Sustainability News

Since its convening in 2008, the Sustainable Cities Network has maintained contact with EPA Region 9. This ongoing connection has allowed for each body – Region 9, ASU and Arizona communities – to learn and share knowledge, case studies and resources so that the lexicon of sustainability best practices steadily expands and so partnerships may emerge when interests align.

SCN recently interviewed Karen Irwin of EPA Region 9 to get details on the kind of support it can provide for urban sustainability initiatives, including smart growth, walkable and transit-oriented communities; green infrastructure; energy efficiency; renewable energy; waste reduction and materials reuse and recovery; sustainable water and wastewater infrastructure; and green fleets, among others. Read the full interview with Irwin to find out about additional opportunities, resources and ways to get involved with Region 9.

The U.N. anticipates that almost half of Earth's population will be living in “areas of high water stress” by 2030 as a result of climate change. Experts estimate that, without intervention, as many as 700 million people may find themselves displaced.

To build resilience to this scenario, ASU has partnered with Scottsdale’s future Desert Discovery Center – an expansive research center that teaches “a global audience to value, thrive in and conserve desert environments.”  The center's public face will feature a series of exhibits that address "what I can see, what I can’t see and what it all means."

“There are things going on in the desert that are deep in the crust, and they’re teeming with life,” says Senior Sustainability Scientist Duke Reiter. “But without this research and a sophisticated guide, at both a macro and micro scale, it would be impossible to see.”

The ASU Wrigley Institute is currently exploring opportunities for educational outreach services, particularly those that engage K-12 audiences, through the new center.

Nobel Laureate and Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Leland Hartwell received Research!America’s Geoffrey Beene Builders of Science Award, which recognizes those who have provided leadership and determination in building an outstanding scientific research organization.

Hartwell, an ASU School of Sustainability professor and the director of the Pathfinder Center at ASU's Biodesign Institute, was honored for his commitment as president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center from 1997 to 2010.

“Research!America is honored to recognize Dr. Hartwell for his exemplary leadership as a researcher, educator and lifelong advocate for scientific discovery," said Research!America President and CEO Mary Woolley. "Dr. Hartwell is deeply committed to educating the next generation of critical thinkers in health, education, technology and sustainability. We salute his achievements."

ASU School of Sustainability's new sustainable energy PhD program will kick off in August 2017, focusing on overcoming obstacles to implementing national renewable energy systems.

Christine Sturm, a PhD candidate in the school, looks to Germany's renewable energy transition to learn from the substantial challenges it has faced.

She explains, "Energy systems are complex amalgams of technologies, institutions, markets, regulations and social arrangements. Nations have little experience intervening in such socio-technical systems.”

According to Professor and Senior Sustainability Scientist Martin Pasqualetti, these are precisely the challenges students in the revolutionary new program will address.

“We’re going to be a leading educational institution on this,” he says.

The backbone of agriculture production and food security in developing countries is smallholder farmers. Those smallholder farmers have small pieces of land and mainly rely on family labor. But in the last decades, those farmers have experienced increasing challenges such as extreme weather events, increasing dependency on fertilizers and pesticides, and increasing dependency of global markets that define the prices for their products. How will those farmers cope with those challenges?

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA – co-authored by School of Sustainability Professors Marty Anderies and Marco Janssen – shows that those external challenges affect the way those communities make investment decisions on their infrastructure. The international research team performed experiments in 118 small scale rice-producing communities in China, Colombia, Nepal and Thailand. The results show that the more a community is integrated with the market economy the less those communities invest in the community’s public good during the experiment. Furthermore, when communities face collective risks, this effect is amplified.

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Particularly with the growing influx of refugees from neighboring countries, communities across the Middle East are facing severe water shortages. Some communities rely on limited and variable water supplies without the infrastructure to adequately treat and transport the water. Energy sources needed to purify water can be inaccessible, expensive or unreliable.

That's why an ASU-led global consortium will implement a two-year, $1.95 million USAID project to develop and test affordable, portable clean water solutions in the region. The project – established in accordance with community-specific legal and cultural frameworks – will be implemented in 18 communities throughout Jordan and Lebanon, benefiting more than 36,000 people.

Leading the consortium are Richard Rushforth – a project manager for the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives – and sustainability scientists Rhett Larson and Nathan Johnson. Together, their expertise spans sustainability, law and engineering, and they are joined in the consortium by public and private partners from across the globe.

