2016 Sustainability at ASU highlights report LR

2016 highlights

Summing up an entire photo can be a challe you just can’t. That’s covers to capture an One represents prom sustainability solution The other commemor of Sustainability in th Anniversary celebrati Celebrating 10

With a talk by Michael Pollan, Rescued Food Feast and Festival of Sustainability @ ASU, the School of Sustainability’s 10th Anniversary was one to remember. [pg. 41]

Partnerships with Promise

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Outsmarting Climate Change

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Sustainability in the Community

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Class Notes

re year with a single enge. Sometimes, why we created two action-packed 2016. mising partnerships for ns on a global scale. rates the first School he nation’s 10th ion.

Celebrating 10 With a talk by Michael Pollan, Rescued Food Feast and Festival of Sustainability @ ASU, the School of Sustainability’s 10th Anniversary was one to remember. [pg. 41]

Partnerships with Promise

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Outsmarting Climate Change

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Sustainability in the Community

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Class Notes

It was clear 10 years ago – and it’s even clearer now – that it’s people who cause the most daunting sustainability challenges we face.

Thus, it’s people – with the right knowledge, tools and experiences – who can change the current planetary trajectory to a more hopeful, more positive one.

—Julie Ann Wrigley

sustainability @ asu MANAGING DIRECTOR

Meredith Simpson EDITOR

Christine Rose Weir

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Can universities save the planet?

50 Alumni Q&As 54 Class Notes

DESIGNER

Travis Buckner CONTRIBUTORS

Solutions

Hailey Campbell, Alexandra Evans, Kurt Krause and Michelle Schwartz

6 Sustainability leaders strategize a world of good

PHOTOGR APHERS

8 Guiding the conservation conversation

Andy DeLisle, Deanna Dent, Robin Kiyutelluk, Charlie Leight, Anya Magnuson, Tim Trumble, Pete Zrioka

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A brighter future built on shared goals

25 The transition from coal to solar in Kosovo ASU Wrigley Institute Directorate

30 Outsmarting climate change

Gary Dirks

Engagement

E XECUTIVE DIRECTOR

20 How universities help farmers survive climate change

DIRECTOR

Rob Melnick DEAN

Christopher Boone

32 We’ve got climate change all wrong 35 Scientists from the next generation provide hope 36 Where humanities and art meet environment

School of Sustainability Alumni Chapter Leadership 2016-17

38 Embedding sustainability in the community

PRESIDENT

Education

Auriane Koster, PhD 2013 PA S T PR E S I D E NT

Leah Sunna, BA 2012 P R E S I D E N T- E L E C T

John Martinson, EMSL 2016 S E C R E TA R Y

Clayton Beyer, BS 2015 D I R E C T O R S - AT- L A R G E

Karen Kao, MSUS 2013 Amy Garinger, MS 2013

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Circular economy training comes to Lagos

29 After Paris, the first steps 41

Cover Story Growing leaders in sustainability

44 Bringing sustainability education to educators 49 A look at sustainability enrollment at ASU

Research School of Sustainability Arizona State University PO Box 875502 Tempe, AZ 85287-5502 All correspondence, changes of address and other submissions can be addressed to sosalumni@asu.edu.

Produced by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. ©2017

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An interdisciplinary approach to society’s challenges

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Going to court for the human right to water

23

Innovations for better agriculture

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A super-fueled future

34 Enhancing the livability of cities

Browse this publication online sustainability.asu.edu/magazine

Can universities save the planet?

By Rob Melnick, Gary Dirks and Christopher Boone

This opinion piece originally appeared in The Huffington Post

Scientific evidence makes it clear that challenges to the sustainability of the planet are jeopardizing our way of life. Global temperatures are increasing, sea levels are rising, more than a billion people live in extreme poverty and both people and places are experiencing serious water shortages.

These planetary challenges, and others like them, are solemn threats to human well-being. Their rate of ascendancy has steadily increased. By comparison, practical solutions that address these problems are being implemented slowly.

This situation has created a dangerous gap between sustainability challenges and their potential solutions.

We urgently need more and better solutions. The year 2015 was the hottest on record. The Gini index, a measure of income disparity, has been increasing. And, a global food production/distribution crisis is predicted by the year 2050. We simply cannot afford – economically or morally – to let the gap between mega-problems and their solutions spread beyond the pale.

Gary Dirks Director, ASU Wrigley Institute

Rob Melnick Executive Director, ASU Wrigley Institute and School of Sustainability

Christopher Boone Dean, School of Sustainability 4

Sustainability is not merely a cause célèbre. It’s a basic human value, a placeholder for the future we want. Although definitions of sustainability abound, two that enjoy considerable agreement are “universal, intergenerational human well-being” and “treating the Earth as if we intend to stay.” Both definitions share this moral – future generations have the right to expect sufficient resources to be available so they can live as well as, or better than, their progenitors.

And yet, we’ve let the aforementioned gap between mega-problems and solutions grow wide. One reason is because many sustainability problems get worse incrementally, almost imperceptibly, over long periods (think: sea level rise) instead of suddenly (think: global pandemics). This makes it difficult to perceive the actual degree of threat that sustainability challenges can pose to people and planet.

Here’s where universities come in. Worldwide, universities are uniquely qualified to take on these gaps. They have the right résumé for the job: expertise in economics, engineering, business, law, social sciences and humanities; a universally shared goal of helping people learn how to thrive; a mission that includes “the public good.”

However, universities typically neither focus on problem solving, nor reward what is described in academia as “applied research.” Instead, their tradition is knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination. What’s more, while universities can be brilliant sources of teaching and discovery, they generally fall short when it comes to finding ways to generate and scale positive outcomes based on their intellectual

endeavors. A recent article in Elementa put it this way: “It is no longer enough to simply do the science and publish an academic paper. That is a necessary first step, but it moves only halfway toward the goal of guiding the planet toward a future that is sustainable.”

Universities have been carrying the mantle for sustainability science. But sustainability science is too often descriptive rather than prescriptive. Clearly, we need to understand sustainability problems before we can develop solutions to them. But understanding problems alone won’t in-and-of-itself solve them, it won’t close the gap.

The university mission in the 21st Century should explicitly include something akin to “Develop solutions to sustainability problems.” Such a mission, coupled with a genuine effort by universities to transfer potential, practical solutions they develop to agents that can implement them (governments, NGOs, businesses, neighborhood groups) could begin to close troubling gaps.

If universities don’t step up to the challenges of sustainability, they run the risk of being marginalized, of their value being questioned. Many people already decry public support for higher education because of its fast-rising cost. Yet, by contrast, the economic and social costs of global sustainability problems reaching “tipping points” would be overwhelmingly more expensive than public investment in universities that would seek ways to avoid, minimize or solve such problems.

We urge universities to reward their professors, staff and students for working on behalf of sustainability outcomes by teaching problem-solving skills, developing potential solutions to sustainability challenges and transferring solutions sets to implementing agents. Presently, this just isn’t the norm.

The value proposition is simple – in addition to their traditionally important teaching and discovery functions, universities should repay their investors by developing and transferring solutions that address local, national and global sustainability problems, by taking a measure of responsibility for closing the gap between dangerous trajectories and desirable sustainability outcomes.

Can universities save the planet? No, not on their own. But they should accept some responsibility for paving the way. This would help universities remain relevant in the 21st Century.

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Canada

University of Toronto

Ireland

Dublin City University

Germany

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Leuphana University of Lüneburg

United Kingdom

United States

King’s College London

Arizona State University Portland State University

China

Mexico

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Tecnológico de Monterrey

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Sustainability leaders strategize a world of good

By Michelle Schwartz, ASU Wrigley Institute

Founding members of Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes gather in Tempe to find large-scale solutions The energy in the room was powerful.

Twenty men and women from around the world had traveled to Tempe, Arizona, for this moment. Alone, each might be able to change their own small corner of the globe. Together, they might one day change the world.

Eleven universities, one corporation – leaders in sustainability – working together to create sustainable outcomes on a global scale. It was clear from the dialogue over the course of their two days together that this was the goal of every founding member at the first-ever meeting of the Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes.

The challenge When you’re a world leader in sustainability science, you know that the challenges are growing faster than their solutions. From poverty, terrorism and climate change to ocean acidification, food insecurity, water shortages and disease – the world is quickly recognizing how these problems negatively affect human well-being.

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GLOBAL CONSORTIUM FOR SUSTAINABILIT Y OUTCOMES Universities are ideal places to develop and test solutions to these challenges. Often universities can implement solutions on a small scale with local partners. The nascent consortium empowers its members to achieve solutions on a global scale.

The founding meeting in October 2016 began with a welcome from Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow, who described the depth of the challenge and his excitement to join forces with other universities to make sustainability both a value and an outcome.

Crow’s remarks harkened back to his 2002 inaugural address, when he spoke of crossing boundaries – both geographic and

disciplinary – and transforming ASU into a university that “shapes its research initiatives with regard to their social outcomes.”

That charge has motivated the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability since its founding in 2004. It is the reason the university has joined like-minded partners in forming the consortium. ASU is a dues-paying member of the consortium and provides staff and operational support.

Tri-continental partnership takes on global issues

The consortium The Global Consortium for Sustainability Outcomes (GCSO) is a global network that transforms ideas into action. What does success look like? It could be research that leads to a new solution, or an existing solution confirmed as functional or improved based on testing. It could be that a proven solution is implemented in a different location, industry sector or social context.

Equally important, success includes expanding capacity – whether enabling organizations and institutions to implement sustainability solutions or teaching students the skills they need to do so. It also includes submitting successful proposals for funding from other sources.

By joining together to form the consortium, members increase their global connections with partners who share a common desire to make sustainable change at a global scale. They increase their eligibility for funding from agencies around the world. They expand their pool of knowledge and skills.

Each member pays annual dues to the nonprofit, member-governed organization; 100 percent of membership dues are used to support member activities.

The sentiment of many universities in the room was that they did not join the consortium to compete against other consortium members for funding.

Rather, they joined because they expected to get their investment back many times over – not only financially, but also through the very real benefits of collaboration, international connectivity and the catalytic effect that contributes to sustainability impact.

The consortium is a new way of doing things, said Rob Melnick, executive director of the ASU Wrigley Institute. “No other university network fully focuses on sustainability outcomes, as GCSO was founded to do,” Melnick said. “This is not business as usual.”

In February 2016, Arizona State University and two other major research institutions formally launched the PLuS Alliance, a new tri-continental partnership to help find research-led solutions to global challenges and expand access to world-class learning.

ASU, King’s College London and the University of New South Wales in Australia are combining cutting-edge research capabilities, faculty expertise and student experience to address global issues related to sustainability, health, social justice, and technology and innovation. The research will be supported with a suite of related online learning programs.

“There are two essential, core things that need to be advanced at the largest scale possible, with the deepest impact possible,” said ASU President Michael Crow. “And those are educational attainment and sustainable outcomes. And those two things together sit at the core of this alliance.”

For the second year in a row, the annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report name Arizona State the most innovative university in the nation.

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Guiding the conservation conversation A promise of better conservation outcomes

The forefront of biodiversity policy

Furthering ASU’s commitment to translating knowledge into action, its Center for Biodiversity Outcomes joined three powerful international partnerships over the summer of 2016.

As biodiversity is depleted, ASU oceanographer and sustainability scientist Leah Gerber guides a United Nations panel that helps policymakers navigate scientific literature on the topic.

The center’s new partners include names you might recognize: the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List and Conservation International.

Gerber – who directs the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes – was named coordinating lead author of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, a panel of scientists who review the massive body of scientific literature around biodiversity and ecosystem services.

These partnerships respectively seek to promote sustainable development through the global business community, devise strategies for species conservation and biodiversity decision making, and expand conservation science and training to the next generation of conservation leaders – aims that will put ASU’s wealth of sustainability research and expertise to good use.

“The time has arrived. The world needs interventions, globally and at scale,” explained Gary Dirks, director of ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. “To have any kind of impact, you’ve got to be able to reach tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people when you’re talking about doing something for sustainability. There’s no organization on the planet that can do that on their own.”

The panel organizes the combined knowledge into a report that is both relevant and accessible to those who make decisions that impact plant and animal life.

“Biodiversity is being depleted at unprecedented rates, reducing our stocks of natural capital and the ecosystem services provided by nature,” says Gerber. “Every day, governments and other actors around the world are making decisions that affect the biosphere with profound implications for human well-being. All U.N. Sustainable Development Goals depend on biodiversity.”

The first authors’ meeting took place in Bonn, Germany, in August 2016.

Conservation in the classroom To address the shortage of plant experts who can conduct research that informs important biodiversity conservation efforts, ASU’s School of Life Sciences launched a new master’s degree program in plant biology and conservation in partnership with the Desert Botanical Garden.

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The Nature@ASU Club, launched

by ASU students in fall 2016, serves as an extensive resource dedicated to enhancing the experience of future conservation biologists and showing them the range of career options in the field.

In order to give biological sciences students recognition that alerts prospective employers to their expertise in wildlife management, sustainability scientist Heather Bateman worked with colleagues to develop the undergraduate Wildlife Management Certificate.

Building a brighter future on shared goals Increasing academic success among Native Hawaiians One focus of ASU’s Julie Anne Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability is to prepare educators and leaders with a rich understanding of how diverse fields such as humanities, the sciences, design and policy can be integrated to form a more sustainable society.

That’s why leaders from Kamehameha Schools and Arizona State University signed a Memorandum of Understanding on April 11, 2016 – to cooperate and advance education and sustainability.

“This MOU signifies a call to action for both of our organizations.

Partnerships such as this also demonstrate our commitment to foster local and global servant leadership and cultural engagement among Native Hawaiians and all learners in Hawai’i,” said KS Chief Executive Officer Jack Wong. “We acknowledge that we cannot do this alone, but instead we need to work together with those who share the same goals and whose priorities align with ours, with Hawai’i’s.”

The partnership with ASU is another step toward KS’ strategic goal of contributing to communities’ collective efforts to kōkua educational systems throughout Hawai’i.

“No future can be sustainable if it does not respect and draw from the culture and traditions of the people who will live it. ASU has much to learn from Kamehameha Schools and the Hawaiian people, and we have a lot to offer in return,” said Gary Dirks, Director of ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

Under the MOU, both organizations agree to encourage and promote cooperation in key areas within a portfolio of initiatives.

Such areas include research and innovation, long distance learning, philanthropic funding and advancement, student enrollment, persistence and completion. Areas of academic priority include education, sustainability fields and STEM. One early example of the three-year pilot program will allow KS and ASU to leverage the resources of both educational

institutions – ‘āina and innovation – to train Hawai’i’s teachers to use land-based teaching solutions for sustainability within their indoor and outdoor classrooms.

Training is provided through a blend of in-person and online instruction. The first phase of the collaborative effort will include a select group of teachers across the state’s educational grid, from charter schools and Hawaiian language immersion to the Department of Education and Kamehameha’s three campuses.

“Arizona State University and Kamehameha Schools share a mission to improve the communities around us through education,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “This partnership creates pathways for our students to sustain and enrich society – at a local level and far beyond.”

A sustainable approach to cultural appreciation Improving education systems for Native Hawaiian learners by cultivating vital community partnerships is the mission of Kamehameha Schools. That’s why the organization teamed up with Arizona State University to make it possible for learners worldwide to explore some of Hawai’i’s sacred cultural sites.

Through the partnership, KS developed a virtual huaka‘i (field trip) that offers learners the same cognitive and effective gains as a real-life excursion and enables the organization to share its cultural resources without disturbing sacred sites – a concern for cultural practitioners. ASU experts provided technical assistance by surveying the sites, gathering threedimensional images and creating the online, 360-degree tour.

“Heiau are sacred sites that were the focal point of success for our ali‘i,” explains KS Cultural Resource Specialist Māhealani Pai. “We are redefining heiau for 21st-Century learning as they were ancient universities housing various disciplines that connect us to ‘Ike Hawai’i’” (Hawaiian knowledge).

KS envisions one of the sites, Kahalu‘u Ma Kai, as a hub for innovative Native Hawaiian ‘āina-based STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) education.

