easily won,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “The forces of nature and the negative force of our impact on nature are accelerating. The acceleration of those forces are such that they will contribute to our need to have something we don’t have, which are better theories, better ideas, better tools, better solutions, better implementation, better translation – none of which comes naturally.”

As the New American University, ASU supports local and global partnerships to ignite innovative solutions to pressing biodiversity conservation issues around the world.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Meng Tao has been selected as the 2017 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Alternative Energy Technology. Tao will take his solar energy expertise to Sweden, where he will work at the Chalmers University of Technology for the 2017–2018 academic year.

In Sweden, Tao will focus his research on charging electric vehicles with solar energy and on value-added recycling for solar modules.

“Charging electric vehicles by solar electricity makes environmental sense, but it is still expensive and unreliable,” Tao says. “That’s why we are developing a new solar photovoltaic system for charging electric vehicles that reduces the cost of solar electricity by 30 percent while eliminating its intermittency."

Less than six months after its founding meeting at ASU, the Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes (GCSO) – a global network of universities dedicated to scaling sustainability solutions with like-minded partners around the world – announced its first round of grant awards.

Members decided to address three core sustainability challenges in the consortium’s first year: city capacity to solve sustainability problems, sustainability education and reducing carbon emissions from the built environment.

Three interdisciplinary teams were awarded USD $125,000 each to implement projects that address these challenges. Led by sustainability experts from ten GCSO member universities across seven countries, the projects work directly with implementation agents – including cities, schools, agencies and neighborhoods – to put research-backed solutions in place.

The Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability is GCSO’s managing partner.

In March 2017, doctoral students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) joined NEPTUNE student veterans on ASU's Polytechnic campus for a week-long, intensive microgrid boot-camp.

Over a 40-hour period, boot camp attendees learned about microgrid infrastructure through interactive tours, lectures and lessons, and were provided with a platform to collaborate and share insights.

Mircogrid systems provide back-up energy during loss of power from a main grid, and are vital for places that need reliable and continuous energy – such as hospitals or military bases. They can be powered by various types of energy including solar, which was the focus of the boot camp.

UNAM's partnership with ASU's LightWorks made the collaboration possible, and the pair continue to work together to develop alternative energy solutions.

Next week, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes (CBO), in partnership with Conservation International (CI), will welcome six scientists from CI’s Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science and Oceans as Professors of Practice (PoPs). The PoPs will be instrumental in advancing the three goals of the Knowledge Partnership established with CI in September 2016:

1. Protecting essential natural capital for human well-being.
2. Transitioning producers to sustainable production methods through science, engagement and technology.
3. Training the next generation of conservation leaders.

During their welcome week, PoPs will participate in a series of planning workshops to strategize research and teaching. They will present lightning talks and discussion, followed by one-on-one meetings with faculty.  They will also facilitate undergraduate and graduate student workshops.

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Saurabh Biswas likes to ensure that no good ideas, or sunlight, go to waste.

That’s why the School of Sustainability PhD student created Sustainable Rio Claro 2020 – a sustainability game-plan for the Brazilian village of Rio Claro.

Through ASU’s Global Development Research program, Biswas lived, worked and studied in the small agricultural community, collaborating with community members and local organizations. He also got hands-on, providing assistance to a local photovoltaic (PV) solar startup making rooftop PV accessible to Brazil’s urban communities.

Biswas is one of more than twenty graduate students to become a GDR scholar since the program’s inception.

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Wanting to lessen its impact on the environment, the City of Phoenix decided to explore ways to make more eco-friendly purchasing decisions. Sustainability experts Nicole Darnall and Lily Hsueh were among the half-dozen ASU faculty to help them.

The ASU team assessed opportunities for purchasing improvements by conducting focus group interviews with city procurement specialists. After identifying complex organizational barriers and trade-offs, the team provided eight recommendations that will help Phoenix advance its 2050 environmental sustainability goals.

“By engaging city officials, our team was able to address one of the city's concerns — how it can further integrate environmental considerations into its purchasing processes,” said Darnall, the principal investigator. “At the same time, we developed a better understanding about sustainable procurement, advanced our research ideas, and engaged teams of graduate students in project-based learning. This project created wins for everyone.”

ASU Professor and Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Randy Cerveny announced in March 2017 that Antarctica has reached record-breaking warm temperatures – in some places over 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cerveny, a Rapporteur of Climate and Weather Extremes for the World Meteorological Organization, has collaborated with other WMO experts to measure the impact of rising Antarctic temperatures on the rest of the planet. The team has published their findings in a recent report.

"The polar regions of our planet have been termed the ‘canary’ in our global environment," he says. "Because of their sensitivity to climate changes, sometimes the first influences of changes in our global environment can be seen in the north and south polar regions...The more we know of this critically important area to our environment, the more we can understand how all of our global environments are interlinked.”

Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Manfred D. Laubichler, a theoretical biologist known as a positive “disrupter” who identifies trends years in advance, is being honored with the Faculty Service Achievement Award at Founders’ Day 2017.

Laubichler is regarded for his work on Complex Adaptive Systems, focusing on complexity as a unifying principle in the social and life sciences. One of his most significant contributions was to the launch of the ASU-Santa Fe Institute's Center for Biosocial Complex Systems, which prepares scientists and policymakers for questions that arise as cities become megacities.

