Sustainability News

Arizona State University is leading the conversation on innovations in public finance through a new report, released by the Smart Cities Council and ASU's Center for Urban Innovation, and an upcoming conference. The report  outlines some of the most promising tools to help cities improve the efficiency of large-scale systems, such as water and transportation, to smaller projects. Its findings will be a focal point of discussion at the upcoming ASU Annual Public Finance Conference, where keynote speaker Georgia Levenson Keohane - a Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute - will explore innovations including novel approaches to financing for catastrophe bonds and the growing use of social impact bonds and pay-for-success in social finance.

An Arizona Republic article describing the Wrigley Lecture presented by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus details the link between alternative fuel development and national security.

"Sustainability for our military forces isn't just a Unites States concern, our allies are just as interested as we are," Mabus said. "Sustainability is a global issue."

A Thought Leader Series Piece

By William McDonough

Note: William McDonough is a globally recognized leader in sustainable development. Trained as an architect, Mr. McDonough’s interests and influence range widely, and he works at all scales. Mr. McDonough has written and lectured extensively on design as the first signal of human intention.

Living in the age of cities

We live in the age of cities, in the midst of the most dramatic transformation of urban life and the urban landscape the world has ever seen. Cities have always been engines of growth, innovation and opportunity, drawing people from afar since the ancient settlements of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus, and the Yellow River gave urban form to “a certain energized crowding” along their alluvial plains.

But urbanization on a global scale has happened in a heartbeat. It took more than 5,000 years of human development for the world’s urban population to approach one billion, in the early 1960s, but in the short half-century since it has more than tripled, reaching 3.5 billion in 2010. By 2030, according to the latest United Nations estimates, five billion people will live in cities, nearly half of them making their lives in homes, schools, workplaces and parks that do not yet exist.

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Bioscience nonprofit AZBio presents "A Leadership Conversation with Nobel Laureate Dr. Leland Hartwell," the chief scientist for the Center for Sustainable Health and a distinguished sustainability scientist with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Dr. Hartwell is interviewed by AZBio CEO Joan Koerber-Walker on topics that impact Arizona's future, such as innovation, health and the key roles played by research and education.

In May, we will visit Haarlemmermeer, the Netherlands, for the spring meeting of the Board of Directors for Sustainability at ASU. We recommend Bill McDonough’s essay, below, as valuable pre-reading for the meeting. We look forward to seeing you May 26-28.

In the April 2014 issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record, Senior Sustainability Scientist and School of Sustainability Professor of Practice George Basile and co-author Scott McNall expound on the necessity for a new sustainability narrative in their second installment on the subject.

In their article, “How to Create a New Narrative for Sustainability That Will Work: And Why It Matters, Part 2,” McNall and Basile draw from social movement theory to illustrate how humans make decisions. They demonstrate that successful movements of the past share several key characteristics, such as a well-defined grievance and a solution that can be achieved. Though the sustainability movement possesses these characteristics, it must do a better job of of aligning its goals with those of its members.

As McNall and Basile conclude, "[The sustainability movement] must be about common values and common needs; it must be framed so that we understand that it is our responsibility to act now! A sustainability narrative will embrace the idea that the problems we face are practical ones, solvable through leadership and innovation at the local as well as the global level."

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In a salute to the community spirit that drives local and global progress, soccer, sunshine and sustainability converged for the first bi-continental, co-ed Earth Day Soccer Classic soccer tournament on April 12. As community soccer teams took to the intramural fields near the Sun Devil Fitness Complex on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, schoolchildren in the African city of Accra, Ghana played on a field lit by solar technology.

An Earth Day Celebration and Expo – with green-themed, family-friendly activities and entertainment – accompanied the soccer tournament, which showcased the One World Futbol. This innovative, nearly indestructible soccer ball never needs a pump and never goes flat – even when punctured. The tournament balls were donated to the Tempe Boys & Girls Club, while tournament proceeds provided soccer clubs in Accra, Ghana with this ultra-sustainable product.

