Every year, Arizona State University strives to minimize consumption, maximize efficiency and reassess the traditional way of functioning to be more sustainable. ASU's newly released 2014 Sustainability Operations Annual Review shows that the university has made major strides toward those goals.

The review includes major highlights of the university’s progress in operational sustainability, as well as significant facts that support each of ASU’s overarching sustainability goals: climate neutrality, zero waste, active engagement and principled practice.

Highlights include being named in the top 12 bicycle-friendly universities in the U.S. by the League of American Bicyclists, having 3,740,114 gross square feet of LEED-certified building space and claiming  the greatest capacity of photovoltaic installations of any university in the nation.

An advance copy of the ASU Wrigley Institute's latest prospectus - which provides an overview of ASU’s efforts to further sustainability at the university and beyond - has been mailed to ASU's Board of Directors for Sustainability. An electronic version will soon be posted online. We welcome your feedback.

Balance-Unbalance - an international conference that looks to art as a catalyst for exploring the intersections between nature, science, technology and society - will hold its 2015 conference on ASU's Tempe campus with specific focus on issues of water, climate and place.

The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program at University of Washington is looking for some amazing talent to teach and mentor their Conservation Scholars this summer.  Please see the three job announcements attached.  The program is focused on training the next generation of conservation leaders. Their vision is a diverse and inclusive conservation community.

In particular, DDCSP is looking for candidates that will resinate with the diversity represented in their scholars.

Job Descriptions:

DDCSP Instructional position 2015 DDCSP TA Position 2015 DDCSP 1-week Instructor Postition2015

DDCSP TA Position 2015

DDCSP 1-week Instructor Postition2015

In the latest installment of the "Sustainable Cities" series, Senior Sustainability Scientist Nancy Grimm discusses common misconceptions about ecologists and nature. She presents the idea of untouched wilderness as an example.

“We’ve recognized that there really aren’t such places, or are very few such places, left on Earth,” says Grimm, an ecologist herself who has worked in the field for more than 30 years.

Grimm is also the director of Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research, a project launched in 1997. CAP LTER is one of 26 LTER sites throughout the United States. Based at ASU, it is one of only two sites that examine urban ecosystems. Specifically, the Phoenix site answers questions about ecosystem services - benefits provided to people by the environment or wildlife - and studies how humans interact with nature in their cities.

In recognition of his advancement of engineering and science in logistics, ASU professor and sustainability scientist Pitu Mirchandani has earned the Avnet Chair in Supply Chain Networks. The role will support Mirchandani's efforts further education and research in the field through the design, analysis and operation of supply chain networks. He will do so using models that consider the development, manufacture and delivery of a product or service, as well as factors like facilities' capacities and transportation routing.

“I want to marry mathematical modeling and optimization approaches in industrial engineering to computer science. This will boost our capability to do more extensive real-time analysis and decision-making,” Mirchandani says.

Avnet Inc. is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Phoenix that offers information technology services to businesses, along with global logistics and programming services to enhance supply chain operations. It endowed the Chair in Supply Chain Networks in recognition of ASU’s accomplishments and commitment to the field, and to help strengthen the company’s relationship with the university.

A phone charger powered by the sun, a lantern with state-of-the-art solar panels, and a kinetic USB or laptop charger that powers up in your pocket while you walk are just a few of the devices you could checkout through the Household Independent Power Project’s (HIPP) Personal Power Lending Library at ASU.

Continue Reading

In an effort to improve prospects for generations to come, a group of ASU scholars in the emerging discipline of environmental humanities is addressing humanity's struggle to think in the long term. The team, which includes sustainability scholars Sally Kitch and Joni Adamson, approaches its work using a combination of humanistic scholarship and scientific research. Their aim is long-term, human-centered solutions that truly transform the way we live and think.

“We have technological advances that could go a long way to solving some of these problems. But we aren't implementing them," says Kitch. "We don't have the political or social will to make the kinds of dramatic changes in our values, in our sense of comfort and well-being in the world, that are really required if we're going to get off of the fossil fuel gravy train that shapes our current political and economic systems.”