Adapted from press releases produced by Kamehameha Schools 9

ASU helps Hawai’i shape its clean energy future Defining a vision for sustainability In June 2015, the State of Hawai’i set a clean energy goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. To meet this goal in 30 years, the Hawai’i Public Utilities Commission is exploring several options, including a merger between two industry leaders in clean and renewable energy: Hawaiian Electric Industries and NextEra Energy.

Kris Mayes – co-director of the Energy Policy Innovation Council, an initiative of ASU LightWorks® – serves as one of the key expert witnesses for the County of Hawai’i. With testimony from expert witnesses and input from stakeholders, the threemember public utilities commission assesses and determines the path toward transforming Hawai’i’s energy future.

Mayes, a former chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission, provides direct testimony during the evidentiary hearings and affirms that the utility should, “In partnership with the communities it serves and other interested stakeholders, define a vision for sustainability for the state of Hawai’i, and by which a new direction for the utilities’ business models is established.”

ASU is broadly contributing expertise to this decision-making process as a third party. The ASU Wrigley Institute, Seidman Economic Policy Group and EPIC are collectively analyzing

the merger docket as it relates to the public utilities commission docket. With significant capabilities to model and optimize electric utility systems, the ASU team is also developing scenario planning to explore the companies’ grid and generation development options.

UH Hilo debuts energy certificate In fall 2016, the University of Hawai’i at Hilo began offering a certificate in energy science. The program was made possible through collaboration with ASU’s School of Sustainability, which shared courses, syllabi and rationale for its own undergraduate certificate in energy and sustainability.

Representatives from the School of Sustainability met with UH Hilo’s Bruce Mathews – interim dean of the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management – and physics professor Philippe Binder when the certificate was in its infancy. Senior Sustainability Scientists Mike Pasqualetti and Jon Kelman helped to fine-tune further details.

“Energy science is a really critical component of our future,” said Mathews. “Our energy is dependent on outside resources, and nutrients used as fertilizers are derived from outside energy, too. We are so dependent on imported fossil fuel, oil and coal. For us to become self-reliant is extremely critical.”

Sustainability shines in the Aloha State Hundreds of community members and leaders gathered in March 2016 for the second biennial Big Ideas on the Big Island conversations to shine a light on the role of culture, values and business in creating a sustainable future. Fostered by Co-Chairs Julie Ann Wrigley, Jacquie Dorrance and Bennett Dorrance, Jr., along with now Emeritus member John DeFries, the conference 10

serves as an opportunity for people from all walks of life to work together on new sustainability solutions.

For the first time in its history, the International Union for Conservation of Nature held its World Conservation Congress, the world’s largest conservation event, on U.S. soil – in Hawai’i from Sept. 1-10, 2016.

The WCC – held every four years – provides a forum for members to share information and experiences, debate major sustainable development issues and propose solutions. In addition to helping to secure the bid, the ASU Wrigley Institute sponsored three events at the conference.

ASU brings pioneering circular economy training to rapidly developing countries

By Ivanna Garcia, Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives

Lagos, Nigeria, is an international megacity with an ever-growing population, dwindling resources and widespread environmental impact and has become the poster child for rapid urbanization in the developing world, despite being the center of the fastestgrowing economy in Africa.

By 2050, the population of Lagos is predicted to double to nearly 36 million people, putting Nigeria on track to be the third-largest country in the world with a total population of 440 million, surpassing the U.S. and Russia. This unprecedented growth places an urgency among its residents, businesses and leaders to address its growing development and qualityof-life challenges.

In April 2016, ASU’s Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives hosted a three-day Introduction to Ethical Circular Economy workshop – the first in the world – at Sustainability School Lagos, an institution modeled after the Arizona State University Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

The workshop was co-led by two senior sustainability scientists from the Walton Initiatives’ Global Sustainability Solutions Services, general manager Dan O’Neill and practice lead Rajesh Buch, with Olufemi Olarewaju – ASU Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership graduate, as well as executive director and faculty member of Sustainability School Lagos.

“There is a tremendous amount of potential for a circular economy in rapidly developing countries,” said Buch. “It’s where the larger opportunity arises because it’s where most of the economic development is going to happen.”

A circular economy is an alternative to the traditional linear economy. In a circular economy, there is no such thing as waste; resources are remanufactured, refurbished and recycled to keep components and materials circulating in and contributing to the economy. This concept has been gaining momentum in Europe and the U.S., but has yet to take hold in developing countries.

“The biggest problems facing a rapidly urbanizing developing economy like Nigeria are inherently social in nature and include inequality, youth unemployment, poor public education and health systems, poor sanitation, poor habitation, inadequate water supply and energy inequity,” said Olarewaju, one of the founders of Sustainability School Lagos. “Successful imple-

mentation of circular economy as a sustainable development paradigm for our part of the world must mean that it delivers solutions to these challenges.”

The workshop is a component of a broader course provided

by ASU also called “Introduction to Ethical Circular Economy.”

The 35 participants who attended the workshop in Lagos included Sustainability School Lagos students, city and state officials, and members of the New Nigeria Foundation – a group of Nigerian stakeholders committed to promoting sustainable community development through public-private partnerships. Prior to the workshop, participants reviewed four modules of content, requiring 20 hours of online work to prepare for the solutions-based learning approach of the workshop.

Participants left the workshop with a certificate, a vision for a circular economy in Lagos and ideas for solutions that will be documented in a future published report. During the Lagos Central Business District’s planning summit later this month, the group will be discussing the redevelopment of Lagos’ Central Business District using circular economy and ASU’s recent impact on Downtown Phoenix as models. ”The relevance of a program like this is in being able to apply its principles to address societal challenges,” said Patience Ogwara, workshop participant and programmes manager at New Nigeria Foundation. “The opportunity to do this, using the Lagos context, was personally and professionally enriching.”

Development and delivery of the course was funded by a grant from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. Earlier in 2016, ASU became a Pioneer University of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s prestigious international Circular Economy 100 (CE100) network. The CE100 is composed of premier institutions from across Europe and the U.S. tasked with researching and developing innovations and solutions that encourage a more circular economy.

“Our hope is to deliver this learning experience to as many people as possible throughout the fast-developing world of Africa, Latin America and Asia,” Buch said.

As part of the grant, the next circular economy workshop took place in June 2016 in Phoenix.

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The southwestern frontier of the circular economy

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in procurement According to AASHE’s 2016 Sustainable Campus Index, which recognizes top-performing colleges and universities for sustainability efforts, ASU ranks first in the procurement category.

Dame Ellen MacArthur, a global leader in promoting economic change and the namesake of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, announced Arizona State University as a Pioneer University of the foundation’s prestigious international Circular Economy 100 (CE100) network. ASU joins with the City of Phoenix to be the first city-university partners representing a major metropolitan area with a focus on advancing solutions that drive the circular economy.

Membership to the CE100 is by invitation only, and ASU became the sixth higher-education institution to gain membership. It joined a group of premier institutions from across Europe and the U.S. to research and develop innovations and solutions that encourage a more circular economy. The City of Phoenix is the first major U.S. city to be a part of the CE100’s Governments and Cities Programme.

More than

105,000

pounds

of unwanted but usable items were collected by ASU students during the Spring 2016 Ditch the Dumpster campaign.

(from left): Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, ASU School of Sustainability Dean Christopher Boone, Dame Ellen MacArthur, ASU Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives executive director Patricia Reiter, Phoenix councilman Michael Nowakowski, Phoenix Vice Mayor Daniel Valenzuela, ASU Wrigley Institute director Gary Dirks and Phoenix councilwoman Laura Pastor.

Assigning a dollar value to natural capital We know that nature is valuable, but how does this value compare with other assets? Not as lumber or drinking water or a fancy dinner, but as standing forests, healthy aquifers or living organisms – what is the dollar value of natural capital?

To make this calculation, you start with the same economic principles used to value traditional assets, explains economist and School of Sustainability professor Joshua Abbott. Then, you factor in changes in ecosystems and human behavior that influence the appreciation or depreciation of that natural resource. The result is a figure that can be compared on a balance sheet with traditional assets like real estate, factory machinery and infrastructure.

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Abbott – with lead author Eli Fenichel of Yale and colleagues from California State University at Chico, Michigan State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – published these findings in February 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“Without an apples-to-apples valuation approach, the value of natural capital cannot be measured against other assets and expenses,” Abbott says. “Our work can help governments and businesses track the sustainable use of natural resources.”

ASU team uses interdisciplinary approach to examine society’s food, energy, water challenges

By Monique Clement, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering

Here in the desert, water is a big concern. For the average person living in the Phoenix metropolitan area, the prospect of future water shortages makes us think about fixing that dripping faucet, buying high-efficiency washing machines and xeriscaping our green lawns – things we can do as individuals to conserve water.

But to really understand our future as desert dwellers and create the appropriate policies for future generations, it’s necessary to look at how water affects and is affected by other crucial resources we depend on: food and energy.

Five Arizona State University faculty members from a range of disciplines received a five-year, $3-million National Science Foundation award in 2016. As part of the NSF’s Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) program, the team conducts research to build decision-support tools that look at the interdependence of these systems and help develop sustainable policies for the future.

A complex nexus Historically, policies for agriculture, energy and water have been made in isolation of one another. In reality, these systems

are all interconnected. This interplay is called the food-energywater nexus.

For example, Phoenix is the fourth-fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country, and every resident needs water for drinking and other daily uses. Additionally, water is used to irrigate crops, generate energy and cool power plants. When water levels decrease, issues arise not only for consumers, but also in agricultural and energy sectors.

Around the world, as demands on each sector of the nexus continue to grow, the siloed approach to policies involving limited natural resources impedes a sustainable future.

Successful policy in all sectors takes into account the links, synergies and conflicts between them through anticipatory governance, or using data and models to predict how variations will affect our world and how we can proactively plan for the consequences through policy.

“We’re looking at where anything in this system could break and how that propagates to other parts of the system,” said Ross Maciejewski, computer science assistant professor in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. » 13

Evaluating how these systems interact can be difficult, as each individual sector is highly complex. Together, their behavior becomes even more complex to predict.

“As you look further into the future, these problems become significantly more challenging,” said Hessam Sarjoughian, computer science associate professor and co-director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Modeling and Simulation. “Like a hurricane, it’s relatively easy to predict a few hours before one hits a city, but predicting this event three days in advance is very different. Similarly, knowing what the future will be in 10 to 20 years at the nexus of food, energy and water becomes exponentially more complex. Different kinds of interaction amongst food, energy and water parts are crucial to be correctly modeled, simulated and visualized at scale.”

The NSF INFEWS program has assembled interdisciplinary teams to answer the call to this grand challenge. This $50-million program looks to study the interconnections and interdependencies of the food-energy-water nexus, bringing scientific and engineering experts from a wide range of fields together to develop innovative scientific and engineering pathways to produce new knowledge, techniques and a workforce capable of managing them.

to define, analyze and visualize problems within the foodenergy-water nexus.

“The areas are so broad you can’t just be an expert in one discipline,” Maciejewski said. “So we rely on others to bring their expertise.”

Maciejewski is an expert on data visualization, Sarjoughian in heterogeneous modeling methods, Mascaro in hydrology and water resource engineering, White in environmental policy and stakeholder engagement, and Aggarwal in economics and sustainable food systems.

Together they have a more complete understanding of the nexus and how individual sectors interact.

Modelers who are experts on a given domain, such as Mascaro in hydrology and Aggarwal in food systems, collaborate to analyze individual food, energy and water data models as well as their interactions – a difficult task due to the vast differences of how these systems behave and react to changes. With the help of these experts, computer scientists Maciejewski and Sarjoughian create visualization tools that display the model simulation data in a way that is accessible to individuals outside their domain of expertise.

“The ultimate societal objective of our food-energy-water nexus activities is to develop basic knowledge that will transform the planning, management and operation of interrelated food, energy and water systems to achieve long-term sustainability and security,” White said.

This requires White to facilitate additional collaboration with stakeholders in social, economic and political processes who will provide the necessary insight to ensure models are relevant and seen as legitimate by policymakers.

Food, energy and water systems are interconnected and are affected by climate, population, policies and the economy. Policy enacted in one area of this nexus can have unforeseen consequences in another.

Interdisciplinary teams solve wide-ranging problems The team, led by principal investigator Maciejewski, includes co-principal investigators Sarjoughian; Giuseppe Mascaro, assistant professor from the Fulton Schools; Dave White, professor in ASU’s School of Community Resources and Development and director of the ASU Decision Center for a Desert City; and Rimjhim Aggarwal, associate professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability.

Each team member brings his or her own area of expertise 14

By creating a way for stakeholders to understand the feedback between the food-energy-water nexus biophysical systems and related economic systems, policies can avoid significant undesirable and unintended consequences, Aggarwal said.

Building on past collaboration This isn’t the first time members of the team have collaborated.

As part of ASU’s Global Security Initiative, Maciejewski and Mascaro have previously worked together with White to address potential conflicts in Africa due to climate change.

White has also spent more than a decade on social science research in the Phoenix metro area with the Decision Center for a Desert City, and he has worked with Aggarwal on many water, agricultural and environmental sustainability research projects.

Their experiences together set them up for success for the INFEWS project proposal.

When Maciejewski saw the project had a data visualization track, he decided to collaborate with his former partners again to look at the food-energy-water nexus specifically in the Phoenix metropolitan area. They’re looking for potential failures in the local nexus system, and how to show the consequences of those failures to local decision makers.

Along with the university’s focus on interdisciplinary research, ASU is seen as a leader in researching areas affected by climate and water.

In fall 2016, the university hosted United States Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who talked about food security in the face of climate change. He An example that informed the team’s said the Obama administration had focus is the Navajo Generating charged universities with doing Station on the northern edge of more research on climate and water Arizona. Though outside the group’s issues and specific agricultural area of study, changes to the solutions to those problems, and coal-fired plant can send effects that ASU’s School of Sustainability cascading down to the Phoenix is already looking at every aspect of metropolitan area. The plant is the climate change and exploring how to primary source of energy for pumps get different stakeholders – farmers, that deliver Central Arizona Project city planners, water and energy canal water to the region. It’s also one utility managers and citizens – to of the top emitters of greenhouse work jointly on finding solutions. By gases in the nation, and has come providing a better understanding of (from left): Giuseppe Mascaro, Dave White, under scrutiny from the U.S. Environthe nexus and the tools to visualize Hessam Sarjoughian, Rimjhim Aggarwal and Ross Maciejewski. Photo by Pete Zrioka/ASU mental Protection Agency. Farmers in and assess various future scenarios, the Phoenix area are very concerned this project could pave the way for about environmental regulations designed to control emissions meaningful and impactful dialogue among these stakeholders. at the plant as they would likely increase their CAP water The state of Arizona is uniquely positioned to help solve fooddelivery costs. Aggarwal discovered in her previous research energy-water nexus sustainability challenges. The desert that as CAP water becomes more expensive, farmers in the state’s experiences may soon become the reality in more Phoenix region with groundwater rights are likely to switch to places globally as the natural and built worlds grow and change. groundwater pumping, increasing energy demand further and putting already shrinking groundwater resources at greater risk.

“This is a case where an enhanced understanding of the nexus could help us design better strategies and policies for the transition to sustainability,” Aggarwal said.

Arizona solutions to global solutions Maciejewski’s team isn’t the only team out of Arizona to be selected for this NSF project. Led out of Northern Arizona University, a second Arizona team that includes four ASU faculty as project co-principal investigators is taking a data fusion approach to model and map food-energy-water nexus systems.

“It’s unusual [for a single university to be part of] two grants in this project at this level of funding,” Sarjoughian said.

ASU’s emphasis on interdisciplinary teams and research could be the driving factor behind its success in the NSF INFEWS project.

“ASU is well-situated for these opportunities to work on these complex problems because we’ve worked to foster these collaborations and build these teams,” Maciejewski said.

“Phoenix already has problems others are expected to face, so if we can find the solutions here we can apply them elsewhere,” Maciejewski said. “We’ve done a good job of solving a lot of these problems, like population growth and land-use change, so we’re a good example of how to take on sustainability solutions, and a lot of that has been helped by ASU.”

Nurturing a new crop of interdisciplinary experts As the nexus is a relatively recent research domain, the ASU team also faces the challenge of introducing a new generation of engineering students to the new territory.

When searching for graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher to complete their research team, Mascaro noted that students were already working on water or energy or food, but not many worked on a combination of these sectors. They hope to find an innovative group of students to change that.