ASU School of Sustainability instructor Brigitte Bavousett spoke with ASU Now to break down the basics of sustainable consumption and lend insight into lesser-known tactics for reducing our carbon footprints.

Bavousett recommends avoiding products with palm oil, as well as seeking out clothing made with sustainable materials or purchasing clothing at thrift stores. She also insists on avoiding plastic when making purchases. This includes rejecting plastic packaging and bringing reusable bags or requesting paper at check-out.

Bavousett expresses that although sustainable alternatives receive criticism for being more expensive, their benefits far outweigh their financial costs.

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The annual Transportation Research Board meeting in January 2017 featured ASU professors who discussed the future of transit in a changing world.

The presentations reflected insights from across the university, including from the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. ASU experts focused on advances in transportation sectors such as drone delivery, housing and biking, as well as taxis and ride hailing.

School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning Director and Senior Sustainability Scientist Trisalyn Nelson expressed the necessity for improving our current transportation systems.

"There’s an increasing tension between how we move through a city and our health and well-being and happiness," she says. "If we want healthy populations that are connecting to communities and moving through them in a smart way, this kind of research is really important."

Senior Sustainability Scientist Matei Georgescu uses a lot of data in his research, studying how a changing landscape can affect local climate and resources. He achieves this by running simulations that make long-term projections with the goal of finding a more sustainable future. That's a lot of work.

Thankfully, through an innovative solution from ASU, Georgescu was paired with a gifted community member who could help. 16-year-old Vishesh Gupta was looking for a way to apply his knack for computer programming, and now assists Georgescu by using supercomputers to crunch data and make sense of disparate measurements.

The projects the pair are working on include the Urban Water Innovation Network, as well as a partnership with Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan that focuses on improving emergency preparedness during extreme-heat events.

In his January 2017 lecture "How Much Water Does Arizona Need?," author and journalist John Fleck drew from over two decades of reporting on western water issues to offer a surprising perspective on challenges unique to the region.

Fleck, who serves as director of the water resources program at the University of New Mexico, explained how cooperation and innovation have enabled the Southwest to grow and prosper in the face of diminished water supplies – not conflict, as some believe. That rich communities take water from poor communities was another notion Fleck labeled as a myth, saying that ideas like these make it difficult to establish collaborative relationships.

The lecture, co-sponsored by Decision Center for a Desert City, was part of an ongoing ASU conversation the examines water from a range of disciplines – from science and conservation to law and policy.

After working on issues of environmental responsibility as Girl Scout leader, Jessica Ohrt was inspired to pursue a bachelor’s degree in sustainability through ASU Online.

“I looked for a local college that had a sustainability program that would be comparable, and there wasn’t one. It was such a distinctive program and set of classes that I decided to stick with it,” said Ohrt, who lives in Marietta, Georgia.

The School of Sustainability's programs are among more than 60 undergraduate online degrees offered by ASU. In fact, the university's online bachelor’s degree program has been ranked fourth in the nation out of more than 1,300 reviewed by U.S. News & World Report, who scored based on student engagement, faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, and peer reputation.

Ohrt likes that the courses keep students on track and are self-directed, so she could work in between caring for her granddaughter. She expects to graduate in December 2017 and is considering working for a government agency or a nonprofit focusing on environmental justice.

Learn more about Ohrt's experience studying sustainability through ASU Online.

Seeking sustainable solutions to unfettered development, a team of ASU researchers has been working to create an innovative, physics-based model that can predict how gardens and farms can most efficiently be integrated into cities.

Natural vs. artificial – which Christmas tree is better for the environment, and can consumer choice really make a difference?

Carole Mars, senior research lead at The Sustainability Consortium at ASU, delves into what makes a Christmas tree "green," and whether other considerations come into play for consumers decorating for the holidays.

So, which tree is really more environmentally-friendly?

It depends on how consumers use it. Mars explains that there are several options for environmentally-conscious shoppers seeking to lower their environmental footprint. Locally-sourced natural trees that are composted or recycled will have a ‘break-even point’ of approximately four years, after which their environmental impact will be mitigated. On the other hand, artificial trees must be used for at least eight years to have a lower environmental impact than their natural counterparts, but can easily be re-used and re-purposed year after year.

Thus, it is crucial for holiday consumers to plan ahead when selecting their Christmas trees to find the perfect  compromise between tradition and conservation.

The rapid melting of Arctic ice is among the most dramatic effects of climate change. This is because the thawing of permafrost is likely to drive temperatures even higher throughout our planet and cause a number of cascading effects.