Kitch, Adamson and others are working toward their goal through activities like leadership in the international Humanities for the Environment project, which houses its North American Observatory Branch at ASU.

ASU researchers are exploring new energy storage technology that could give the lithium-ion battery an even longer life. By combining a high-performance silicon electrode architecture with a room temperature ionic liquid electrolyte containing the new bis-fluorosulfonylamide anion, the researchers establish a highly energy-dense lithium-ion cell with an impressively long cycling life. In fact, it maintains greater than 75 percent capacity over 500 charge/discharge cycles with almost no wasted electrons.

“This study brings home the fact that energy storage technology still has a lot of room to run, with new technological changes coming at a fast pace,” says Dan Buttry, professor and chair of ASU's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “This is important when considering areas where storage is important, such as grid storage and electric vehicles.”

In anticipation of a Future Tense event on technology and the future taking place in Washington, D.C., Senior Sustainability Scientist Sethuraman Panchanathan explores the subject in Slate magazine. His article, titled "The best adaptive technologies are designed by, not for, people with disabilities," illustrates this point using ASU graduate David Hayden as an example. Hayden, who is visually impaired, used his disability to develop an assistive tablet called the Note-Taker - a technology that his sighted peers were also eager to use.

"Truly revolutionary technologies require engagement with users throughout the design and development process. While it’s helpful to get feedback and ideas from focus groups on users’ needs, short sessions don’t give us a full understanding of the challenges and opportunities in developing assistive technology solutions," writes Panchanathan. "It is imperative that people with disabilities play a leading role in envisioning, conceptualizing, developing, implementing, deploying, testing, and validating potential solutions, tools, and technologies."

In a November 2014 Thought Leader Series Piece, Ray Jensen made a similar point about the importance of including disabled persons, particularly from a sustainability standpoint.

The Arizona Governor’s Office of Energy Policy recently honored Tempe Union’s Innovative Energy Solutions and Sustainability Project with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Energy Education. The award, which recognizes outstanding energy education programs in K-12 schools, was created as part of the Governor's goal to prepare our next generation of energy professionals through energy education.

“Our goal is to provide our students with opportunities for hands-on learning, give them a competition edge in the environmental fields, and prepare them to be better citizens. We believe in this initiative so it’s really rewarding for the Governor’s Office to acknowledge our efforts,” said TUHSD Energy Coach Jessica Hauer. “We’re thankful to partners like ASU’s [Julie Ann Wrigley] Global Institute of Sustainability, Rio Salado College, Intel, and the City of Tempe, who share our mission.”

The Sustainability Science for Sustainable Schools program, a unit of the ASU Wrigley Institute, strives to further sustainability science by bringing sustainability projects into our high schools’ curriculum, campuses and larger communities.

Arizona State University received four LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) awards from the Arizona chapter of the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) for the outstanding design, planning and construction of its campus buildings.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Heather Bateman was honored with the 2015 Award for Professional Service at the annual meeting of the Arizona and New Mexico chapters of The Wildlife Society - the national professional organization for wildlife biology and conservation. The award recognized Bateman - a field ecologist, conservation biologist and associate professor in the College of Letters and Sciences - for her dedication to the leadership and professional development of her students.

“This award is well-deserved recognition for Heather and the good work she is doing both in research and teaching,” said Senior Sustainability Scientist Chris Martin, head of the faculty of Science and Mathematics in the College of Letters and Sciences. “It also shines a spotlight on our wildlife program in applied biological sciences and student-centered approach to learning and doing science.”

The patroller stopped his water district truck and grabbed his camcorder.

"Here we go," he said, sliding from the cab and pointing his lens at the fine spray of water and rainbow rising from pop-up sprinklers on the lawn of a low-slung ranch home.

"Thursday," he spoke, recording the day as evidence. No watering allowed on Thursdays.