“We want to make this a five-year interdisciplinary research project for our students to build their doctoral topics on,” Maciejewski said. “We want to graduate world experts on the food-energy-water nexus.” •

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Going to court for the human right to water

By Kelsey Wharton, Knowledge Enterprise Development

ASU economist, sociologist study court cases around the world to find most effective ways to ensure access to clean water Marketplace solutions work for many needs, but not all of them – particularly some of the most basic ones. That’s what Rimjhim Aggarwal found when she considered the question of how to guarantee affordable access to clean water to the people who need it.

Aggarwal, an associate professor in Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, is an economist by training. She was taught that the laws of the marketplace would lead to efficient allocation and ensure that most goods we need would be available.

But she was left with a nagging question: how have the laws of the marketplace fared in terms of providing water for the millions of Indians living in abject poverty in slum communities in her home country? Many of these people 16

do not have regular and affordable access to clean water or basic sanitation. Like brushing away remnants of a used pencil eraser, tidy economic models seemed to sweep poor populations from their evenly drawn curves.

“In fact, markets leave people thirsty,” said LaDawn Haglund, a senior sustainability scholar and associate professor of justice and social inquiry in ASU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “It’s only in the United States where we’re so wedded to the idea of markets as a solution to so many social problems.”

“When we talk about water for basic human physiological needs, the question of price raises not only economic but deeply ethical considerations,” said Aggarwal. “I think we need to ask ourselves: Do we want to live in a society where people don’t have the means to fulfill their basic needs?”

Haglund and Aggarwal do not want to live in such a society.

Together they submitted a proposal to the National Science

Foundation to explore the most effective pathways and mechanisms to translate the human right to water into practice.

One of these mechanisms is the use of courts. They proposed to document the way court systems have been used to advance the right to water in emerging economies with fairly well-developed legal systems, such as Brazil, South Africa and India.

The NSF responded that a comparison across three countries was too ambitious and asked the researchers to scale back the scope. But Haglund and Aggarwal were not deterred.

They had seen numerous struggles of communities desperate for water in these countries – some successful and some unsuccessful – and were convinced that the comparison would be valuable, not only for these countries but also globally.

They persisted in making their case to the NSF and ultimately were awarded $300,000 over three years for the full scope of their original proposal.

Over the past two years, Haglund, Aggarwal, doctoral student Julie Gwiszcz and undergraduate student Nicole Hale have traveled to Delhi, India; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Sao Paulo, Brazil, where issues such as pollution, affordable access to clean water and conflicting demands on water resources pose serious governance challenges.

More than charity The United Nations has established a set of universal human rights to which each person is entitled. These include freedom from slavery, the right to have a family, the right to education and the right to water. Simply by virtue of being born, every baby is issued a theoretical bill of these basic human rights.

For many babies, these rights are effectively tucked into the swaddle and enshrine the bundle through adulthood. But for millions of babies – babies being born this very second – these rights are snapped away, either immediately or unexpectedly at a later date. This includes the right to water, which the United Nations defines as the provision of safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all.

News photos of foreign aid workers distributing bottles of water in slums or building wells in rural villages in developing countries create the impression that providing water is an act of charity. Haglund and Aggarwal say their research was motivated by their frustration with the foreign-aid-driven model of top-down development. We should eschew the notion of charity, they say, and instead frame the provision of basic human necessities as rights.

This perspective offers profound philosophical and practical implications. People receiving charity are dependent on the moral sentiments of others. People with rights, even if they are poor and marginalized, can pursue legal action if a right is not fulfilled. A human right does not mean the government has to provide everything, says Haglund, but it does mean the government needs to create conditions in which people can access basic goods.

A violation of the basic human right to water has a profound impact on health, education and the ability to improve one’s circumstances. And women and children are often disproportionately affected by lack of access to water and sanitation.

Rimjhim Aggarwal (left) and LaDawn Haglund outside a community toilet in a slum in Delhi.

In each city, they meticulously collected information on thousands of court cases related to water governance. They also met with stakeholders – judges, lawyers, government officials, utility managers and citizens – to understand the complex landscape of the right to water.

“We’re not just doing this as an academic exercise,” Aggarwal said. “We are trying to find ways where we can go back to the people we have interviewed and say, ‘This is how we think we can help you.’ ”

In Africa and Asia, many women walk farther than the distance of a weekend 5K every day to collect water for basic survival. Young girls often are not sent to school so that they can walk to collect water. Close to half of all people in developing countries are suffering from health problems caused by poor water and sanitation. Together, unclean water and poor sanitation are the world’s second biggest killers of children.

These problems are not limited to the developing world. People in the U.S. looked on in horror last year when utility companies cut off water indefinitely to thousands in Detroit, Michigan, who were unable to pay their water bills. And residents of Flint, Michigan, learned that their taps had delivered water contaminated with lead, E. coli and carcinogens for months. » 17

Enforcing rights through courts

The case for water

Courts can provide a space for citizens with few means to hold regulators, water companies and municipalities accountable for supplying clean water. Courts are a place where the duty to uphold a right can be enforced. By dissecting court cases and sharing what they find, Haglund and Aggarwal are shining light on the power that courts and human rights language can have in advancing the right to water.

The researchers were also surprised by the volume of court cases. Originally Aggarwal and Haglund expected to find perhaps a few hundred court cases documenting decisions related to water governance. They found thousands.

“We’re looking at how these courts are used to force people to respect, protect or fulfill human rights,” said Haglund.

The final product of the research will be a publicly available database of information. Although the court systems in each country are different, they can still be useful to people in other countries. Haglund and Aggarwal heard many eager requests to know what was happening elsewhere when they conducted interviews. In a sense, the database will serve as a GPS illuminating potential pathways toward water access and sanitation through complex court systems.

Governments tend to get the blame when citizens aren’t being cared for, and in some cases the blame is justified.

But Aggarwal says that one of the enlightening aspects of the research was meeting officials with genuinely good intentions who shared the challenges of working in extremely complicated situations.

For example, in Delhi there are slum communities living in areas of the city that are not zoned for residences, either because they are unsafe or because they are near natural areas that could be damaged by human habitation. Government officials are reluctant to provide infrastructure for water to these areas because it would permanently establish the communities living there. In some cases, environmental-rights groups advocating for protection of fragile ecosystems are at odds with human-rights groups advocating for the right to water.

“This project made us very appreciative of the magnitude of the problem we face,” said Aggarwal.

Cataloging the cases was tedious work, but the result will be a robust database with pragmatic strategies that can be applied in the real world.

“It’s less about us and more about the kind of world we want to live in. It’s destructive to the human spirit to deprive people of the very basics,” said Haglund.

Progress is made by inches but it is there, says Aggarwal.

And there is evidence of governments in India, South Africa and Brazil taking systematic steps toward establishing universal access to water. Being part of a solution is exactly why Aggarwal and Haglund were determined to take on such ambitious research in the first place.

Aggarwal says that ASU actively facilitates the kind of cross-disciplinary research that allows an economist and a sociologist to study court cases happening on the opposite side of the globe.

“Here we stress making real-world impact and thinking about embeddedness, not only in your local community but in your global community, and developing integrated solutions based on multiple perspectives – not just the economic perspective,” said Aggarwal.

When their water was cut off, thousands of Detroit residents gathered in protest at the capitol building. They gripped signs and their voices rang out, proclaiming a value held by Americans, Indians, South Africans, Brazilians and people of every nationality around the world, but denied to many: “Water is a human right.” •

Testing the waters of global perception Experts predict that by 2050, more than half the world’s population will live in water-scarce areas, and about a billion people won’t have enough water to survive.

Enter the field of ethnohydrology, which seeks to understand the shared norms, knowledge and human universals about water. Working with fellow sustainability 18

scientist Alexandra Brewis-Slade, Amber Wutich initiated the Global Ethnohydrology Study – a multi-year, multi-site, interdisciplinary research project aimed at understanding how beliefs around water access evolve in different cultural contexts.

Since 2006, the project has conducted cross-cultural research primarily in four

locations: Bolivia, the U.S. (Phoenix), New Zealand and Fiji. By comparing the experiences of different cultures, Wutich and her colleagues hope to learn which conservation and distribution strategies have worked in the past and which have failed, providing a good sense of how to proceed now.

The tools for successful water management Balancing conservation with commerce

Taking water lessons on the road

ASU is behind a revolutionary tool unveiled at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, held in Paris in December 2015, and now piquing the interest of major corporations.

ASU’s Decision Center for a Desert City was one of only 30 National Science Foundation-funded projects invited to represent the organization at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., in April 2016.

The Green Infrastructure Support Tool was developed

by Senior Sustainability Scientist John Sabo – affiliated faculty in the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes – and helps corporations apply analytics to their water use, simultaneously supporting water conservation, habitat restoration and the bottom line.

Visitors to the DCDC booth learned about water in the West through WaterSim – a simulation tool created by the center to estimate water supply and demand for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It allows users to explore how various factors like regional growth, drought, climate change and water management policies influence water sustainability.

Dow Chemical is considering implementation of the tool at its Texas operations on the Brazos River. Here, there are many places where wetlands can be restored, but only a few that are economically viable and will better meet Dow’s bottom line.

Finding where it would be best to invest in green infrastructure is what the tool does.

The festival – the largest and only national science festival, as well as the largest STEM education event in the United States – saw an estimated 350,000 visitors over the course of two days.

The development of the tool was made possible through a partnership with Earth Genome – a nonprofit with the goal to enable key institutions to account for natural capital in decision making.

Later in 2016, DCDC partnered with “Museum on Main Street,” an idea conceived of by the Smithsonian Institution to bring exciting exhibits to small towns throughout the United States.

Among these exhibits was WaterSim America, adapted so that users could respond to challenges in their state by selecting policies that steady its respective water system.

According to School of Sustainability Dean Christopher Boone, “WaterSim America is a great platform to educate the broader public on what they can do as individuals and groups to manage water in ways that lead to positive change.”

Weighing in on water “We have more interest, more data, and more planning tools than we’ve ever had.” This was a sentiment expressed

by James Eklund – director of the Colorado Water Conservation Board – at Decision Center for a Desert City’s annual keynote in March 2016. The discussion, titled A Conversation about Solutions for Water

Sustainability in the Colorado River Basin, also included Eklund’s Arizona counterpart Tom Buschatzke – director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

Hosted by Senior Sustainability Scientist Dave White and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton alongside the January 2016 U.S. Conference of

Mayors in Washington, D.C., the Western Mayors Water and Climate Change Summit convened leaders from Phoenix, Mesa, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Aurora and Fort Collins, Colorado, to discuss what actions their cities are taking to address urban water supply and demand issues in an era of changing climate.

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Vilsack: Universities vital to helping farmers survive climate change

By Mary Beth Faller, ASU Now

US secretary of agriculture tells ASU audience that research, partnerships are key Food security is vital to America’s freedom, and protecting farmers from the effects of climate change will require the collaboration of universities, the U.S. secretary of agriculture said.

Vilsack said the Obama administration has charged universities with doing more research on climate and water issues, as well as specific solutions such as grazing patterns and droughtresistant crops.

“Arizona State is working with our ‘climate hub’ in New Mexico, looking at every aspect of climate change and doing assessments” to give technical support to farmers, ranchers and forest landowners, he said.

Tom Vilsack, who has been the nation’s ag chief for the entirety of the Obama administration, spoke at Arizona State University about the impact of climate change on farming and ranching. The “In my lifetime, Fall Forum event was sponsored by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of we’ve seen a 170 Sustainability at ASU. percent increase “In my lifetime, we’ve seen a 170 percent increase in agricultural productivity,” Vilsack said, noting that Americans spend about 10 percent of their paychecks on food, compared with 25 to 50 percent in other countries.

in agricultural productivity.”

“We are a food-secure nation,” Vilsack said. “China can’t say that. Russia can’t say that.

“That’s why it’s important to talk about the future that will exist with a changing climate.”

Beside drought, other possible effects of climate change could be increases in pests and livestock diseases, more frequent and severe storms, and more fires.

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he ASU Wrigley Institute has several projects T that address climate change and agriculture, including the “One Million Tons” project, which is creating data on the use of adaptive multi-paddock grazing for carbon sequestration, water retention, and plant and microbial biodiversity. That project also includes outreach to ranchers and farmers and agricultural policy development.

After his speech, Vilsack moderated a forum on sustainability that focused on the importance of collaboration among governments, corporations, conservationists and universities.

The panel featured Osvaldo Sala, the Foundation Professor and Julie A. Wrigley Chair at ASU, where he contributes to both the School of Life Sciences and the School of Sustainability.

His research has predicted that climate change will result in big variations from year to year, with very dry periods alternating with very wet periods.

Sala said that climate researchers used to think their stakeholders were primarily ranchers, but now they realize their work is important to people who are interested in conservation, recreation, job creation and other issues.

“That creation of knowledge on the ground has transformed American agriculture from subsistence levels to the greatest producer in the world today. To my mind, agriculture is the most important strategic industry we have.

“We hope the universities will provide the knowledge to shift from the emotion-driven confrontations that we’re seeing in the news every day to an evidence-based negotiation,” he said, citing the ongoing conflict over the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota, which is conflicting the interests of Native Americans, conservationists, an oil company and a local community.

“The countries that can feed themselves are free.”

Mark Killian, director of the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said that the knowledge produced at universities has helped keep America free.

“We talk about bringing manufacturing back. We have the capacity to have a plant-based economy. We already have a $360-billion industry of making chemicals and fibers that are plant based.

There’s unlimited possibility to convert an economy that has for too long been dependent on fossil fuels.”

Killian said that universities have created improvements in everything from water-saving irrigation nozzles to crop genetics.

Vilsack said that young people today have the opportunity to redefine the American economy.

Killian said that the challenge for today’s university students is to avoid partisanship and to work together.

Mark Killian addresses the panel. Killian is a former member of the Board of Regents and a state legislator.

“We have people who go to bed hungry. How can anyone in America today go to bed hungry? Feeding people, from a moral standpoint, is one of the most important things we do in the world.

“If you focus on that, solutions will come together quickly.”

Dinner 2040 provides a taste of the future Hosted by local, organic Maya’s Farm in November 2016, Dinner 2040 was a meal served to spark conversation.

The charrette-style gathering – planned by sustainability scientist Joan McGregor with support from ASU’s Food Systems Transformation Initiative – put people from diverse backgrounds around the same table. While enjoying equitablyproduced dishes, diners like academics, chefs, activists, legislators and others discussed key values related to food and how they can be better implemented going forward.

“Communities need to get involved in this to make a difference,” McGregor said, “but I think some people in the local food movement are already on it, encouraging people to buy locally and using locally sourced foods. Just getting people thinking about it can lead to more positive action.”

McGregor hopes that Dinner 2040 events will serve as a template for “future of food” workshops and dinners in communities across North America. She explores foodrelated values in detail in an October 2016 Thought Leader Series contribution titled “Putting Values on Our Plates.”

Guests write Post-It notes with their ideas about the future of Maricopa County's food system. The Dinner 2040 event employed a charrette-style gathering, in which various stakeholders join their knowledge to tackle an issue.

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Best-selling author takes a look at your next meal For an industry based on satiation, there is much to be desired when it comes to the modern American food system.

This was the general theme of author and journalist Michael Pollan’s Wrigley Lecture, titled “Your Next Meal: Where Nature and Culture Intersect.” The food activist – named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine – presented it as part of the School of Sustainability's 10th anniversary celebration in April 2016.

“As long as the sun still shines, there is that free lunch,” he explained. “And as long as we organize our agriculture in such a way as to capture it, there is an incredible amount of hope that we can offer.”

Pollan concluded his Wrigley Lecture by commending the ASU Wrigley Institute for its focus on solutions to the problems of food system sustainability.

Pulling from 15 years of research, Pollan detailed the shifts in agriculture since the industrial revolution, including the move from sunlight to oil. He explained how many factories that supported the WWII effort – like those that manufactured bombs – went into the food business post-war, making products like pesticides instead.

These shifts have had a number of unintended negative consequences, Pollan explained. They include crops that are so laden with chemicals that they are not fit for direct human consumption, a poor quality of life for farmed animals, and a significant toll on the overall health of Americans.