Another project that Laubichler was instrumental in is the ASU-Leuphana Center for Global Sustainability and Cultural Transformation. The center – created in 2015 in conjunction with Leuphana University in Lüneburg, Germany – builds on the universities' shared focus on global sustainability and transdisciplinary research. Its creation included the first dual master’s degree in global sustainability sciences, which enables students to attend and receive degrees from both universities.

"Studying abroad takes away the blinders of not knowing who is affected by the things we do," says Sarah Morrow, a student in ASU Online’s Master of Sustainability Leadership program, of the journey that led her to sustainability. "Now in my daily life, I make better choices when it comes to sustainability."

After returning from a two-week trip to Hong Kong as a part of ASU’s urban sustainability initiative abroad, part of the Global Sustainability Studies Program, Morrow decided to pursue her sustainability education further by enrolling in the online MSL.

While abroad, Morrow and her classmates witnessed firsthand the serious sustainability issues a large city may face, such as waste disposal. Her group focused on biodiversity, exploring Hong Kong's coral crisis and developing potential policy solutions to address it.

Back in the U.S., Morrow has big dreams for her future as a sustainability trendsetter and hopes to apply her ASU Online education to assist big companies in following sustainability principles.

Mike Pasqualetti, senior sustainability scientist, has been appointed to a two-year term on the International Advisory Board of the Moravian Geographical Reports Journal, published by the Institute of Geonics, the Czech Academy of Sciences. The international, peer-reviewed journal is open-access and has a growing global reputation and presence, especially in Europe.

According to Pasqualetti, the emphasis of the journal is on the role of 'regions' and 'localities' in a globalized society, given the geographic scale at which they are evaluated. The journal addresses multiple interrelated questions, including:

• Problems of regional economies and society;
• Society in an urban or rural context;
• Regional perspectives on the influence of human activities on landscapes and environments;
• The relationships between localities and macro-economic structures in rapidly changing socio-political and environmental conditions;
• Environmental impacts of technical processes on bio-physical landscapes;
• Physical-geographic processes in landscape evolution, including the evaluation of hazards, such as floods.
• Theoretical questions in geography are also addressed, especially the relations between physical and human geography in their regional dimensions.

Three School of Sustainability students have come up with a way to guide small organizations painlessly toward zero waste. And they’ll make money doing it.

Eric Johnson, Sean Murray and Daniel Velez – all students in the Master of Sustainability Solutions program – make up the consulting firm Circle Blue. The firm will partner with schools, nonprofits and small businesses to find and eliminate waste, saving money and reducing the amount of garbage that goes to the landfills.

And now they have a financial boost in achieving that aim. The Circle Blue team won a $20,000 grant from the Pakis Social Entrepreneurship Challenge, defeating two other teams in the pitch competition in February 2017. The event, sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurship in the W. P. Carey School of Business at ASU, sought the team with the strongest potential to solve a social challenge.

A climate strategy involving carbon dividends can strengthen our economy and reduce regulation while helping working-class Americans and promoting national security, say the authors of a February 2017 report published by the Climate Leadership Council.

Titled "The Conservative Case for Carbon Dividends," the report explains how a four-part carbon dividends plan can help to mitigate climate change while preserving conservative principles like free market and limited government.

Among the report's authors – eight men with collectively impressive business and political acumen – is Retired Walmart Chairman Rob Walton, who serves as co-chair of the Board of Directors of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global institute of Sustainability at ASU.

Big cities are generally associated with fast-paced life, but an ASU study shows that one psychological effect of population density is the adoption of a “slow life strategy.”

The ASU team – including sustainability scientists Steven Neuberg and Douglas Kenrick – collected data from all 50 states and nations around the world. Then, through a series of experiments, they found that perceptions of crowdedness cause people to delay gratification in favor of slower behaviors. These included long-term romantic relationships, having fewer children and investing more in education.

“With the world’s population growing,” Neuberg says, “it seems more important than ever to understand the psychological effects of overcrowding and how living in crowded environments might influence people’s behaviors. Applying a new perspective to an old question is allowing us to reexamine the effects of living in crowded environments.”

Arizona State University School of Sustainability professor Hallie Eakin joined with renowned climate change expert and University of Arizona professor Diana Liverman for an annual meeting of UA and ASU graduate students working on issues of climate, society and environmental justice.

The students shared insights into how to undertake transformative science in ways that directly address the needs of vulnerable communities and future generations. "The gathering gives me hope that we will meet the challenges of climate justice through shared ideas and commitment," commented Liverman.

The workshop included research presentations by students from both universities, followed by discussions about the Paris climate agreement, finding optimism in tough times, strategies for engaging people and organizations to achieve environmental justice, and how to engage further in direct climate justice action. Climate communication expert Susi Moser inspired the students with virtual talk on "Hope, even now."

A two-week workshop at Arizona State University's School of Sustainability brought students from China a new way of systems thinking to analyze complex sustainability problems.

Marty Anderies, professor and senior sustainability scientist, introduced the students to the key sustainability challenge areas of food, water, energy and urbanization – both locally and globally. His sustainability class was a combination of learning activities: documentaries and dialogue, interactive role-playing games, field trips and lectures.

The 16 students came from Beijing's Beihang University, an elite research university known for launching the first light passenger aircraft in China in 1950s. They chose ASU because the university is well-known in Chinese academia for its leading research and heavy focus in sustainability.