Welcome to the future, where every drop of Colorado River water is guarded and squeezed. Only here, in the city that gets 90 percent of its water from the fickle and fading river, the future is now.

The vast and highly urbanized Southwest, built on the promise of a bountiful river propped up by monumental dams, is up against its limits. Already tapped beyond its supply, the river is now threatened by a warming climate that shrinks its alpine source.

To support fast-growing urban populations in a time of dwindling supply, the Southwest is due for rapid and revolutionary changes.

A region that uses two-thirds of its water outdoors, and mostly for agriculture, will have to find ways of sharing and boosting efficiency — a shift that many experts believe will mean city dwellers paying to upgrade rural irrigation systems.

Cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas, which have reduced their per-person water usage through better landscaping and appliances, will have to do better. They lag behind Los Angeles, whose growing population, by necessity, uses no more water than it did 40 years ago.

Water suppliers from Denver to San Diego will spend billions of dollars to squeeze more out of each drop, and to clean and use wastewater and salt water. It means a future of higher water bills, further promoting conservation.

By Brandon Loomis and Mark Henle, The Republic | azcentral.com

Read the entire article at azcentral.com.

ASU architecture students from The Design School in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts helped to construct a selection of tiny spaces currently on view in “Microdwelling,” an exhibition featuring 12 structures under 600 square feet at the Schemer Art Center in Phoenix. They had just one month to construct their microdwelling spaces.

ASU architecture students from The Design School in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts helped to construct a selection of tiny spaces currently on view in “Microdwelling,” an exhibition featuring 12 structures under 600 square feet at the Schemer Art Center in Phoenix. Three of the 12 structures were built by ASU students with the help of a $3,000 grant from The Central Arizona Architecture Foundation. They had just one month to construct their microdwelling spaces, and their efforts were highlighted in USA Today.

A new poll, conducted by ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, articulates the top two priorities among Arizona residents: education and water.

The inaugural Morrison-Cronkite Quarterly Poll surveyed 754 Arizonan adults statewide to assess opinions on a variety of issues, from law enforcement to arts and culture. Among the 11 issues offered to respondents, “maintaining adequate water and water quality” ranks at that same level of importance (87 percent) as education.

“It’s apparent that the importance of ensuring an adequate and quality water supply for Arizona’s varied interests figures prominently on Arizonans’ radar," said David Daugherty, associate director of Morrison Institute and director of the poll. "This is a complex and dynamic issue, but clearly one that Arizonans understand as a priority that needs to be thoroughly examined and addressed.”

Addressing a crowd of nearly 2,000 people in ASU’s Gammage Auditorium, renowned journalist and author Thomas Friedman contended that maintaining our freedom is going to require a major value adjustment. The Pulitzer Prize winner, who visited ASU on Feb. 26, explained that society has been built on situational values, which have led to unhealthy interdependencies and our current climate concerns.

Friedman went on to explain that our freedom now relies on building healthy interdependencies that mirror those found in nature, and are based on sustainable values. The impactful talk - titled "Sustainability as Freedom" - marked the first of this year’s Wrigley Lecture Series and was made possible with the generous support of sustainability visionary Julie Ann Wrigley.

Today’s students will become tomorrow’s leaders, and educating them about sustainability is increasingly important in light of the complex social, economic and environmental issues the world faces.

Arizona State University’s new National Sustainability Teachers’ Academy aims to bring teams of elementary, middle and high school teachers from across the nation together to establish an educational task force for sustainability.

As a program of ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, the teachers’ academy will focus on solutions-based curriculum with an emphasis on urban systems. ASU sustainability scientists and scholars will help coach and lead hands-on sessions on solutions surrounding food, water, energy and climate.

Continue Reading

March 3 marks the launch of ASU's new Biomimicry Center, established in partnership with Montana-based Biomimicry 3.8, and co-directed by Prasad Boradkar. In this essay, Boradkar describes how biomimicry can help us create solutions to address our problems in sustainable ways.