Mimi Kessler, a doctoral candidate in ASU's School of Life Sciences, visited the Russian Altai Mountains as a linguistic and cultural liaison for the Wild Altai expedition when she spotted two little ears on top of a ridge during a hike.

"Once I was certain of what I was seeing, I told the rest, 'You are not going to believe this, but there is a snow leopard on that ridge,'" Kessler says. "My companions grabbed their binoculars, took a look and started yelling with joy. The cat continued to look at us for a few moments, then slowly walked further up the ridge and out of sight."

The Russian snow leopard is listed as threatened due to illegal poaching and predator-prey conflicts. There are only a reported 90 leopards in Russia. The Altai Project, the expedition's organizer, aims to balance sustainable community development in the growing region and conservation of endangered species like the snow leopard.

Arizona State University and the International Renewable Energy Agency are joining forces to bring solar power education to Pacific Island technicians and engineers. The partnership will bring a new solar training workshop led by ASU College of Technology and Innovation's Vocational Training and Education for Clean Energy (VOCTEC) and certification programs.

Solar power is especially important in island communities that greatly depend on hard-to-get fossil fuel imports. Solar power can also lead to more economic independence in the Pacific region.

"We are excited to partner with IRENA and for their support in advancing the future of sustainable energy and entrepreneurship in the Pacific Islands," says Mitzi Montoya, vice provost and dean of ASU’s College of Technology and Innovation. "This is only the beginning of a collaborative partnership between ASU and IRENA, and we look forward to growing the relationship between the two like-minded institutions."

In 2008, Arizona State University algae research turned into a real-life company with the establishment of Heliae. Existing and new investors recently gifted Heliae $28.4 million to expand its headquarters in Gilbert. The funds will go towards building Heliae's first commercial algae manufacturing plant for personal care and nutrition supplement markets.

"The sustained support of existing investors, as well as the addition of new investors, demonstrates our momentum and continued success in scale-up,"  says Dan Simon, president and CEO of Heliae.

Funding came from the Mars family, conglomerate Salim Group via Agri Investments Pte Ltd., Thomas J. Edelman, and others. Heliae is partnered with Arizona State University, Science Foundation Arizona, Algal Biomass Organization, and Wageningen University.

Although algae has been highlighted for its potential as an alternative fuel source, this special microorganism has also established itself in an array of other marketable fields. Feeds, cosmetics, and plastics are only a few areas in which algae can be utilized to create a product. This blog post will dive deeper into areas of algae research that strengthen and secure the future of important markets other than energy.

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PHOENIX, Ariz. – July 31, 2013 – Local elected officials, business owners and advocates held a press conference today to highlight the impacts of climate change – including extreme heat, drought and air and water quality – on Arizona’s environment, economy and public health.

“The issue of climate change is big and daunting, it’s true,” said State Senator Katie Hobbs.

“But working together, we can create the change necessary to protect our home. It begins with simply caring for each other. When we care for each other, as fellow human beings, caring for our planet becomes a natural progression. I urge you to act with me today to move toward a healthier and brighter future.”

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As part of Arizona State University's health and wellness initiative, all university campuses are now officially tobacco-free. ASU joins about 800 national universities with the policy. Effective today, the new policy prohibits all manners of smoking, including smokeless tobacco products indoors and outdoors. The policy was initiated by students and is supported by the University Staff Council and the faculty Academic Senate.

In addition to making ASU a healthier, happier, more productive place to work and learn, the tobacco-free policy will reduce litter and maintenance expenses.

"Tobacco use is a documented public health hazard and the university is dedicated to providing a healthy, comfortable, and educationally productive learning environment for faculty, staff, students, and visitors," says Kevin Salcido, associate vice president of Human Resources and a member of the tobacco-free working group.