“It’s a simple question,” he said. “Where does your food come from? Fifty years ago it was a simple answer.”

And though the audience – even those working in sustainability – may have been inclined to conclude that humanity’s needs cannot be met without nature being diminished, Pollan was optimistic.

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Food activist Michael Pollan signs copies of his books and chats with fans at the celebration of the school's 10th anniversary.

Michael Pollan writes about the intersection of food and culture: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in the built environment. He is the author of five New York Times bestsellers: “The Omnivore's Dilemma,” “The Botany of Desire,” “In Defense of Food,” “Food Rules” and, mostly recently, “Cooked.”

Innovations for better agriculture Working to feed the world Roberto Gaxiola, a sustainability scientist and associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, has found a way of modifying crops that causes them to use less water and fertilizer while growing more food.

Gaxiola describes the work as enhancing the way a certain gene in the plant operates. This modification builds the plant’s tolerance to various outside stresses, such as drought or climate change – important factors in feeding the more than seven billion people on the planet.

“We can optimize inputs while minimizing environmental impacts. This is advantageous for our environment and for all consumers,” he says.

Fertilizer’s legacy: taking a toll on land and water Feeding the human species takes a tremendous toll on our natural resources, including water, soil and phosphorus – a finite element in fertilizer essential for food production. The phosphorus in farm runoff often leaks into waterways like rivers, lakes and oceans, causing dead zones.

But much of the “lost” phosphorus doesn’t end up in water bodies – large amounts also accumulate in the landscape.

Until now, scientists have not had a good handle on the magnitude of this accumulation.

For the first time, an international group of scientists, including sustainability scientists from Arizona State University, has come up with a way to estimate on a large scale how phosphorus flows through an environment over many decades.

“After we understand how human activity affects the accumulation of phosphorus in the environment, we can then focus our research efforts on reducing its long-term impact, even on

“Food is inseparable from human history, culture and values. It provides significant meaning to people around the world, regardless of nationality. The failure of food systems to recognize these qualities in food contributes to some of the vast inequalities we see today.”

— Joan McGregor, “Putting values on our plates,” Thought Leader Series

figuring out how to recycle it,” said James Elser, a distinguished sustainability fellow and co-author of the study. “This will help secure food and water supplies for future generations.”

Tracing chemicals affecting human, environmental health One-third of all agricultural production depends directly on bee pollination. Alarmed and perplexed by the rapid collapse of honeybee populations, scientists have been searching for the underlying cause.

A multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers headed by sustainability scientist Rolf Halden – director of the Center for Environmental Security at ASU – has isolated a culprit: fipronil.

They pinpointed the chemical, which serves as the active ingredient in many pesticide formulations used in both urban and agricultural settings, using a device that Halden’s team invented known as IS2B. The tool serves as a mobile laboratory for performing precision analysis on sampled water and sediment, and offers improved accuracy of measurement over existing methods along with greater versatility and cost-effectiveness.

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Protecting the land that feeds us Outbreak brings ASU expert to Argentina When a massive locust outbreak struck Argentina in 2016, threatening more than 1.7 million acres of land, Senior Sustainability Scientist Arianne Cease flew to the scene to offer her expertise.

Cease, a professor in the School of Sustainability, has studied locusts around the world. She and her lab manager arrived to swarms more than four miles long and two miles high – the worst Argentina had seen in 60 years.

Cease had previously found that, because some locusts like plants that are low in protein but high in carbohydrates, poor soil quality from overgrazing and a lack of crop rotation and plant nutrients can affect outbreaks. She shared this and other knowledge at a two-day workshop she hosted during her stay, describing to university researchers and government officials how to address locust outbreaks using a systems approach.

With the aim of creating a rapid-response team to address situations like the one in Argentina, Cease is now building a Global Locust Consortium.

Long-term impact of humans on land The Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics Project studied human interaction with the land in the Mediterranean region since 2004 to understand how human and natural forces, like climate, began to interact to create socio-ecological landscapes – like the terraced fields, orchards and pastures found throughout the region today.

Led by Senior Sustainability Scientist Michael Barton, a professor in ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change, the focus of the research was on small-holder farmers or herders, who still make up more than 70 percent of the world’s food producers, and how they transform landscapes over long periods of time.

Among the findings, Barton said, was the idea that there are thresholds that separate success from failure. Farmers and herders can find a balance in working the land that 24

keeps it productive. But as communities grow, they may pass unforeseen thresholds where the land-use practices that once allowed them to thrive begin to destroy the productivity of the land that supports them.

Barton and his colleagues, who come from a variety of scientific disciplines and several institutions, reached their findings by combining computer modeling with field research – an approach called experimental socio-ecology.

Global change and terrestrial plant communities The health of terrestrial plant communities – like forests, woodlands, shrublands and grasslands – is critical to humans.

On top of drawing on them directly for food, feed for animals and other resources, these plant communities play a key role in processing carbon, oxygen, water and nitrogen – thus impacting the earth’s oceans, atmosphere and climate.

Along with several collaborators, Regents’ Professor Janet Franklin conducted a review of recent research dealing with threats to terrestrial plant communities to find commonalities.

To build a thorough picture of current investigations, Franklin – a distinguished sustainability scientist – and her colleagues reviewed over 150 papers, authored by researchers around the world.

Although varied in approach, much of the research reviewed made use of computer modeling to project the future effects of the various elements of global change on ecosystems. In this way, the researchers were able to observe that a warmer world is relatively drier as far as plants are concerned, and that this stress can be more important than the direct effects of higher temperature.

Second, this drought stress can interact with fire regimes, insect outbreaks, and other human-induced landscape changes. Vegetation responses to land use and disturbance can be more immediate than to climate change, and can be long lasting.

Transitioning from coal to solar in Kosovo

By Barbara Trapido-Lurie, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning

Kosovo, one of the world’s youngest countries, relies on two aging coal-fueled power plants to generate electricity for its population of almost 2 million. The plants are inefficient, dirty, dangerous and unreliable. Customers frequently lose power, and critical facilities such as hospitals rely on stand-by generators. Arizona State University professors, however, have begun working to help address these issues.

When ASU’s Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian and East European Studies learned that funding was available to support professional training in Kosovo, the center approached the School of Sustainability to create a program on renewable energy and sustainability.

Professor Stephan Batalden, then-director of the Melikian Center, worked with Ryan Johnson of ASU’s School of Sustainability, electrical engineer Ron Roedel and geographer Martin Pasqualetti to develop a proposal. The proposal to give a two-week seminar on renewable energy and sustainability was accepted by the U.S. Agency for International Development (US AID) in collaboration with World Learning – a nongovernmental organization that sponsors education, sustainable development and exchange programs in more than 60 countries.

Johnson approached Pasqualetti and Roedel because of their expertise in renewable energy and their experience with a

similar program in the Middle East. “However,” Pasqualetti said, “developing a workshop for Kosovo required learning the administrative, political and educational aspects of energy in that country, as well as what other work had been done on alternative energy in the region.”

“A striking aspect of Kosovo is its substantial solar energy resource, yet its complete lack of development of solar power,” he said. “It receives about 80 percent of Arizona’s solar insolation. That’s a higher level of sunlight than Germany, which has extensive solar energy facilities.”

The two professors’ first visit, prior to conducting the workshop, was to the Kosovo Energy Company (KEK), which runs the area’s two coal-fueled power plants. They toured the plants, the adjacent lignite coal strip mines and the massive ash disposal areas nearby. The company’s chairman, Berat Rukiqi, explained that, although lignite coal is plentiful, he thinks Kosovo must reduce its carbon footprint to comply with international standards. He sees solar power as an excellent option that his company can lead.

“We saw a reclaimed strip mine and realized that this type of land would be ideal for siting solar equipment at the scale needed for a utility company,” Roedel said.

Roedel and Pasqualetti presented these insights on Kosovo’s

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High-powered partnerships

solar energy potential to the participants in the seminar that took place in Pristina, Kosovo, from May 30-June 10, 2016.

A neighborly partnership for energy reform ASU was named a participant in a three-year, $26-million grant that will help Mexico – a country in the midst of privatizing and updating its energy industry – explore its energy options and how it can connect with its neighbors. It will help Mexico build infrastructure, perform research and conduct educational activities, preparing the Central American country for its energy future.

The participants were 11 faculty members from the Kosovar Universities of Pristina and Mitrovica, selected with a goal of bringing together diverse areas of expertise. The group included mechanical and electrical engineers, a sociologist, an anthropologist, a physicist and a chemist. Each day’s schedule was split between presentations by Pasqualetti, who focused on the social aspects of transitioning to a new energy source, and Roedel, who focused on the technical aspects of renewable energy. Together, they worked to demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary collaboration, considering energy as largely a Together, they worked to social issue, and the benefits of demonstrate the value substituting renewable energy – especially solar – for dependence of interdisciplinary on coal. collaboration, considering

In June 2016, Leonardo Beltrán Rodríguez, undersecretary for planning and energy transition under Mexico’s Secretary of Energy, met with ASU leaders to formalize a relationship of future collaboration in energy research and education.

Powering Pakistan’s future With an $18-million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development, ASU welcomed the first cohort in a partnership with leading Pakistani engineering universities in January 2016.

The 24 exchange graduate students were part of a project called the U.S.-Pakistan Centers for Advanced Studies in Energy – directed by Senior Sustainability Scientist Sayfe Kiaei.

USPCAS-E aims to address Pakistan’s unique energy needs while unlocking its economic potential through an educated and involved workforce.

The participants were enthused.

One wrote: “The session was useful first of all because it strengthened the importance of interdisciplinary approaches.”

energy as largely a social issue, and the benefits of substituting renewable energy – especially solar – for dependence on coal.

The seminar concluded with the creation of an action plan to create an interdisciplinary undergraduate certificate program in renewable energy and sustainability at the University of Pristina. While this was intended as an exercise, participants stated that the action plan seemed realistic to them, and that they would like to participate if it is developed.

If created, the certificate program could benefit from a partnership with ASU’s Professional Science Master’s program in Solar Energy Engineering and Commercialization. Pasqualetti, who is a member of the program’s faculty, and Roedel, who wrote the original proposal, envision teams of ASU and University of Pristina faculty collaborating on research issues of financing, transitioning from coal to solar, streamlining the permitting process and more.

Pasqualetti and Roedel reached out to First Solar, the world’s largest installer of solar power facilities, and received encouragement from the company’s European managing director. They’re continuing the conversation with First Solar’s leadership at their Tempe headquarters, discussing opportunities for First Solar to work with ASU to develop solar energy in Kosovo and to collaborate with student training and exchanges between ASU and the University of Pristina.

The sponsoring USAID/World Learning leadership has shown support of the workshop as well, suggesting further collaboration to foster renewable energy development in Kosovo.

Both Roedel and Pasqualetti believe that opportunities abound in Kosovo for the solar enterprise, in both the business and academic worlds, and that ASU, in collaboration with First Solar, can help Kosovo build a successful solar future. •

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The renewable frontier Solar debuts and shining reviews Solar panels made with silicon are expensive but more efficient than the cheaper, thin-film solar cells, which are made with cadmium telluride.

An ASU team led by electrical engineering professor Yong-Hang Zhang and assistant professor Zachary Holman – both senior sustainability scientists – succeeded in combining the desirable qualities of each type of panel. By figuring out how to add a little silicon to the thin film cells, they created a solar cell with a voltage of 1.1 volt – an unimaginable feat even one year ago.

Their invention broke an efficiency record for thin film cells and achieved the highest open-circuit voltage ever recorded for that type of cell.

Holman’s work on another project, called PVMirrors, attracted high-profile attention at the ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy) Energy Innovation Summit near Washington, D.C. While showing PVMirrors at an ASU LightWorks® display, he attracted the attention of both former vice president Al Gore and Jim Yong Kim – president of the World Bank.

Holman is also working on a delivery system to coat singlepane windows with a film that would strengthen them and increase their thermal efficiency, part of a $2.19-million grant

to develop energy-conscious technology aimed at lowering energy costs and increasing comfort for homeowners.

The landscape of renewable energy In order to meet the energy demands of an increasingly industrialized world, renewable energy systems will require a lot of hardware. This hardware will inevitably become a part of our landscapes – a reality that doesn’t please everyone.

That’s why a cross-disciplinary team of five scientists – including Senior Sustainability Scientist Mike Pasqualetti – came together to write “The Renewable Energy Landscape: Preserving Scenic Values in our Sustainable Future.” The book seeks to address the tension between conservation efforts and the need to develop sustainable energy alternatives.

The book takes care not to discredit landscape quality concerns, which are typically expressed by the people living near technologies like solar fields and wind farms. Rather, it proposes a responsible compromise; if sustainable energy is a must, then the infrastructure can be built in a manner where its disruptive effect on the landscape is minimized.

Pasqualetti also spearheaded a study that asked why renewable energy adoption was so low among Navajos – a tribe with the greatest renewable energy potential in the U.S. He found that cultural and societal differences are a huge part of the answer, and that the legacy of colonization plays a significant role.

Preventing land-use conflicts over energy projects Arizona is home to world-renowned solar energy potential, but many energy developers are not aware of existing military land uses prior to a project’s development.

To mitigate potential land-use conflicts, the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment awarded $941,469 to ASU’s Energy Policy Innovation Council and the City of

Surprise. This funded the creation of the Arizona Military & Energy Land Use Plan (AME-UP), which will provide best practices for siting of large-scale renewable energy projects near military installations or operations within Arizona.

To develop the plan and accompanying web tool, ASU is working hand-in-hand with stakeholders, policymakers and military installations for the duration

of the 18-month project. The resulting tool will be used by city and community planners, military personnel, renewable energy developers and other stakeholders to identify potential permitting requirements, cultural and natural resource sensitivities, and conflicts between renewable energy development and military facilities.

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Super-fueling the future Promise for clean energy from algae The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded ASU a three-year, $1-million grant to fund the Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Capture and Membrane Delivery project aimed at enabling more large-scale cultivation of microalgae.

Engineer Bruce Rittmann and physicist Klaus Lackner, both ASU sustainability scientists, lead the project.

Microalgae are species of microscopic single-cell organisms, such as spirulina and chlorella, that exist in fresh water and sea environments and can be used to make biofuels and an array of consumer products using only sunlight and CO2.

Beside renewable biofuel production, microalgae biomass is being used for a suite of products, ranging from food supplements to feed mammals and fish, to therapeutics and cosmetics.

“Our goal is to develop systems to make growing microalgae more affordable and sustainable and to produce it on scales large enough to meet growing demands in the United States and globally,” says Rittmann.

A big boost for bioenergy research An ASU effort to engineer cyanobacteria for the production of ethyl laurate is also among six projects throughout the country to be awarded funding by the DOE. Ethyl laurate uses CO2, water and light as the main inputs, and does not waste carbon and energy by limiting the amount

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of biomass produced. It is also easily converted to “drop-in” ready – that is, compatible with existing infrastructure – biofuels or bioproducts.

This is a “one-stop-shop” cyanobacterial platform that generates liquid transportation fuel from CO2 and water with sunlight as the energy input. The project is expected to lead to an economically competitive yield of an immediate biofuel produced directly from CO2 under the influence of sunlight.

A glimpse into the future of algae One of the nation’s top experts on algae, ASU sustainability scientist Milton Sommerfeld, has spent half of a century exploring the possibilities of the plant as a superfood, fuel, fertilizer and more.

Sommerfeld – co-director of the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation at ASU’s Polytechnic campus – explains that there are roughly 75,000 different types of algae, and that certain strains are more optimal for given uses than others.

According to Sommerfeld, the most immediate impact from algae will be in bioremediation – a waste management technique that uses organisms to remove or neutralize pollutants from a contaminated site. He expects commercial algal biofuels further down the line, as production will require scaling the small cultivation operations of the present to an industrial level.

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$113.8 M

#

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sustainability scientists and scholars at the end of 2016

value of external awards received

in utility patents worldwide The National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association ranks ASU 38th among worldwide institutions in utility patents earned.

After Paris, the first steps

By Scott Seckel, ASU Now

ASU-led workshop teaches city officials from around the globe how to inventory sources of greenhouse gas emissions The Paris climate talks in December 2015 were a lot like graduation.

First, elation. Almost 200 countries reaching an agreement!