In recognition of the achievements of ASU faculty and staff, ASU President Michael M. Crow presented awards at an April 2 ceremony in the areas of innovation, social embeddedness and sustainability. The President's Award for Sustainability recognizes ASU teams that have demonstrated excellence in fostering the successful development, implementation and promotion of sustainability principles, solutions, programs and services in the teaching, learning, research and business missions of the university.

Of the four teams recognized in the area of sustainability, two featured members of the Wrigley Sustainability Institute. ASU Green Labs, a program implemented by Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S), promotes enhanced awareness of sustainability in university laboratories in an effort to decrease ASU’s overall carbon footprint. The Salt River Waste Diversion Program, a partnership between Salt River Project (SRP) and Sustainability Solutions Services (S3) of the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, seeks to maximize SRP's waste diversion potential while increasing the amount of materials recycled and reducing the environmental impact caused by its landfill.

A national team of researchers, including Arizona State University Senior Sustainability Scientist Kiona Ogle, has discovered that arid lands, among the most expansive ecosystems on the planet, absorb an unexpectedly large amount of carbon otherwise released into the atmosphere. Ogle, an expert with extensive knowledge of both complex datasets and desert ecology, assisted in interpreting the findings.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, comes after a novel 10-year experiment in which researchers exposed plots in the Mojave Desert to elevated carbon-dioxide levels similar to those expected in 2050. The researchers then removed soil and plants down to a meter deep and measured how much carbon was absorbed. These findings give scientists a better handle on the earth’s carbon budget, as well as help to explain the degree to which land-based ecosystems absorb or release carbon dioxide as it increases in the atmosphere.

Representatives from Arizona and Palestine spanned the geographical gap to meet March 24-28 at Arizona State University's Tempe campus for the Renewable Energy Leadership Training Program. Though thousands of miles apart, the two nations face similar energy challenges - including transmission, funding and technology - making this partnership an ideal opportunity to share struggles and successes.

Throughout the course of the Renewable Energy Leadership Training Program, attendees developed roadmaps toward a sustainable and independent energy system.  Additionally, they had the opportunity to tour local facilities like First Solar, the ASU Solar Power Lab, TÜV Rheinland and the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation on ASU's Polytechnic campus. Following the program, they will seek to implement their renewable energy projects in Palestine.

The university plans to expand the program in order to provide continued support for energy transformation in both the United States and developing nations.

School of Sustainability student Kevin Keleher is named Changemaker Entrepreneur of the Year at the 2014 Pitchfork Awards. GreenLight Solutions, the sustainability consulting service Keleher co-founded with four other students, is named the Most Promising Student Organization.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Netra Chhetri is cited in a Christian Science Monitor article summarizing a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the article, Chhetri - who contirbuted to the report's chapter on food security - emphasizes the importance of recognizing the non-climate-related effects of global warming when working toward resilience.

March is Women’s History Month, a tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society. In recognition, activist Vandana Shiva discusses ecofeminism and the role of women in ecology movements.

A Thought Leader Series Piece

By Dr. Vandana Shiva

Note: March is Women’s History Month, a tribute to the generations of women whose commitment to nature and the planet have proved invaluable to society. Dr. Shiva, originally a theoretical physicist, is an environmental activist, author and expert in ecofeminism. She will present a Wrigley Lecture during the Fall 2014 semester.

Over the last four decades, I have served grassroots ecological movements, beginning in the 1970s with the historic Chipko (Hug the Tree) Movement, in my region of Central Himalaya. In every movement I have participated in, it was women who led the actions, and women who sustained actions to protect the earth and the sources of their sustenance and livelihoods.

Women of Chipko were protecting their forests because deforestation and logging was leading to floods and droughts. It was leading to landslides and disasters. It was leading to scarcity of fuel and fodder. It was leading to the disappearance of springs and streams, forcing women to walk longer and farther for water.