Enforce a tobacco-free university »

In an article published in the journal "Nature," Arizona State University President Michael Crow explores the pros and cons of online learning, drawing from multiple case studies from Harvard, San José State University in California, and ASU. While many skeptics say online learning greatly degrades the quality of education, ASU President Crow says, "...twenty-first-century interactive technologies offer the potential for adaptive, personalized learning on an infinite scale."

What some first called a "fad," technological advances have altered the learning environment, changing the way students freely access information and conduct their research. ASU has embraced online education, whether it be through completely online courses or a mix of in-person and online.

"Our objective is to create an environment in which a person can learn anything, and thus we must avail ourselves of every tool, mechanism and means," Crow says. "We must lead and shape this revolution, not recoil from it, if we are to avoid stifling innovation."

SCN convenes communities for state solar grant

The Rooftop Solar Challenge is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SunShot Initiative. This initiative supports 22 regional teams collaborating with the goal of reducing barriers and costs for residential and small commercial rooftop solar systems. The Arizona Rooftop Solar Challenge (ARC) was a regional partnership of this overall initiative, concluding in June 2013, after running for 18 months. The Network was a part of this statewide partnership led by the Arizona Governor’s Office of Energy Policy, also involving the municipalities of Phoenix, Tucson, and Flagstaff, as well as Clarkdale, Gila Bend, Goodyear, Payson, Prescott Valley, Surprise, and Tempe; and AZ SmartPower a nonprofit solar education organization. The coalition focused on developing a list of best practices for local communities with the goal of lowering balance of system (BOS) costs, the non-hardware costs associated with design, installation, permitting and financing, which remain high statewide.

The Network was heavily involved in stakeholder engagement, a key component of this process. SCN contributed by hosting regular Solar and Energy Efficiency Workgroup meetings, and by assisting with and promoting other grant engagement activities. SCN also helped facilitate a survey of over 40 municipalities and a wide range of solar installers on permitting and planning and zoning practices, providing the basis to identify these best practices.

Findings from these surveys allowed collaborating grant partners to develop a list of community recommendations and takeaways in the areas of permitting, financing, interconnection standards, and planning and zoning. Highlights are listed below:

Solar Permitting:

-Providing a detailed solar permitting checklist.

-Providing a solar-specific permit application form.

-Allowing for electronic submission of permit applications, drawings, and payments.

-Shorten the installation process by reducing the time taken to receive a permit.

Solar Financing:

-Developing innovative financing models to broaden the options for financing solar, including loans, leases, interest rate buy-downs, and backstops.

Interconnection Standards:

-Encouraging the local utility to provide an online application for interconnection.

-Recommending more streamlined interconnection standards for smaller systems than for larger systems.

Planning and Zoning

-The ARC team developed two planning and zoning models – one for desert communities and the other for high elevation communities, recommending that communities adopt the model language appropriate for their area to ensure solar access of buildings in Arizona.

School of Sustainability Interim Dean Christopher Boone, together with Michail Fragkias, visiting professor at Boise State University and former executive director of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change program based in ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability, edited a volume, Urbanization and sustainability: Linking urban ecology, environmental justice and global environmental change. The book was published in 2013.

Boone and Fragkias contributed a chapter to the volume examining the connection between environmental justice and sustainability. They suggest that vulnerability science could be a bridge between studies of local environmental justice and long-term, global sustainability studies.

Another chapter authored by a team of Arizona State University scholars – Bob Bolin, Juan Declet Barreto, Michelle Hegmon, Lisa Meierotto, and Abigail York – builds on previous CAP LTER research and examines shifting vulnerabilities, hazards, and risks in the Phoenix area.

Through case studies, analysis, and theory, the book brings together a range of scholars from urban ecology, environmental justice, and global environmental change research. In doing so, the editors have linked ideas, frameworks, and theories from the three fields to provide new, integrated insights on the pathways toward urban sustainability.

Christopher Boone, Interim Dean of Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability and co-PI of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (CAP LTER) program, and Michail Fragkias, Visiting Professor at Boise State University and former Executive Director of the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change program based in the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, have tackled the pressing issues posed by the "urban century" in their edited volume, Urbanization and sustainability: Linking urban ecology, environmental justice and global environmental change.