Finally, victory after the disappointments in Kyoto and Copenhagen! There’s hope!

Then, depression. Reduction targets will be voluntary. Countries aren’t obligated to put their climate action plans into actual action. Is anything really going to get done, by anybody?

Yes. And the first steps are being helped out by Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

In April 2016, more than 20 city officials from around the world attended a training workshop in Washington, D.C., to learn how to inventory sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Once that task is complete, they can knuckle down to the task of eliminating the worst offenders.

Twenty-one city officials attended, from countries including Argentina, India, South Africa, Korea, Bolivia, China and Bangladesh. They had titles including senior engineer, project monitor and secretary of the environment.

All of them were World Bank clients. The World Bank mainly finances Third World infrastructure projects. Bank officials are concerned about the effect of climate change on projects they’ve financed.

Of the more than 180 countries that agreed to the Paris accords, the World Bank works with more than 130 of them.

“In terms of the World Bank, they want to loan money to their clients who are going to mitigate climate impacts,” said Raj Buch, who led the workshop. “If they teach them the right way to do the inventory, they’ll prioritize the right things to fix in their local communities.”

Buch is a practice lead for the Global Sustainability Solutions Services, a consulting group within ASU that provides customized advice and practical solutions to business and

government sectors applying university-based research, knowledge and capabilities.

“The course was to teach them how to do that inventory,” Buch said.

The officials will look at landfills, transportation, mass transit, industry.

“These are the different things that are emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere,” Buch said. “When you do this inventory, you’ll identify all the hotspots for these emissions. ...

If you’re producing a lot of methane gas in a landfill, you’re not going to put the organic material in the landfill. You need to collect that methane, suck it out of the landfill and convert it to energy.”

The World Bank put a priority on starting these inventories after Paris. Bank officials approached the school and asked it to design a curriculum and deliver the class. The bank invited the participants to the workshop in Washington.

After they return home and complete their work, they’ll be able to return to the bank and present their case for a loan to solve the most pressing issues.

Buch earned a doctorate in sustainability at ASU. Part of his job is to apply the theories he learned to the daily life of a business, individual or organization. By analyzing daily functions with a sustainability perspective, Buch and his teams can help organizations envision sustainable futures; teach employees how to communicate sustainability to clients; upgrade facilities with more efficient technologies; or develop sustainable products.

Buch said the course will be produced in an online format so it can go to scale, as well as being cost- and time-effective.

“It will be developed for online delivery so people can do it on their own time and pass the test and become certified,” he said.

Although the workshop happened shortly after the Paris talks, ASU had been preparing for it for longer than that.

“This is something ASU had led with for 10 years, and it’s finally starting to take hold,” Buch said.

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Outsmarting climate change Gaming for reduced emissions School of Sustainability Assistant Professor Datu Buyung Agusdinata is supporting the development of a video game – one that helps everyday people understand how their consumption of food, energy and water can affect everything from the environment to income inequality.

The game represents an effort by multiple institutions and is funded through a $3-million grant from the National Science Foundation. Agusdinata leads the ASU team, which will contribute a better understanding of human decision making in households, as well as of humans’ response to psychological cues and social norms.

The game will reveal the preferences and intentions of users, suggesting what they might do under certain conditions in a realistic environment. Ultimately, it will inform concrete and cost-effective methods – including technology and policy – for promoting sustainable consumption.

Pulling fuels from thin air Fuels are considered dirty when they put new carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which causes pollution and the buildup of environmentally detrimental greenhouse gases. But what if, rather than using fuels that add carbon dioxide, we could create fuels that recycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

Researchers at Arizona State University are exploring the idea of creating fuels that do just that – carbon-neutral liquid fuels.

Think of them as fuels created out of thin air.

The endeavor builds on the advances being made at ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, which is developing a technology that collects carbon dioxide from the atmosphere using an air-capture technique. It literally scrubs carbon dioxide from the air, then captures it so it can be reused at an affordable cost – a carbon dioxide recycling program.

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Peer pressure’s potential A study published in Science and co-authored by Marty Anderies – a professor in the School of Sustainability – indicates that social norms may have a greater effect on individual behavior changes than policy alone.

The authors focused on the effect that perceived social norms have on our actions. In doing so, they discovered a “tipping point” where harmful behaviors may turn into exemplary actions. In other words, the point at which there’s hope.

The next step for researchers was to explore whether policy can help to induce a tipping point. They found that there are, in fact, several ways policy can achieve this.

Making people’s actions visible to their peers is one of them – as in, most of us are more inclined to attend an event if we see that friends are attending. Changing material incentives is another. Both strategies can aid in changing personal behaviors that contribute to climate change.

Adapting to climate change while working to reverse it Efforts to reverse climate change are not fast-acting enough, so we must take practical steps now to blunt disasters, says a March 2016 report called “Adaptation for a High Energy Planet: A Climate Pragmatism Project.”

Co-author Daniel Sarewitz – a sustainability scientist and the director of ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes – explains that while working toward a reduction in carbon emissions is important, we must adapt to the increased likelihood of extreme weather events in the meantime. This can be achieved through flexible, forward-thinking infrastructure; contingency plans for evacuation and emergency housing; and improved weather tracking, among others.

“There’s all sorts of aspects to this; it’s not just a technological problem,” Sarewitz says. “What we’d really like to see is policymakers and the media realize that there is a different, more hopeful way to look at the problem, and it points the way towards solutions.”

Bringing climate conversation to the community The power of words A panel featuring New York Times science writer Andy Revkin joined Senior Sustainability Fellow Manjana Milkoreit at a January 2016 event to discuss how the stories we tell affect how we respond to climate change.

Father of climate change awareness speaks at ASU James Hansen, legendary for perceiving the threat of catastrophic climate change during his long career as NASA’s chief climatologist, delivered a Wrigley Lecture in February 2016 detailing the latest climate-change developments.

Climate change, from a gender perspective The USAID Takamol- Gender Program, in collaboration with ASU and the Jordanian Ministry of Environment, conducted the first-ever gender and climate change conference in February 2016. Global Sustainability Solutions Services Practice Lead Rajesh Buch attended to highlight the relevance of climate change and gender to Jordan’s drive for accelerated green growth initiatives.

Pioneers of environmental law teach ASU course Leon G. Billings and Thomas C. Jorling were the two senior staff members who led the Senate environment subcommittee during the 1970s – the so-called “Golden Age” of environmental law. In October 2016, ASU students had the opportunity to earn credit while getting first-hand insight from the two influencers.

in climate leadership Touting the university’s sustainability education and research offerings, Second Nature named ASU the recipient of its Climate Leadership Award.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Kevin Gurney and co-authors on federal data pertaining to the Clean Power Plan: “This policy relies on the achievement of state-level CO2 emission-rate targets.

When examined at the state level, we find that one-third of the states have differences that exceed 10 percent of their assigned reduction amount. Such levels of uncertainty raise concerns about the ability of individual states to accurately quantify emission rates in order to meet the regulatory targets.”

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T H O U G H T

L E A D E R

S E R I E S

As the hub of sustainability at Arizona State University, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability serves not only as an incubator of scalable solutions, but as an aggregator of impactful knowledge.

With the latter in mind, we established the Thought Leader Series – inviting essay contributions from some of sustainability’s most celebrated thinkers and problem-solvers in a variety of disciplines and fields.

We’ve got climate change all wrong

By James Hansen

The commercials are low-key, but omnipresent. Gentle, warm encouragement, the key message implicit: vote for the political candidates on the take from the fossil-fuel industry. “I am an energy voter” commercials are persuasive.

They promise jobs, low prices at the pump, warm homes, and energy independence for our nation.

James Hansen is the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He is credited for perceiving the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, and delivered a Wrigley Lecture on the topic in February 2016. This essay appeared in The Arizona Republic in the same month.

Benefits for all, or so it seems. In reality, benefits flow mainly to a handful of people, the fossil-fuel magnates, who prefer to be anonymous. “I am an energy voter” commercials, in effect, ask us to place our offspring on a sacrificial alter. As we raise the knife, unlike Abraham, we hear no voice telling us to stop, to put down the knife.

Young people do not cry out. Adults are fooled and compliant.

Yet the science is crystal clear. We have a climate and energy crisis, an emergency. Regional climate change is beginning. In the U.S. Southwest, it means increasingly hot summers, stronger droughts, more extreme fires and, when rain occurs, heavier rain and floods.

As climate change grows, the largest economic effect will occur via rising sea levels, as ice sheets begin to collapse by mid-century. More than half of the world’s largest cities could become dysfunctional this century.

Social and economic disruptions from such consequences would be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse could make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.

Halting climate change requires a fossil-fuel phase-out in a few decades, thus emission reductions of several percent per year. Informed politicians understand the situation, but are afraid to inform the public.

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T H O U G H T

L E A D E R

In the U.N. Paris Accords in December 2015, world leaders promised to try to reduce future emissions. These politicians shamelessly clapped each other on the back, pretending they had accomplished something important. However, they had agreed beforehand not to even discuss the only action that could rapidly reduce global emissions.

It is not rocket science. As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest fuel, they will be burned. Fossil fuels only seem cheap, because the price does not include their full cost to society. The public, not fossil-fuel companies, bears the human-health costs of pollution.

The growing costs of climate change are also borne directly by the public or by governments, which also means the public.

Fossil-fuel prices can be made honest by collecting a rising carbon fee from fossil-fuel companies at the domestic sources of oil, gas and coal – i.e., the domestic mines or ports of entry. If the money is distributed 100 percent to the public, an equal amount to each legal resident, it is revenue-neutral. Thus, it is not a tax and does not make the government bigger.

A carbon fee makes fossil fuels more expensive, allowing clean energies and energy efficiency to compete. Almost two-thirds of the public, people doing better-than-average in limiting their fossil-fuel use, would receive more in their monthly dividend – transferred electronically to their bank account or debit card – than they would pay in increased prices.

This carbon “fee and dividend” is progressive. Wealthy people, who travel more and have larger houses, have a large carbon footprint.

Given today’s income disparities, this modest change seems beneficial, giving the little guy something to build on if he uses the dividend wisely.

By the time the fee reaches $100 per ton of carbon dioxide, it will add $1 per gallon at the pump, but the annual dividend will be about $1500, thus $4500 for a family of four.

Economic studies show that fee and dividend spurs the economy, creates millions of jobs, and increases gross domestic product.

It modernizes our energy infrastructure, and our manufacturers will have products to sell worldwide.

A rising carbon fee is the only practical way to phase down global emissions. If the U.S. and China agree to a carbon fee, it can become near global. Participating nations would place a border duty on products from non-participating nations and give fee rebates to domestic manufacturers exporting to the latter nations.

Citizens Climate Lobby, which now has 265 chapters in the U.S., and I have proposed fee and dividend to numerous politicians.

Liberals tend to say, “Let’s use the fee for social programs or invest it in solar panels.” Bad idea. Let the market choose among technologies and efficiency. Conservatives say, “Let’s use the fee to reduce taxes,” usually specific taxes rich people abhor.

Tell both parties, “Thank you very much, but we have uses for our money.” If they cannot understand, it will be time for a third party, a centrist party. Let’s call it the American Party.

S E R I E S

Other 2016 Distinguished Thought Leaders The greatest threat of our time and no one wants to talk about it

By Leon Billings & Thomas Jorling eon G. Billings, Former L Chief of Staff to Senator and Secretary of State Edmund S. Muskie Thomas C. Jorling, Former Minority Counsel to U.S. Senate Committee on Public Works

Putting values on our plates

By Joan McGregor Senior Sustainability Scientist Professor, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, ASU Fellow, Institute for Humanities Research, ASU

Externalized environments, bodily natures and everyday exposure

By Stacy Alaimo Distinguished Teaching Professor, Department of English, UT Arlington

The advent of the humane economy

By Wayne Pacelle President and CEO, The Humane Society of the United States

Read all essay contributions at: sustainability.asu.edu/thought-leader 33

Enhancing the livability of cities Making every day in the neighborhood a happy one There are three factors that promote happiness where we live, say School of Sustainability Professor Scott Cloutier and his colleague Deirdre Pfeiffer. In a paper published in the Journal of the American Planning Association, they name these factors as access to open and green space, environmental design that promotes social interaction, and places that are safe and secure.

Cloutier and Pfeiffer conceived of the study after observing urban planning focused solely on improved physical health, leaving mental and emotional health by the wayside. Now, the pair suggest strategies planners can use to measure all three “happiness” factors, and evaluate the extent to which their proposals would promote better health overall.

The researchers even developed a tool called the “Sustainability through Happiness Framework” that allows planners to collaborate with neighborhood residents on the creation of places where they’ll be happy to live.

The effects of neighborhood gardens ASU is taking the lead on a collaborative national project – supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Center for Atmospheric Research – to answer questions about urban farming.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Alex Maholov is the project’s lead principal investigator and oversees an interdisciplinary team consisting of computational and climate scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, geoscientists and social scientists. The team will help predict the yields of crops, studying “what if” scenarios to optimize future outcomes.

For example, the team will study what would happen if vacant lands around the Phoenix metropolitan area were converted to farms.

The end product will be a physics-based model utilizing weather and farming data to predict environmental, economic and socio-economic impacts of increased urban agriculture. The

model will be public and accessible to everyone, including scientists, researchers, farmers, city planners and policymakers.

Inclusive improvements to slums For many urban slums, the key to resilience may lie in an integrated development approach called “reblocking.” This is a process by which slum communities physically rearrange themselves to create new streets and public spaces that provide access to every residence and workplace, facilitating the universal introduction of modern services and providing each household with an official address.

“Creating a street network that can facilitate movement within a neighborhood involves much more than simply tearing down structures that are in the way and bulldozing a road,” said José Lobo, a professor in ASU’s School of Sustainability who co-leads the Slums, Neighborhoods and Human Development Cities project with professor Luís Bettencourt at the Santa Fe Institute. “There are social, economic, physical and even cultural considerations that must be integrated into the design of an effective street system.”

What’s in a game A game called “Future Shocks and City Resilience” – created

by Senior Sustainability Scientist Lauren Withycombe Keeler – is helping decision makers take a creative approach to solving complex problems.

The game was played by about 50 people at a November 2016 City of Tempe Resilience Workshop, sponsored by the city, the National League of Cities and ASU’s School of Sustainability. Participants – including top city officials and ASU faculty – learned to think about sustainability in much broader terms than, say, recycling.

“It’s sustainability in terms of, how does a city create an environment that is livable for all different types of residents, and is equitable?” Withycombe Keeler explained. “And does it achieve that in a way that preserves and enhances the natural environment and allows the benefits to be available for future generations?”

Marching toward a better future When it comes to engineering a solution to a problem, Ted Pavlic looks to a specific source for inspiration – nature.

The School of Sustainability professor finds that observing insects like termites and ants is particularly useful as they are impressively effective communicators.

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“As we learn about what allows animals to work in highly effective groups, we can learn about how to make humans work more effectively in groups,” Pavlic says.

Over the next few years, he plans to illuminate how behavioral analysis of

animals can be used in the design of sustainable, resilient automation systems across a wide range of applications. In doing so, Pavlic will help to grow the field of operations research to better address the needs of highperformance, multi-agent robotic systems as well as decentralized algorithms for the sustainable built environment.

Scientists from the next generation provide hope

By Patti Reiter, Director, Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives

This piece originally appeared in GreenBiz As our third annual Sustainability Solutions Festival came to a close, I took a moment to reflect on the energy and momentum I absorbed from all of the incredible people I met – from the parents and children who spent the day at Arizona Science Center “reimagining” ways to live more sustainably, to the accomplished leaders who offered their perspectives at GreenBiz 16.

The various events that took place over the course of the festival’s two weeks were all incredible opportunities to learn about global solutions to the challenges we face. But what I found even more inspiring was meeting the brilliant minds behind those ideas and listening to them to understand what drives them, motivates them and inspires them.

In 2016, I had the chance to speak with Dame Ellen MacArthur, former record-setting solo sailor and now a pioneer of the “circular-economy” movement, as we announced our partnership in her namesake foundation’s international Circular Economy 100 network, a group working together to build the framework for an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design.