Recognizing that human habits are unlikely to change enough for this melting trend to be reversed, Steve Desch – a School of Earth and Space Exploration professor – decided to explore other options.

Desch formed an interdisciplinary research team, including sustainability scientist Hilairy Hartnett. The team created an innovative ASU class called "Geodesigning the Arctic" that focused on one solution in particular: using a windmill pump, buoy and hose to artificially increase the thickness of Arctic ice.

The next steps for the team are working with colleagues internationally to promote the idea of Arctic ice management and applying these ideas to saving – and perhaps creating – more Arctic ice.

With giraffe populations diminishing 40 percent over the last 30 years, and numerous other species facing grave population declines, humans must re-evaluate and adapt our behavior to safeguard the planet's biodiversity.

In a recent interview with ASU Now, Senior Sustainability Scientist Leah Gerber indicates that humans will not only have to act swiftly to halt threatened species' declines, but will also have to choose which species to preserve. She adds that how we make those decisions – whether we base them on charisma, cost-effectiveness or ecosystem significance – is up to us.

Gerber, who is also the founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes, is working to find ways to address these biodiversity challenges at ASU.

By leading the World Meteorological Organization’s confirmation group and curating the events it substantiates at ASU, sustainability scientist Randy Cerveny helps the Geneva-based United Nations agency keep track of the world’s weather, climate and water.

Cerveny, who lists a 2.25-pound hail stone that fell in Bangladesh among the oddities in the archives he maintains, says it can take anywhere from a few months to a few years to verify an extreme event and that a lot can be learned from these records. In a December 2016 interview with ASU Now, Cerveny explains that these records not only help us prepare for these events but help us understand how our climate is changing over time, as well.

He stresses that these changes in climate guarantee that we will see more records fall in the future.

In a December 2016 interview with ASU Now, School of Sustainability student Jason Tibbetts shares that he originally planned to attend an out-of-state school. He ultimately opted for Mesa Community College due to its reputation and proximity, and learned about the School of Sustainability there.

"I have always had a passion for the environment and self-sufficiency, but I never had a name for it until I heard about the sustainability program at ASU," Tibbetts says.

Tibbetts enrolled in the school's Bachelor of Science program shortly thereafter. In addition to classes in the Sustainable Energy, Materials and Technology track, he is a husband and a father of three, as well as the owner of an edible landscaping business.

As droughts and fresh water shortages continue to be a challenge for the nation's southwest region, many are seeking more aggressive and effective water conservation solutions.

In a December 2016 interview with ASU Now, Senior Sustainability Scientist John Sabo says that businesses can help lead the charge to conserve water, and to set an example for others to do the same.

Sabo, director of ASU's Future H2O initiative, attended Business H2O – a conference in Las Vegas that explored how industry can reduce water consumption and overall costs through advancements in water technology. He explains that not only the environment, but also companies themselves can benefit from saving water.

According to Sabo, "If the incentives are set up right, a business can sustain supplies of cheaper water into the future by investing in conservation."

Nicole Darnall, a sustainability scholar and professor in the School of Sustainability, has been awarded the Social Science Research Council's 2017-2019 Abe Fellowship for her research on sustainable public procurement.

The fellowship is designed to encourage international multidisciplinary research on policy-related topics of pressing global concern and to support researchers who are willing to become key members of a bilateral and global research network built around such topics. It strives to promote a new level of intellectual cooperation between the Japanese and U.S. academic and professional communities committed to and trained for advancing global understanding and problem solving.

As part of her fellowship, Darnall will extend her sustainable procurement research (with scholars in ASU's Center for Organization Research and Design) to assess the barriers and facilitators of Japanese local governments' green procurement decisions.

As the nation's farming population continues to age and retire without replacements, our shortage of farmers is more grave than ever. Meanwhile, thousands of military veterans are returning home seeking meaningful, peaceful employment.

In order to combat both of these issues, filmmaker Dulanie Ellis suggested veterans take over for retiring farmers – an idea explored in her documentary "Ground Operations: Battlefields to Farmfields."

Sydney Lines, coordinator of the Food Systems Transformation Initiative at ASU, hosted the film screening and subsequent panel discussion in downtown Phoenix. In an interview with ASU Now, Lines expresses her enthusiasm for the concept of veterans replacing retiring farmers. She notes not only the special skills veterans have to fill these rolls, but also the beneficial and therapeutic effects farming has on veterans returning home from war.