This book brings together a range of scholars from urban ecology, environmental justice, and global environmental change research. In doing so, the editors have linked ideas, frameworks, and theories from the three fields to provide new, integrated insights on the pathways toward urban sustainability.

Chapters in the book range from a case study of the Million Trees Initiative in Los Angeles to an analysis of the social dimensions of environmental risk in São Paulo City, Brazil as well as more theoretical chapters dealing with the definition of urban sustainability and the contributions of ecological theory to understanding environmental justice.

Scholarship on the Phoenix metropolitan area is featured in a chapter authored by a team of Arizona State University scholars, Bob Bolin, Juan Declet Barreto, Michelle Hegmon, Lisa Meierotto, and Abigail York.  Their chapter builds on previous CAP LTER research on the spatial distribution of environmental disamenities and environmental justice. This new research examines shifting vulnerabilities, hazards, and risks in the Phoenix area. While low-income, minority neighborhoods near the urban core have historically borne the brunt of environmental injustice in the metropolitan area, the foreclosure crisis hit the outlying suburbs, which will likely face growing water insecurity due to a reliance on dwindling groundwater resources and a complex set of policies around water rights and groundwater recharge. At the same time, these urban core neighborhoods are expected to face exposure to increased heat under global climate change scenarios.

Boone and Fragkias have contributed a chapter to the volume that examines the connection between environmental justice and sustainability. They argue that "justice is a core yet often ignored principle of sustainability." They suggest that vulnerability science, which offers a framework for examining human-environment relationships and environmental risk on a mostly regional scale, may serve as a bridge between environmental justice perspectives that focus on local-scale, immediate problems and sustainability perspectives that  emphasize long-term thinking on global problems. An integration of principles, practices, and ideas from environmental justice, sustainability, and vulnerability "could be a powerful mix for effecting positive change."

A Thought Leader Series Piece

By Chris Spence

Note: Chris Spence is the director of the Institute at the Golden Gate, a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in partnership with the National Park Service that advances environmental stewardship and well-being through parks and public lands.

Do you ever feel like the news on climate change is stuck on repeat? Day after day and year after year, we seem to hear the same dire predictions from climate scientists and activists, the same calls to "act now before it’s too late!"

I first started working on climate policy in 1993, which coincidentally is the year the movie "Groundhog Day" first screened. It’s about a selfish television weatherman doomed to repeat the same day time and again until he finally learns to change his ways.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve sometimes felt like I’m stuck in "Groundhog Day." While the science is stronger than ever, working on climate policy can feel like being trapped in a time warp of inaction and paralysis. We all know the problem is real and growing, but serious action on a large scale sometimes seems beyond our grasp.

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If you want to eat and drink clean water, then you should care about an element called phosphorus. We use it to fertilize our food, but sometimes too much of it ends up in our water supplies, causing pollution and fish kills. Researchers, including Distinguished Sustainability Scientist James Elser, are more concerned than ever because our global phosphorus supplies are non-renewable, and we are gobbling them up.

"There are big challenges, such as how to keep the phosphorus where it belongs and how to make sure we have enough phosphorus for the long term," says Elser.

Elser co-edited the book "Phosphorus, Food, and Our Future" to provide a comprehensive examination of the entire phosphorus issue for scientists, government officials, and stakeholders like farmers, miners, and wastewater engineers.

Senior Sustainability Scientist Matei Georgescu spoke from Phoenix to Beijing viewers of China Central TV-America about urban heat island effects on a July 17th broadcast. The urban heat island effect—when temperatures soar in metropolitan areas due to development—is no stranger to cities like Phoenix and Beijing.

"In essence, urban areas are heat sinks—they absorb incoming solar radiation differently than the natural landscape would," explained Georgescu, also an assistant professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning. "In cities, incoming solar radiation is trapped in the built environment during the day, and is not released as efficiently in the evening as it would be, had the megapolitan environment not been present."