I also had the opportunity to hear from NASA’s legendary former chief climatologist Jim Hansen, who some consider to be the father of global climate change awareness, at our on-campus shadow conference, GreenBiz U. While these visionary leaders continue to give me hope for the future, the young people I met lead me to trust that the future of our planet is in the hands of a generation fully capable

Alternate futures and other worlds The 2016 Climate Fiction Short Story Contest challenged writers around the world to create short stories that imagined possible futures for Earth and humanity transformed by climate change. Twelve winners were selected by a diverse panel of expert judges –

of developing the innovation needed to put us on a more sustainable trajectory.

I think, for example, about the winners of the 2015 Walton Sustainability Solutions Award at the world’s largest pre-college science competition – the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). They attended the festival to share their approaches to the social, economic and environmental challenges we face.

These young scientists have created real-world solutions, such as an early Ebola detection device that is faster, cheaper and more practical than the conventional solution; or a method of harvesting electrical energy from rainwater using a piezoelectric crystal tree; or a way to catalyze the natural breakdown of Styrofoam and produce a usable byproduct for fuel, medicine and agricultural applications.

It is so encouraging to see young people like these pushing themselves through research, experimentation and innovation to develop brilliant, viable solutions to issues that resonate with them and that also have positive global implications.

Through their leadership, we can look forward to a future where health and well-being is assured for many generations.

Our hope is that events such as the Sustainability Solutions Festival, GreenBiz U and Intel ISEF will continue to illuminate pathways to new ideas and inspire interest in sustainability research and innovation among this remarkable generation of future leaders. I am truly excited to see what solutions are on the horizon, and what’s to come in the years beyond.

including from ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability – and their stories are collected in the Imagination and Climate Future’s new anthology “Everything Change” with a foreword from sci-fi legend Kim Stanley Robinson.

From the sands of Mars and the oceans of Europa to the Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, one of the most

profound questions we can ask is: “Are we alone?” Ariel Anbar, a distinguished sustainability scientist and President’s Professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and the School of Molecular Sciences, explored the search for life – and the implications for us here at home – in his talk Life on Earth and beyond: Present, past and future in April 2016.

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Humanities, arts and the environment ASU humanists lead lab in DC Distinguished Sustainability Scientist Sally Kitch was among the ASU scholars who conceived of and led “The Humanities Laboratory: Discussions of New Campus Models” in July 2016.

Over the course of three days, conference participants engaged in a range of discussions, from the meaning of sustainability within a humanistic framework to the kinds of research methodologies that can be mobilized to address the wicked problems of the 21st Century.

Conference attendees concluded the event newly committed to fostering innovative and creative approaches to dynamic and collaborative arts and humanities research; to mobilizing humanistic methodologies and theories to address grand social challenges; and to repositioning the arts and humanities as central in addressing questions of sustainability, possibilities for global human well-being, and approaches to conceptualizing the future.

Continuing a legacy of environmental ethics According to Senior Sustainability Scientist Joan McGregor, Aldo Leopold – known as the father of wildlife management – is the person with whom any discussion about sustainability should start.

“He really was, at least in the West, one of the springboards for environmental ethics,” she says.

To explore how modern concepts of sustainability relate to Leopold’s work, ASU hosted its third Extending the Land Ethic Summer Institute in June 2016. The four-week event combined classroom discussions with field trips to places like Arcosanti, Grand Canyon National Park and Homolovi State Park.

Extending the Land Ethic Summer Institute is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 36

in partnership with the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, the Institute for Humanities Research and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU, as well as the College of Arts and Letters at Northern Arizona University.

“You Must Carry Me Now” With support from the ASU Wrigley Institute, artists Bryndis Snæbjörnsdóttir of Iceland and Mark Wilson of England explored the networked effects of conservation initiatives in Arizona through a project called “Trout Fishing in America and Other Stories.”

Over two years, the artists researched programs underway to reintroduce the California Condor and the Humpback Chub into the Grand Canyon. Through humor, wonder and surprise, their installation of photographs, videos and sculpture portrayed the complexity of human-animal interactions and their combined impact on ecologies.

Their subsequent book – “You Must Carry Me Now: The Cultural Life of Endangered Species” – was described by reviewer Wood Roberdeau this way: “The environmental humanities are rightfully engaging with other disciplines and providing necessary challenges for thinking of philosophical, artistic and curatorial practices in more lateral ways.

Snæbjörnsdóttir and Wilson have achieved a remarkable feat with this project, not least because of its ability to map and manifest the urgencies of our contemporary moment. Without narrating the fate of two endangered species, the artists have successfully transmogrified animal-human relations to land and home.”

Images from the project were displayed at Wrigley Hall in September 2016.

2016 Sustainability Events

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with over institute-sponsored events

2016 Distinguished Wrigley Lecturers

35,100

attendees

Expect the unexpected in the age of The Anthropocene How we cope with the accumulating effects of our actions is a major issue for society and requires understanding and political leadership.

James Hansen

Jason McLennan

Former Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

CEO, McLennan Design

Adjunct Professor, Columbia University’s Earth Institute

“A Living Future: How We’ll Live and Work in the Communities of the Future”

“Climate Change and Energy: How Can Justice be Achieved for Young People and Nature?”

This was the sentiment of the Sustainability Series talk given by Sir Crispin Tickell – a member of the Board of Directors of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU – in April 2016.

He began by staging The Anthropocene, which he described as a man-made geological epoch that started when fossil fuels began replacing muscle.

Now, Tickell said, we need to address climate change on an intellectual level, closing the gap between scientific findings and political will. We need to learn to think differently and – above all – to expect the unexpected.

Michael Pollan Best-Selling Author and Sustainable Food Advocate

Wayne Pacelle President and CEO, The Humane Society of the United States

“Your Next Meal: Where Nature and Culture Intersect”

Tickell is a member of the Advisory Council for Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. He is the former director of the Policy Foresight Programme for the University of Oxford and former chancellor of the University of Kent.

“The Humane Economy”

Watch videos of past Wrigley Lectures at: sustainability.asu.edu/wrigley-lecture 37

Embedding sustainability in the community Teaming up for sustainability Before the January 2016 college football national championship was played in Glendale, a unique competition took place in Phoenix.

Representatives from the four college football playoff teams, as well as Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, competed in the Playoff Plant-Off. The teams, some of which were intermingled with representatives and alumni from various colleges, planted trees at Marivue Park in northwest Phoenix. The competition challenged the teams to see which could plant 10 trees the fastest and in the correct way. The winning teams were awarded trophies, and the champion – Michigan State – received an urban forestry grant to plant trees on its campus.

Mending the trails of an iconic mountain To commemorate Earth Day 2016, the ASU Wrigley Institute partnered with the City of Tempe to host a clean-up of “A” Mountain on April 22.

Roughly 150 volunteers from at least seven organizations hit the trails of Tempe’s only preserve, armed with trash pickers and bags. Staff from the Department of Public Works – who had come in on their day off, in some instances – hauled away four dump trucks of debris, with many more small loads taken away in golf carts.

According to Robert Bartelme of the City of Tempe, up to 150 bags of trash were removed. This is a testament to the impressive volunteer turnout, the largest in the event’s seven-year history.

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Recognition Sustainability research takes place across the university every day. ASU’s community of sustainability scientists and scholars includes faculty and researchers from colleges and departments across the university and beyond. We recognize and honor their successes of 2016.

David Abbott, School of Human Evolution and Social Change Professional Archaeologist Award, Arizona Archaeological Society Lifetime Achievement Award, Governor’s Archaeological Advisory Commission Pauline Cheong, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication Zebulon Pearce Distinguished Teaching Award Nicole Darnall, School of Sustainability Abe Fellowship 2017-2019, Social Science Research Council Gary Dirks, School of Sustainability Clean Air Champion Award, U.S. Department of Energy Janet Franklin, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents Petra Fromme, School of Molecular Sciences Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents Mark Henderson, The Polytechnic School President’s Professor, Arizona State University Kiril Hristovski, The Polytechnic School Honored by Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov Edward Kavazanjian, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents

Pitu Mirchandani, School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering Fellow, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Fron Nahzi, Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives Member, Board of Directors, Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance Narayanan Neithalath, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, American Society of Civil Engineers Robert Page Jr., School of Life Sciences Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents Andrew Smith, School of Life Sciences Zebulon Pearce Distinguished Teaching Award Billie Lee Turner II, School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents Paul Westerhoff, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment Regents’ Professor, Arizona Board of Regents Dave White, School of Community Resources and Development Community Solutions Scholar, ASU College of Public Service and Community Solutions

New Centers and Initiatives Future H2O

Announced at a White House Water Summit in March 2016, this five-year ASU initiative – directed by Senior Sustainability Scientist John Sabo – is flipping the global conversation about water by focusing on abundance and how to create it, rather than on scarcity. futureh2o.asu.edu

Global Security Initiative Not only is GSI a hub for critical research that will enhance resilience and enable adaptation to climate risks globally, it also supports U.S. national security interests.

It achieves these things by bringing together researchers from a range of disciplines and key partners from universities, national laboratories, think tanks and government. globalsecurity.asu.edu

Project Cities Project Cities connects higher education with local communities, creating a powerful combination of knowledge and know-how. Through the program – managed by ASU’s Sustainable Cities Network – sustainability faculty and students pair with a city to co-create strategies for a better environmental, economic and social balance in the places we live. projectcities.asu.edu

Sustainable P The Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance strives to collect and recycle phosphorus before it reaches waterways. It aims to make the phosphorus system cyclical by extracting the element from waste and selling it back to fertilizer companies, eliminating the reliance on a finite supply from other countries. phosphorusalliance.org

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ASU is all-in for sustainability

By Christopher Boone, Dean, School of Sustainability

In fall 2016, another 150 students joined the School of Sustainability as majors and graduate students. In total, 2,000 students were enrolled in sustainability programs at ASU.

the next decade, we will continue to engage globally by bringing students to ASU from around the world, in person and virtually, through our excellent online programs.

The School of Sustainability is committed to offering education to students in sustainability no matter what their major. This can range from a single course – such as the ever-popular “Introduction to Sustainability” – to concentrations, certificates, a minor and double majors. We have also developed a very robust executive education and training program, one that links the expertise of our world-class faculty to growing needs for sustainability training in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.

Last year we launched ASU’s first joint degree program with a foreign institution. With the MS in Global Sustainability Science, students earn a degree from ASU and from Leuphana University of Luneburg, Germany. ASU and Leuphana students spend a semester abroad at one other’s universities and work together on sustainability projects.

The reason we can reach all these audiences is because ASU is an “all-in” university when it comes to sustainability. And because ASU is a large, research-intensive organization, we can draw on the talent pool of over 400 Sustainability Scientists and Scholars to tackle almost any sustainability question.

Our students benefit hugely from the sustainability expertise that has been fostered at ASU over the last dozen years. Over

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6

We have also created a global consortium of universities and research institutes focused on sustainability outcomes.

The purpose is to work together to scale solutions to have a global impact.

All of these efforts are centered on our most important mission – educating students to develop practical solutions to the most pressing sustainability challenges. As we welcome future groups of students to ASU, I share their excitement about the years ahead, what we will learn together and how we will build a better future.

in university sustainability Based on its commitment to high environmental standards, Arizona State University is sixth in Sierra Club’s annual “Cool Schools” ranking of roughly 200 colleges and universities.

Growing leaders in sustainability

By Scott Seckel, ASU Now

ASU’s trailblazing School of Sustainability celebrates 10 years of innovation, adaptation and advances It was 2008. Brigitte Bavousett stood in the office of U-Haul International President John Taylor, having just graduated from Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability.

“It was a very lonely graduation,” she says, noting that she was first – and only – in her class.

She was the company’s carbon-sequestration program manager in ’08, when U-Haul was just starting to implement a tree-planting program. The carbon-credit market was hovering in and out of existence and political conversations. At U-Haul, Bavousett researched forestation processes and nonprofit partnership options to help the company create a plan to reduce its carbon footprint.

After reams of research, Bavousett thought, “Let’s just get the trees in the ground and worry about the credit later.”

She stood in the office of a man responsible for 18,000 employees and $4 billion in annual revenue, took a breath and said, “These are my recommendations.”

“Let’s do it,” Taylor replied.

Since then, the partnership between U-Haul and the Conservation Fund and Tree Canada has resulted in more than half-a-million trees being planted, engaging 1.2 million customers. It’s still going strong today.

And that was how the School of Sustainability came out swinging with its first graduate. In April 2016, it celebrated its 10th anniversary as the nation’s first university granting degrees in sustainability as a stand-alone academic discipline.

Now 143 universities teach a sustainability degree, according to Bavousett.

“It’s exciting,” said Bavousett, now senior student recruitment and retention specialist and an instructor in the School of Sustainability. “Arizona was first.”

Training for jobs that don’t exist – yet In 2014-2015, more than 1,500 students were enrolled as sustainability majors and minors across business, engineering, sustainability, humanities and nutrition.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices are a sign it’s an important issue in the corporate world. Launched in 1999,

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the family of indices evaluates the performance of 2,500 companies based on an analysis of economic, environmental and social performance, assessing issues like corporate governance, risk management, branding, climate-change mitigation, supply-chain standards and labor practices.

“We’ve had a lot of really well-paying jobs from Dell and Intel and Goldman Sachs and Nike and Vanguard and Fidelity,” Bavousett said. “When you mention the Fortune 500 companies, they’re hiring our graduates for their sustainability reporting.”

Bavousett likes to tell potential students that the job they’re going to get in 10 years may not exist yet.

Willingness to embrace change is part of why benefactor Julie Ann Wrigley has supported the school with her continued financial and personal investment.

“The only constant in life is change,” Wrigley said. “I would hope that [the School of Sustainability] continues to be willing to embrace change. Ten years from now, I expect to see new issues and totally new technologies.

The goals should continue to be around educating and participating in solving leading-edge, real-world problems.”

“You can have both,” he said. “The issue is finding solutions that everyone can get behind, where no one can say, ‘This is a bad idea.’ We’ve been part of that.”

Not only are graduates creating an impact, but they are directing colleagues and peers towards ASU as a sustainability resource.

“We’re beginning to create a legacy among students and alumni,” Redman said. “That’s very exciting. ... We’re just getting old enough now. You can’t expect it in the first three or four years.”

He pointed to Bavousett’s success with U-Haul as the type of triumph the school is achieving by producing graduates who can recognize opportunities.

“The only constant in life is change,” Wrigley said.

“I would hope that [the School of Sustainability] continues to be willing to embrace change.

Ten years from now, I expect to see new issues and totally new technologies. The goals should continue to be around educating and participating in solving leading-edge, real-world problems.”

Hearing the job you’re going to get doesn’t exist now isn’t altogether reassuring when you’re young and deciding what to do with your life and education. Founding Director Charles Redman said he is proudest of the graduates who took a chance and enrolled in the school 10 years ago.

“It’s exactly because of those early students at all levels who took a chance,” he said. “This isn’t a career that’s a category at job fairs. ... It’s their involvement that has made it work.”

The School of Sustainability’s undergraduate major-to-career match is nearly double the national average. According to a *2015 survey, 48 percent of the school’s employed undergraduate alumni are working in sustainability careers; the national average is 27.3 percent. The rate was even higher for ASU graduate students (89 percent) and doctoral alumni (86 percent).

Creating an impact Before ASU’s School of Sustainability was created, you were either an environmentalist or pro-business. It was an 42

adversarial stance with no middle ground. That has changed, Redman said.

“These were impacts waiting to happen, and they were waiting for an entrepreneurial spirit to make them happen,” he said.

The institution has gained international recognition for its work, said sustainability dean Christopher Boone. It has become a model for sustainability programs around the United States and the world.

“We’ve had an almost constant stream of visitors here to the institute and the school to try to understand how we did what we did,” Boone said. “And I’m very proud of the fact that we’ve inspired so many other programs around the country and around the world. ... We need those global partners of universities and research centers around the world to have an impact on the scale that we think is necessary.”

The transdisciplinary approach draws from every field: biology, engineering, business, geology, law, planning, math and scores more. “We want to try them all,” Redman said. “This is about solutions, not disasters.”

This is an eminently practical school, focusing on practical solutions that succeed in the real world.