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Ron Broglio, a senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability, absolved attendees of their digital sins at the Emerge 2014 festival. As a minister of The Digital Tabernacle, Broglio locked away penitents' devices for several minutes so as to shed light on our digital addictions and offer “a space for contemplation in a world of online distraction, neuromarketing and psychotechnology.” 

ASU’s Emerge 2014 “Carnival of the Future” – a radically creative, playful and challenging approach to the future world we wish to make –  took place in Downtown Phoenix on March 7. In addition to The Digital Tabernacle, Emerge featured cutting-edge performances, flying technology and incisive visions of the future that obliterated the traditional boundaries between engineering, arts, sciences and humanities. To learn more about this performance and view a photo stream of the event, read the full article at Future Tense.

The Polytechnic Campus Sun Devil Fitness Complex, completed in January 2013, has earned gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The complex is the 23rd ASU building to receive gold certification, which is the second highest green building ranking under the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

The project received 17 out of 19 points for optimizing energy performance on its LEED scorecard.  Its ability to create onsite renewable energy through solar panels and a solar pool heating system boosted its score. Additionally, the building was designed to funnel air through a breezeway near the building's core, removing heat and providing shade. This passive cooling technique is a hallmark of the building's design.

The Polytechnic Campus Sun Devil Fitness Complex is the 39th ASU building to be LEED certified.

Nathan Newman, a senior sustainability scientist at Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability, is part of a team recently selected by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to improve supercomputing facilities. Supercomputing facilities are clusters of high-powered computers that enable information gathering, storing and analysis on massive scales and are increasingly used by governments, economies, health care services, power and transportation systems, and national security operations.

Because current technologies would require a great amount of electrical power in order to meet this growing demand, a paradigm shift in operations is needed. Newman’s research team is utilizing the latest superconducting materials to develop a new kind of digital circuit, one that can potentially lead supercomputer systems to require much less energy. His group’s work recently resulted in the development of a computer memory device that could enable supercomputing systems to operate as much as 50 times faster and perform 50 times the number of operations while using 50 times less energy.

Saritha Ramakrishna, a junior in the School of Sustainability, visited Spain and Morocco last summer through the Global Sustainability Studies Program. Ramakrishna was interested in exploring the interaction between these geographically close countries, as well as how it affected their renewable energy development goals.

Not only did Ramakrishna have the opportunity to apply and expound on information presented in class, she discovered the extent to which economic development, modernization and resource management are complex issues. She also learned the importance of cultural adaptability and was inspired to add an economics major to her sustainability degree.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and Arizona State University signed an agreement this week to develop a solar certification program for West Africa. The two institutions teamed up to promote and initiate the implementation of harmonized certification programs for technicians of off-grid, as well as grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems for the region. The program aims to develop workforce capacity for the deployment of solar PV systems, a fast-growing form of renewable energy with excellent potential for providing energy security and economic development.

The different levels of technician certification will improve customer confidence in both renewable energy technologies and the technicians who implement them. The program will also support the employability of technicians by providing them with recognized skill sets. In order to ensure these objectives are met, national and regional technical committees will oversee the development of technical competency standards for the solar certification training courses.

Intrigued by the idea of comparing the sustainability policy of two countries, School of Sustainability student Alexis Roeckner traveled to Washington, D.C. and London as part of the Global Sustainability Studies Program last summer. Knowing that sustainability alone is a complex topic, Roeckner soon learned that its intricacies are compounded in the government setting, particularly in the United States.

Over the course of the program, Roeckner gained an in-depth understanding of policy-making in another country and a more realistic expectation of what can be achieved within the confines of government; she realizes that it takes a great deal of determination to pass sustainability-related legislation. With a new-found sense of independence and strengthened resolve, Roeckner's future includes plans to pursue sustainability solutions in our nation's capital.