Georgescu's research investigates the effects of the urban heat island, which include human and animal health issues and increased energy consumption.

John Riley, former executive director of Purchasing and Business Services and university chief procurement officer for Arizona State University, is now the associate vice president of University Business Services and the university sustainability operations officer. Riley replaces Ray Jensen, who retired in March.

"I am pleased to have the opportunity to work with such an outstanding group of dedicated professionals," Riley says. "Together, we will deliver exciting sustainability initiatives, such as powering our Central Plant with biogas or generating electricity from biomass."

Riley is now responsible for overseeing business operations like parking, licensing, materials procurement, and university stores in addition to advancing ASU's sustainability initiatives.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and NBC Learn (NBC News' educational arm) have teamed up to produce a new informative video series that examines the long-term health of one of America's most important resources: water.

As climate rapidly changes and population grows, providing a sufficient supply and quality of water will be a critical challenge to people everywhere. These videos aim to help advance public understanding of the effects human activity and climate variability have on water and its distribution system.

"Sustainability: Water," an original seven-part collection, consists of detailed stories explaining significant challenges to managing the water supply in selected regions and cities across the United States.

The series highlights research funded by NSF and looks at the lives of scientists who are hard at work on projects designed to help pave the way to a more sustainable future. Each video features an NSF-supported scientist from a diversity of fields, geographic locations and institutions explaining a specific challenge and how these challenges are affecting the water supply. Each episode is available cost-free to teachers, students and the public at NSF and NBCLearn.com websites.

"Most Americans take water for granted," said Roger Wakimoto, assistant director for NSF's Directorate for Geosciences. "We have occasional water restrictions, but for most of us, when we turn on the tap, water is there. This series with NBC Learn aims to help people become more conscious of the threats to our water supply and understand the steps that need to be taken to maintain it."

"Our new series with NSF is an excellent opportunity to raise awareness about the challenges to our environment," said Soraya Gage, general manager of NBC Learn. "By exploring the challenge of sustainable water, we hope to raise awareness and spur dialogue about managing the water system and conserving Earth's most precious resource."

Sustainability: Water - The Water Cycle

This video uses animation, graphics, and video clips to illustrate and explain each of the "flow" and "storage" processes in the Hydrologic Cycle, more commonly known as the Water Cycle: precipitation, interception, runoff, infiltration, percolation, groundwater discharge, evaporation, transpiration, evapotranspiration, and condensation.

Sustainability: Water - Baltimore's Urban Streams

Baltimore, Maryland is a major city situated on the Chesapeake Bay- a sprawling 64,000 square mile watershed. Currently, the Chesapeake is facing an environmental crisis due to pollutants. Scientist Claire Welty of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County is monitoring the travel times of pollutants in the urban streams in and around Baltimore. Through her research, she hopes to gain an understanding of the urban water cycle, and how municipalities can better prevent pollutants from contaminating the greater watershed.

Sustainability: Water - Dead Trees & Dirty Water In The Rockies

The Rocky Mountains supply water to more than 60 million homes in the West, but this crucial water shed is in peril due to a tiny insect called the mountain pine beetle. Scientists Reed Maxwell of Colorado School of Mines and John Stednick of Colorado State University have teamed up to study the impact of the mountain pine beetle on water quantity and quality in the area.

Sustainability: Water - Sierra Nevada Snow Pack & Snow Melt

Snow melt from the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountain range provides drinking water to about 30% of California’s residents, irrigates key crops in the San Joaquin valley, and runs hydroelectric power plants that supply at least 15% of the state’s electricity. Scientists Martha Conklin and Tom Harmon of the University of California, Merced are conducting research at the Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory, using wireless sensor technology to more accurately measure snow pack and snow melt so that state water managers can make better decisions on how to allocate this precious resource.