“In the beginning when this school opened, I was one of those 28 guinea pig grad students,” Bavousett said. “The school was teaching us all of the doom and gloom. We literally protested, after about a month. We said, ‘OK, we get it, there are horrible things happening. Start showing us the lights at the end of the

tunnels.’ The school responded quickly, and all of our curriculum was very solutions-based. ... That’s the beauty here; the school really responds to student input.”

Making a world of difference

Looking forward

It is with deep gratitude that I acknowledge all who contributed to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and the School of Sustainability in 2016.

Your support has made a world of difference to nearly 2,000 students studying at the nation’s first comprehensive sustainability program. Through the generosity of faculty, staff, alumni and supporters, we are educating a new generation of scholars and practitioners who will lead our world to a more sustainable future.

That solutions focus is one of the school’s features Boone is proudest of.

“What differentiates us, I think, from other institutions is that we have a very strong and firm commitment to solutions-oriented learning and research,” Boone said. “What this means is that in addition to generating knowledge, which is what society expects of us, we want to make sure that knowledge is useful in the near-to-immediate term in order to address very key and urgent sustainability challenges. So we’d like to see knowledge turning into action.”

What’s the school’s goal for the next 10 years?

“Getting more people in the world aware of this,” Bavousett said. “Just promoting awareness.”

Boone wants to see global outreach both through distance and online education, and through international partnerships.

“In the end, sustainability is a global issue,” he said. “We can be looking after things locally with the best of intentions, but we might be undermining the ability of people elsewhere around the world to achieve their own sustainability goals.

Ultimately, the way that this is all going to work is if we can engage with partners across the entire globe. That’s where I’d like to see us in 10 years.” • * T he 2016 survey numbers can be seen on page 55.

This year we convened leaders and stakeholders to discuss the most pressing sustainability challenges, led the sustainability conversation on a global scale, provided scholarship support to first generation graduates, and so much more.

We’re now graduating pioneers of sustainability from across the university; ensuring every student has an internship that broadens their perspective; awarding certificates of expertise in food systems and energy; and creating the expectation that the outcome of all our work is inclusive, intergenerational well-being.

We need allies like you – individuals with the vision, courage and dedication to create a sustainable world. As we expand current programs to a growing number of passionate students and professionals, we are confident your continued support will produce new, practical and sustainable solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges.

Connie Eggert Senior Director of Development ASU Foundation for a New American University sos.asu.edu/invest

“

The concept of the Anthropocene, which stresses the enormity of human

impact on the planet, emphasizes that everything we do is intimately and

thoroughly connected with different networks of environmental risk, harm and injustice. Rather than trying to step back and consider the state of the planet from a transcendent perspective, and rather than taking refuge in technocratic paradigms of sustainability that seem to afford human control

we need to think, feel and act as the very stuff of the world.

over an external nature,

”

— Stacy Alaimo, “Externalized environments, bodily natures and everyday exposure,” Thought Leader Series 43

Bringing sustainability education to educators Princeton teachers get a lesson in sustainability literacy Like in many schools throughout the country, the teachers at Princeton Day had a keen interest in promoting environmentallyconscious behavior at their school.

To help them achieve that end, the Wells Fargo Regional Sustainability Teachers’ Academy – a program executed by the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives – held a workshop in Princeton, New Jersey in December 2016.

“Three teachers form Princeton Day School attended the National Sustainability Teachers’ Academy in the summer of 2016,” says Regional Program Manager Molly Cashion. “They were so excited with what they learned that they helped bring us to New Jersey for a Regional Academy.”

As Cashion explains, the Regional and National Academies work synergistically to bring people from across the nation together to enhance their sustainability skills, as well as to bring sustainability to regions throughout the country to build community engagement.

During the workshop at Princeton Day, attendees learned how the environment is inherently related to our social and economic systems, then developed core sustainability competencies and skills.

Outgoing survey results showed that, overall, participants felt more capable of embedding sustainability in their schools

after attending the workshop. With new knowledge, skills and social support, they will go on to implement sustainability projects that benefit an estimated twelve thousand people or more in their region.

According to Cashion, a new program is now in the works.

Called the Sustainability Bootcamp, it is expected to bring the Regional Academy back to Princeton Day in 2017.

Science centers’ employees spread sustainability Science centers and museums have the potential to help millions of visitors understand the social, environmental and economic impacts of human behavior on creating a sustainable future.

In an effort to equip science center and museum staff with tools and training to engage their visitors in sustainability efforts, the Sustainability in Science Museums program – one of the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives – partnered with the Association of Science-Technology Centers on the Sustainability in Science Museums Fellowship.

In February 2016, 20 fellows from science centers and museums around the world kicked off their yearlong fellowships with an immersive workshop at ASU’s Tempe campus. After receiving sustainability training and professional development from ASU scientists, faculty and staff, they returned to their respective science centers to implement sustainability-related public outreach projects with ongoing support from the Walton Initiatives.

Prospective sustainability leaders offered a financial boost Through funding provided by the Rob and Melani Walton Fund of the Walton Family Foundation, ASU awarded a limited number of scholarships of up to $15,000 to professionals applying to the 2017 cohort of the Executive Master of 44

Sustainability Leadership program.

The online program, offered by ASU’s School of Sustainability and administered through the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, centers on four

specific themes: global context, strategy, communication and leadership. In doing so, it equips professionals from all ranks within an organization with the knowledge and real-world experiences needed to accelerate their careers in sustainability.

Going global: ASU grad students tackle challenges around the world Saurabh Biswas likes to ensure that no good ideas, or sunlight, go to waste.

GDR scholars work to identify and close the research gap while getting applied, practical experience.

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.

GDR projects also empower students to promote the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, such as Affordable and Clean Energy and Sustainable Cities and Communities.

Through ASU’s Global Development Research (GDR) 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.

In 2016, the program sent 17 scholars to eleven host countries.

In their respective locations, scholars collaborated with local organizations to help solve critical challenges.

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

In 2014, ASU was chosen as one of six universities to partner with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Global Development Lab. Through the partnership, the university created the GDR program, which connects graduate students to USAID Research and Innovation Fellowships.

The program, managed and administered by the School of Sustainability, is designed to improve lives around the globe by cultivating international collaboration and use-inspired research.

GDR by the numbers 17 ASU graduate students worked on research and innovation projects in 11 host countries – Colombia, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Philippines, Panama, Dominican Republic and Senegal – through the Global Development Research program in 2016.

Mishara Mitchell, a 2016 GDR scholar, says that her experience in Colombia changed her life.

“I am so thankful to have been a part of this program,” Mitchell says. “I cannot express how much of a passion it has cultivated within me, how much it has opened my eyes to the beautiful connections that are available in this world, and how truly grateful I am for it.”

As for Biswas, he will return to Brazil in 2017 to check in on the progress of Sustainable Rio Claro 2020.

He explains, “This experience has added richness to my understanding of the local context, appreciation of the importance of local partners, and linking seemingly unrelated dimensions in a grand idea of sustainability.”

“It is true that travelling changes you. Your soul expands to accommodate all the change.

You are a different person when you travel, temporarily afloat of everything that ties you down on a day-to-day basis.”

– Snigdha Nautiyal, MS Sustainability Student, Morocco Excursion

GSS by the numbers 83 students from ASU, along with 21 students from Nepal and Hong Kong, studied in a total of 7 countries – China, England, Denmark, France, Morocco, Nepal and South Africa – through the Rob and Melani Walton Global Sustainability Studies Program in 2016.

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Expanding access to sustainability education Part of a long-term partnership aimed at increasing sustainability through education, ASU and Beijing Normal University unveiled a collaborative education program known as the BNU-ASU 3+1+2 Program.

The program allows qualified undergraduate BNU students who complete three years of curriculum to transfer to ASU for their fourth year. Upon receiving their degree from BNU, students have the option to pursue a two-year Master of Science degree at ASU's School of Sustainability.

The partnership also enables ASU faculty to connect with colleagues in Beijing and beyond to strengthen existing collaborations, especially on the governance of natural resources and agricultural policies.

Recognizing that today’s global energy transitions demand leaders who can navigate interwoven technical, societal and environmental challenges, the School of Sustainability introduced a Doctor of Philosophy in Sustainable Energy later in fall 2016.

Leaders in the limelight One day after discussing the importance of women in conservation with an East-West Sustainability Summit audience in Hawai�i, Julie Wrigley was recognized at the Sustainability Leaders Luncheon as a “Pioneer for the Planet” for her visionary work. Wrigley – cofounder of ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability – was awarded along with the likes of Dame Jane Goodall and E.O. Wilson at the event, which was co-hosted by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

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Students in the program conduct collaborative cross-disciplinary research, integrating energy science with societal and policy insights. Drawing upon emerging knowledge and deep historical understanding, students explore and contribute to sustainable solutions that address urgent energy challenges, now and in the future.

The School of Sustainability expanded its offerings geographically in 2016, as well. Now, students at ASU's Polytechnic campus can enroll in the school's popular undergraduate degree programs, like its Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in sustainability. Its 18-credit minor in sustainability is also available to Poly students, and makes a strong complement to virtually any major.

Instructor Shirley-Ann Augustin-Behravesh – a PhD candidate in the School of Sustainability – is leading the Poly expansion.

Students at the School of Sustainability are reinventing the future of a world at risk. They explore the interaction between societal, economic and environmental factors, and develop solutions to challenges at the local, regional and global levels.

As part of the 2016 Sustainability Solutions Festival, an annual sustainability celebration organized by the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, Phoenix City Councilwoman Kate Gallego presented a Mayoral Proclamation to Melani Walton . The proclamation, signed by Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, proclaimed Feb. 15-21, 2016 as Sustainability Solutions Week. It also asked that residents recognize the importance of sustainability, as well as celebrate those who have contributed to sustainability efforts and the Sustainability Solutions Festival.

Sustainability students engage in current events Bringing COP22 to ASU As COP22, the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, convened in Morocco in November 2016, ASU’s Honor Society for Sustainability hosted their own climate conference on campus – COP22@ASU. The Paris Climate Agreement had gone into effect just weeks earlier, signaling new hope for intergovernmental climate policy.

This enthusiasm was reflected at COP22@ASU events, which featured speakers, a mock plenary session with Model U.N. ASU, a canned food drive for the Tempe Community Action Agency Food Pantry, an OXFAM Hunger Walk and a screening of the documentary “True Cost.”

“We wanted to provide people with more ways they could take action to solve problems in their everyday life,” HSS President Joel Guy says, explaining that the focus of the conference was on local issues like poverty in Tempe and pollution in Arizona.

Founded at ASU in 2012, HSS acts as a professional skills organization, working to prepare sustainability students through résumé-building workshops, guest speakers and numerous other activities. HSS also hosts events on campus to promote sustainability goals to a larger audience.

To commence the conference, HSS hosted a Climate Action Rally on the Palm Court Lawn by Barrett, the Honors College.

Both student organizations and outside organizations participated, while ASU students pledged their individual commitments to combating climate change.

“It had an action-oriented message,” said Guy. “We definitely want to do it again.”

Getting the exclusive on waste innovation Snagging a press pass to the biggest waste expo in the nation is no inexpensive task, but – with funding from ASU – School of Sustainability graduate student Daniel Velez managed to do just that.

Velez serves as editor-in-chief of The Sustainability Review (tSR), an online student-run publication, and the WasteExpo 2016 in Las Vegas was a story he did not want to miss. He and recent School of Sustainability graduate Nathan Martin – the man behind the camera – hoped to find a few experts to interview, but got something even better.

“Almost every time we asked for an interview at a booth, the person would say, ‘Give me a second because the CEO is right over there,’” Velez says.

The CEOs included some well-known names from here in the Valley, including David Hertzberg of Sonoran Waste and Barry Grahek of Desert Micro. This was an added bonus for Velez, who was able to network with prospective partners for a company he cofounded, Circle Blue, which works to make communities zero waste.

Through the experience, Velez and Martin created an information-packed video exclusive that gives tSR’s audience an insider’s look at the latest innovations in the waste industry.

“This was an amazing experience made possible by the generous funding of ASU and the hard work generations of students have put into The Sustainability Review,” Velez says. “I’m grateful to be able to tell and share sustainability stories like this one with our audience and the world.”

The Waste Expo videos produced by Daniel, Nathan and The Sustainabiltiy Review can be found here: bit.ly/2opNM5u (note: the above URL is case sensitive) 47

The making of a sustainability student space Just two years ago, the Sustainability Student Center was filled with old posters, furniture, banners and books. This space in the basement of the Matthews Center, affectionately known as the “Sustainabili-basement,” essentially acted as a storage unit for the School of Sustainability and several student sustainability organizations.

But its potential would not be neglected indefinitely. With student enrollment increasing, the school realized the need for a space dedicated entirely to its undergraduate students.

With this goal in mind, students and faculty began a muchneeded face-lift. A $5,000 Sustainability Initiatives Revolving Fund (SIRF) grant made it possible purchase furniture from the ASU Surplus Store, giving new life to disregarded items.

Students and staff removed the posters and clutter, replaced them with couches and conference tables, and the space began to breathe new life.

Last year, Abi Graves – student engagement coordinator for the School of Sustainability – completed the Matthews Center renovation by purchasing projector screens, a television monitor and a camera for teleconferencing. To make the space more welcoming, Graves used the last of the SIRF grant for homey touches, including as many colorful posters as she could find.

This repurposing of ASU materials transformed the space into a functional meeting area for sustainability students. In fall 2016, the space hosted 115 meetings and activities, including the COP22@ASU conference.

Whether part of a sustainability organization with its own key, or a student simply looking to study or relax, the school encourages all sustainability students to make the Sustainability Student Center their home away from home.

Sustainability student makes Outside’s “30 Under 30” At age 21, Sarra Tekola stood on a stage in Blaine, Washington and shouted to a crowd that she was “born to fight climate change.” Now enrolled in the PhD program at ASU’s School of Sustainability, Tekola has been named to Outside magazine’s “30 Under 30.”

The list features young adults successfully tackling some of the biggest challenges on the planet and leading the way for others. Tekola, the daughter of an Ethiopian refugee who fled his home country after a deadly drought, has been championing climate action for years. Outside nicknames her 48

“The Troublemaker” for her sometimes unconventional way of prompting positive change.

Tekola is now studying how to build eco-communities for underprivileged people.

Sustainability Enrollment Food System Sustainability Cert.

2000

Energy and Sustainability Cert.

Interdisciplinary Studies and Sustainability

1800

Sustainable Tourism Public Policy and Sustainability 1600

Engineering and Sustainability

1400

Business and Sustainability

1200

1000

800

Sustainability Minors

600

Sustainability Grad Students

400

200

Sustainability Undergrad Majors

0

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

(Note: Some students are enrolled in more than one academic plan.)

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Q & A W ITH S US TA I N A B I LIT Y A LU M N I

Marina Acosta Class of 2012, BA Sustainability – Policy and Governance, Minor in Psychology MS Obesity Prevention and Management, ASU Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: I’ve always wanted to make a difference and when I learned about the School of Sustainability, I knew that there would always be something for me to do. I thought it was an innovative and fast-growing field, and I was right.

Q: How does your current position relate to sustainability?

A: I coordinate the School and Community Garden Program at the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension. My job entails spending a great deal of time in the field doing garden consultations, providing technical assistance, delivering materials, installing vegetable gardens and teaching classes.

I also enjoy giving back to the School of Sustainability by providing summer, fall and spring internships to undergraduate students, in addition to providing job-shadowing opportunities.

Q: What does sustainability mean to you?

A: Sustainability to me means providing better outcomes.

People in sustainability may not live long enough to see the fruits of their labor, but they will sure be leaving the world a little better than they found it. It can feel overwhelming trying to fix every sustainability issue, but I think it’s about finding a cause you love, finding what you are good at and pairing the two together to create positive change.

Manjyot Bhan Class of 2010, MS Sustainability PhD Public Administration – Environmental Policy, American University Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: During an environmental economics undergraduate class at St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai, I realized that all our assumptions in textbook economics and of the marketplace were made based on private costs – without accounting for other costs such as the environment. My desire to pursue the field of sustainability came out of that classroom experience.

Through SOS, ASU offered one of the first (and in my opinion, the finest) master’s in sustainability in the nation. The flexibility to choose from a variety of courses across different programs (business, urban planning and engineering) made ASU stand out from other schools.

Q: How does your current position relate to sustainability?