Sustainability: Water - Nutrient Loading In Lake Erie

Part of the earth's largest surface freshwater system, Lake Erie is a vital source of drinking water for 11 million people. Researchers Anna Michalak, Tom Bridgeman, and Pete Richards are studying how farming practices and severe weather can increase the amount of fertilizer-derived nutrients in the water, which diminishes water quality and threatens the lake's ecosystem and the public's health.

Sustainability: Water - The Ogallala Aquifer

Farmers in Kansas and other states that sit atop the Ogallala aquifer – the largest freshwater aquifer in North America – are pumping out water for crop irrigation far faster than natural seepage of rainwater can replenish it. Scientist David Hyndman from Michigan State University is helping develop a plan to better manage this vital resource for sustainable farming.

Sustainability: Water - Los Angeles & Water Imports

The nearly 10 million people in the city and county of Los Angeles, California require a lot of water – most of which is imported snow melt from the Eastern Sierra Nevadas and Rocky Mountains, hundreds of miles away. UCLA researchers Stephanie Pincetl and Mark Gold are studying how Los Angeles can reduce its water imports and better capture, store and reuse water for a more sustainable water supply.

All video provided by the National Science Foundation and NBC Learn.

School of Sustainability Interim Dean Christopher Boone, together with Norman Yoffee of the Amerind Foundation, are co-editors of a book series to be published by Cambridge University Press.

The books will be based upon a series of events, where experts from various domains in the field of sustainability will explore selected facets of sustainability—ecology, politics, philosophy, art, justice, vulnerability, and long-term perspectives.

The first of these events was held in April, and papers submitted by the invited experts are now being compiled a book, which Boone hopes will set the tone for the rest of the book series.

The April seminar focused on traditional ecological knowledge and asked, “What can indigenous cultures teach us that adds to our body of sustainability knowledge, and how can we translate that knowledge, appropriately, to action?”

An ASU News article, Old becomes new: Traditional knowledge shapes sustainability thinking, helps put this complex topic into a context a lay audience might understand.

In April, we kicked off our seminar series with the topic of Traditional Ecological Knowledge. The seminar topic, proposed by Dan Shilling of Arizona State University and Melissa Nelson of San Francisco State University, was one of many proposed for this series.

It was an inspiring gathering, and we received many positive comments. In addition, an article about the conference and the book series was recently posted to ASU News. It includes a nice feature of presenter Simon Ortiz, and helps to put the complex topic of TEK into a context that a lay audience might understand.

Read the article: Old becomes new: Traditional knowledge shapes sustainability thinking

If you’ve ever enjoyed a world-renowned play at Arizona State University’s Gammage theater, you’ve probably taken a program or two home. But did you ever wonder about the trees that made those programs? ASU Gammage did.

Each year, ASU Gammage prints close to 350,000 programs. That’s a lot of trees.

To chip away at the impact, ASU Gammage has printed its programs and other marketing materials on FSC-certified paper with soy-based inks since 2010.

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In 2012, the United Nations Environment Programme published a report stating that within the next two decades, the world could see up to 60 million new jobs within the sustainability sector. To help students prepare for this change, the School of Sustainability is introducing new courses this fall that cover the social, economic, and environmental aspects of sustainability.

New courses include:

SOS 394: Energy Policy

SOS 394: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory

SOS 494: Sustainability and Social and Family Welfare

SOS 498: Sustainability Short-Form Documentary

In the July issue of Green Living magazine, contributor Cheryl Hurd talks with Gary Dirks, the new director of ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability and of ASU's LightWorks. So-called "light-inspired" research takes place at LightWorks, including solar power, clean fuel, and photosynthesis.

"When we talk about solar in the context of LightWorks, we don’t just mean solar panels," says Dirks. "There are a range of technologies, some for generating electrons and some for generating fuel. LightWorks is very much about solar-based energy but not simply photovoltaics."

Dirks also says Arizona has "fantastic solar energy" and LightWorks plans to implement more outreach and educational programs to promote solar use throughout the state.