A: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is an independent, non-partisan think-tank working to advance strong policy and action to address global climate and energy challenges. My day-to-day responsibilities include researching, analyzing, writing and communicating information on developments in climate and energy policy. My work ultimately inspires those who can truly make a difference to not only take direct action, but also to set an example that can be easily seen and emulated worldwide.

Q: What should incoming students know about sustainability?

A: Everyone’s sustainability journey is unique. Go make it your own!

The School of Sustainability crossed the 1,000 alumni 50

Q & A W ITH S US TA I N A B I LIT Y A LU M N I

Brendan Denker

Jeffrey Jennings

Class of 2012, MS Sustainability

Class of 2012, BA Sustainability – Society and Sustainability

BA General Engineering, Minor in French Cultural Studies, Johns Hopkins University Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: I grew up immersed in recycling, composting and having empathy for others – which I always assumed was a normal, second-nature thing. When I got to college, it was a bit of a culture shock, because doing those things was not the norm.

I started out doing engineering and received my bachelor’s in that field, but wanted to build on it and add a social-science, sustainability-based focus. So, I looked into the School of Sustainability program. I liked that we got the opportunity to mold our studies and provide feedback to help improve the program in real-time.

Q: How are you leading the way to a sustainable future?

A: I am one of the leading experts in the nexus between water and power at Salt River Project, so that enables me to work on sustainability-focused projects and keeps me involved across the organization with those issues.

Q: What should incoming students know about sustainability?

A: Sustainability is a great example of a 1+1=3 situation. If you’re planning to apply sustainability in the real world, make it more manageable by finding a focus area and applying sustainability to it. Take pieces from different backgrounds and disciplines and mix them together in ways that will have a more positive impact.

Professional Science Master’s, Science and Technology Policy, ASU Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: Initially, I started out in accounting and quickly realized that it wasn’t a good fit. Next, I strongly considered urban planning or supply chain management before landing on sustainability.

What ultimately solidified my change in major was the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability, and the opportunity to study and understand how seemingly disparate subjects were highly interconnected. I thought that it would be an advantage to gain multiple perspectives to address the complex global issues facing our world today.

Q: How are you leading the way to a sustainable future?

A: At Arizona Public Service, I coordinated an annual event called “Sustainability Week.” The main purpose of this event was to educate employees on what sustainability means and why it is important. It involved collaborating with many different departments and included a variety of activities, which made the event a success. I hope to continue raising awareness and expanding APS employees’ knowledge about sustainability.

Q: What should incoming students know about sustainability?

A: Sustainability is still an emerging issue that presents many different career opportunities. If you are not sure what you want to do, internships are a great way to gain a sense of what you like. Do not be afraid to explore and take risks.

mark after graduating the Class of Fall 2016.

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Q & A W ITH S US TA I N A B I LIT Y A LU M N I

Jin Jo Class of 2010, PhD Sustainability MS Urban Planning, Columbia University

Andrew Krause Class of 2012, MS Sustainability

BS Building Construction Management, Purdue University Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: Until one of my friends introduced me to the School of Sustainability, I hadn’t thought about applying to Arizona State University. The program ended up being a great place for me, and I was able to complete it in three years. The faculty challenged me, supported me and helped me frame out my research direction.

Q: How are you leading the way to a sustainable future?

A: I consider myself a sustainability scientist and energy planner – a change agent working in the energy field. I try to use the sustainability framework to achieve things in the energy field and provide a different view on energy issues. I focus most of my studies on renewable energy, and go back and check the sustainability framework to measure the things I am doing against it.

Since joining Illinois State University, I’ve helped reshape the renewable energy program and have developed more than five new courses. I have completed a couple of grant projects, both at the state and federal levels. One is the ongoing work here on campus known as the Solar Pathways Project, which was funded by the Department of Energy. This project has supported a sustainable energy initiative on campus through which we planned large-scale solar implementation.

Class of 2009, BA Sustainability Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: I’m not your prototypical “tree hugger,” but I’ve always been fascinated by the complexities that make up sustainable change in a system. Originally, I wanted to be in the construction engineering field. However, I quickly became more intrigued by the way sustainability science has the potential to motivate and empower the mainstream to collectively engage with complex global issues.

ASU’s School of Sustainability was the premier (and only) comprehensive sustainability program in the U.S. at the time, and had a direction that interested me. Sustainability has given me a new set of motivations and challenges, an engaging peer group, and access to a new world of people and organizations that are doing great things.

Q: How are you leading the way to a sustainable future?

A: At eecosphere, we’re connecting the dots between innovative sustainable ideas and peoples’ current lifestyles by making opportunities for change more apparent and automatic. There is much more procedural knowledge there than epistemic. Changes need to be made at a relatable level, and then scaled through social networks. We’re enabling behavior change by providing knowledge and opportunities that can be spread easily to friends, and beyond.

Welcome, new faculty members Bryan Leonard, Assistant Professor By analyzing how the structure of property rights is shaped by the benefits and costs of defining and enforcing rights along various dimensions, Dr. Leonard’s research informs the trade-offs underlying contemporary policy challenges. These include rights-based approaches to managing renewable and nonrenewable resources, and to preventing and mitigating the effects of global climate change. He has both a PhD and MS in Economics from the University of California-Santa Barbara, an MS in Applied Economics from Montana State University, and a BA in Economics from Hillsdale College.

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Q & A W ITH S US TA I N A B I LIT Y A LU M N I

Lexie Krechel

Carolyn Phillips

Class of 2013, BA Sustainability – Society and Sustainability, Minor in Social Work, Certificate in Public Administration and Management Q: How does your current position relate to sustainability?

A: I found my current position at Tempe Community Action Agency by looking on nonprofit job boards. I knew that I wanted to stay in the nonprofit world, but just needed to find the right organization. I decided to pursue a position at TCAA because I wanted to be able to see the impact that my work was having on the community.

My job works toward creating a more sustainable future for individuals who are in need of assistance in Tempe and across the Valley. Most of our programs are preventative, and an entry point to try to alleviate hardships before situations worsen.

Q: What does sustainability mean to you?

A: Sustainability to me is not only preserving our resources for the generations of tomorrow, but is creating a healthy and safe community that supports the vision of preserving for future generations.

Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: Looking back at all of my college and scholarship applications, it is fun to see that when I applied to the School of Sustainability, I had planned to save the world!

Class of 2011, MA Sustainability BA Entrepreneurial Management, Texas Christian University Q: Why did you choose ASU’s School of Sustainability?

A: There’s always been a theme in my family and community of support about being a part of the solution. This can be interpreted in a lot of different ways – one being, “If you’re not helping, you’re hurting.”

I actually found out about [the School of Sustainability] on a whim, when it was still really new. I was so set on attending Arizona State that before I was even accepted, I flew to Tempe.

I met Dr. Chuck Redman (the founding director of the school), and a current grad student at the time – Riley Smith – walked me around. The School of Sustainability was so welcoming, even before I was a student, and that helped solidify my plan to attend.

Q: What are you currently doing related to sustainability?

A: I started a gourmet frozen pop company called Alchemy Pops. The vision is to create new market opportunities for Texas Farmers and connect people to what’s locally available.

Flavors are Texas-sourced and Texas-inspired.

Q: What should incoming students know about sustainability?

A: I encourage students to take advantage of everything ASU has to offer. Invest in your cohort and cherish getting to know your fellow students. Set expectations on how you can play your part in the program.

Nathan Parker, Assistant Professor Dr. Parker works to understand the possible futures for alternative transportation fuels along with the transition pathways to those futures. He develops simulation models to envision alternative fuels production and distribution systems, as well as to evaluate their cost, economic viability and environmental impacts. He has both a PhD and MS in Transportation Technology and Policy from the University of California, Davis, and a BS in Physics from Wake Forest University.

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Class Notes Edgar Cardenas, PhD 2015 became a Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities at the University of Michigan.

Laura Quintero Cervantes, BS 2015 began her MA in Global Affairs and Management at Thunderbird School of Global Management, where she plans to earn a certificate in Global Trade and Commerce. The school offered her the Thunderbird Global Excellence Scholarship and nominated her for its SHARE fellowship.

Cordero Coronado, BS 2016 was hired as a healthcare sustainability specialist for Stericycle in Dallas, TX.

Devon Edwards, BA 2014 was lead author on a report, released by the Corporate Eco Forum of World Wildlife Fund, called “Corporate Renewable Energy Procurement: A Snapshot of Key Trends, Practices, and Strategies in 2016.”

He serves as associate director of the forum, an organization of multinationals that demonstrate commitment to sustainability.

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Peter Gbelia, MA 2011 founded SJEDI Green Energy, a company that delivers sustainable and affordable energy solutions to families in Liberia.

Jessica Welch Helble & Parker Helble, MSUS 2015 were married on October 29, 2016, at the Allandale Mansion in the bride’s hometown of Kingsport, TN. The couple met at ASU.

October 2016. He is co-founder of China Mist Iced Tea Company and managing partner of Be the Tea, LLC, and sponsors the Martinson Sustainability Solutions Research Grant – which is awarded to a student in the School of Sustainability each year.

Bryan McLaren, EMSL 2015 was granted approval from the Chino Valley Town Council to develop a 58-acre mixed-use project over the next five years. He is Chief Executive Officer of Zoned Properties, Inc.

Jin Jo, PhD 2010 was honored with the Outstanding Cross-Disciplinary Team Research Award along with two other faculty members at Illinois State University. He was also selected to participate in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Visiting Faculty Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Jo was the first recipient of a PhD in sustainability.

John Martinson, EMSL 2016 gave a Sustainability After School talk titled “A Day in the Life: Sustainability and Entrepreneurship” in

Colin Tetreault, MA 2010 and wife Jenny welcomed daughter Madeline Milay Audrey Tetreault into the world on April 27, 2016.

Allison Weidemann, BS 2013 was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach English in Turkey.

Thomas Williams, EMSL 2015 was appointed as Chief Sustainability Officer of Maricopa Community Colleges.

What’s new with you?

Whether about a new job or a newborn, we love when alumni share their updates with us! Email yours to sosalumni@asu.edu .

Alumni Employment SUSTAINABILITY

Bachelor’s Employed or Graduate School

27%

National Average

96%

67%

Sustainability-Related (of Employment Rate)

(degree-related)

SUSTAINABILITY

Master’s

Employed or Graduate School

93%

92%

Sustainability-Related

(of Employment Rate)

SUSTAINABILITY

PhD

Employment Rate

96%

91%

Sustainability-Related

(of Employment Rate)

Sustainability student makes the GreenBiz “30 Under 30” Jeffrey Jennings, BA 2012 A reflection of his leadership in the field, School of Sustainability graduate Jeffrey Jennings – a sustainability project coordinator for Arizona Public Service – was named among the young sustainability standouts in the 2016 “30 Under 30” by GreenBiz.

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Practices Edible Campus More than 100 volunteers – including ASU students, faculty, staff and alumni – converge each February to collect oranges from 140 trees on the Tempe campus.

A company called Sun Orchard helps to wash, sort and squeeze the oranges into a usable product. The 100 percent pure juice is shipped back to campus in gallon containers for Aramark to use in its kitchens. Though the ASU community may more commonly encounter the sour orange juice as DevilAde, it is also used in dressings, marinades, and a number of sweet and savory dishes.

The Seville sour orange harvest earned the 2015 President’s Award for Sustainability, which recognizes outstanding university organizations that develop sustainable principles, services and programs to support ASU’s core missions.

In the fall, the campus community enjoys the harvest of a much sweeter fruit – dates. ASU’s grove is considered the No. 2 collection in the U.S., boasting more than 40 varieties.

The process begins in late winter and early spring, when volunteers cut male stalks and hand-pollenate the different cultivars in the grove. As the fruit develops, volunteers return to thin out branches of the fruit to reduce weight, then again to bag them to prevent pesky invaders like birds, bees and wasps.

The fruits may ripen as early as September, but October is when the date harvest hits its peak. Volunteers pick hundreds of pounds of dates – both in the Polytechnic grove and around the Tempe campus – and are rewarded for their hard work with bags to take home. The balance is then sold on the respective campuses.

In addition to its impressive date grove, the Poly campus boasts a community garden where students are taught the importance of composting, utilizing organic materials, managing land wisely and remaining as environmentally friendly as possible. It consists of 12 plots, which are 25-feet-by-25-feet each and produce everything from cabbages and carrots to pumpkins and watermelons.

West campus wins bronze in bike-friendliness The League of American Bicyclists named Arizona State University’s West campus a bronze-level Bicycle Friendly University. It 56

joins an elite group of about 160 colleges and universities from around the U.S. that are transforming their campuses and

surrounding communities through innovative bicycling programs.

ASU’s Tempe campus has been a gold-level BFU since 2014.

Sustainability Operations at ASU As an institution of higher education that thrives on finding solutions to global challenges, Arizona State University focuses on sustainability as one of its core values. The university is a sustainability operations leader among its peers across the country and continues to find innovative ways to serve as a living laboratory – one at the leading edge of impact and higher education.

In 2016, ASU took measurable steps to reduce consumption while maximizing efficiency by focusing on four key areas of operational sustainability: climate neutrality, zero solid and water waste, active engagement and principled practice.

Committed to becoming completely climate neutral, ASU worked in 2016 to develop a more comprehensive definition of its institutional boundaries. Then, it re-calculated its greenhouse gas emissions retroactively to 2007 – its baseline year.

Despite tremendous growth in its student population and building space, the university’s gross emissions were roughly 12 percent lower in fiscal year 2016 than in 2007.

ASU also made progress toward its goals of eliminating solid and water waste. In fiscal year 2016, waste diverted from the landfill reached 36.5 percent and waste averted reached 12 percent, while water use declined by 5.1 percent and wastewater generated declined by 4.9 percent over its baseline. In fact, 419 tons of food waste generated from athletics events, dining halls and campus events was diverted, up from 315

tons from the previous year. Nearly 5 tons went to local food banks and community kitchens, while 414 tons were composted.

When it comes to active engagement, ASU’s University Sustainability Practices engaged 8,597 students, faculty and staff through 102 sustainability-related events – an increase of 57.1 percent. Its Green Devil Network graduated 56 faculty and staff members, who promote a culture of sustainability on ASU’s campuses. Twenty of those graduates committed to participating in the Distinguished Green Devils program, expanding their sustainability leadership and learning for fiscal year 2017.

Principled practice, or “walking the talk,” is another area in which ASU excelled. It concluded the year with 46 LEEDcertified buildings, having received new LEED certification for two Sun Devil Fitness Complexes: Platinum for the facility in Tempe and Silver for the facility in Downtown Phoenix. ASU currently holds a Gold rating from the AASHE Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System™ (STARS) – one of only 97 colleges and universities nationally to achieve this level.

For more information on operational sustainability at ASU, visit: zerowaste.asu.edu asusolar.asu.edu cfo.asu.edu.

Sustainability in teaching, learning and doing By breaking the mold of traditional universities, ASU has become a place that trains leaders, implements change and embraces an analytical focus on global solutions. Five areas form the foundation of the university’s sustainability strategy: education, outreach, research, solutions and operations. These broadbased themes span disciplines, campuses

and institutional boundaries to forge meaningful solutions to sustainability challenges. Our prospectus, Sustainability @ ASU, provides an overview of ASU’s efforts to advance sustainability, both across the university and beyond. sustainability.asu.edu/prospectus 57

Change your

Change

perspective

the world sos.asu.edu

School of Sustainability PO Box 875502 Tempe, AZ 85287-5502

“Sustainability cannot depend only on a select group of forward thinkers – global impact is made by each of us and all of us. It takes collaboration and partnership, the sharing of ideas and nurturing of young minds.”

– Rob and Melani Walton

The School of Sustainability is a unit of:

ENVIRONMENTAL SAVINGS Printing 2,000 of these brochures used 2,020 pounds of paper made from 100% post-consumer waste. This paper was made in the USA with fiber processed chlorine free and manufactured with electricity that is offset with Green-e ® certified renewable energy certificates. By using this paper we saved the following resources:

water

energy

solid waste

20

9,442

9,000,000

632

fully grown

gallons

BTUs

pounds

greenhouse gases

1,741

pounds

Calculations based on research by Environmental Defense Fund and other members of the Paper Task Force.

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