In 2007, Arizona State University was ahead of the curve when it came to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s when ASU pledged to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions from campus operations by 2025. To underscore the urgency to act, ASU reached that goal six years early — on June 30, 2019.
Increased energy efficiency in both new buildings and campus retrofits; on-site solar generation; renewable energy purchases from large-scale, off-site generation facilities; and purchase of carbon offsets and renewable energy were all deployed while growing the student population and undertaking a physical expansion of all ASU’s campuses.
This action is one key element of many initiatives that have helped ASU also earn the STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) Platinum sustainability rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. STARS is a framework for colleges and universities to measure their comprehensive sustainability performance.
Platinum is the highest certification awarded in the STARS program and ASU is one of only six universities in the world to achieve the STARS Platinum rating.
Thirteen years ago, Arizona State University made the pioneering promise to completely eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from its campus operations by the year 2025. But on June 30, 2019, the university accomplished that goal, six years ahead of schedule. This remarkable achievement—completed even as ASU’s student population ballooned—was one of many initiatives that earned the university the prestigious STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System) Platinum sustainability rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, attitudes in the United States concerning environmentalism have gradually evolved from a focus on addressing pollution to a focus on protecting and nurturing our ecosystems. And as that transformation has taken place over the decades, two Arizona State University professors have been there to witness it all.
Joni Adamson, the President's Professor of Environmental Humanities in the Department of English and director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, and Paul Hirt, a professor of history specializing in the American West, environmental history and policy and sustainability studies, shared their thoughts on how the country’s attitude toward saving the planet changed in an interview with ASU Now. Both Adamson and Hirt acknowledged that there’s been a shift in focus each decade, including in Arizona:
We live in an era of rapid societal and environmental changes. Arizona State University's Narrative Storytelling Initiative wants to know: how do you envision the future?
The coronavirus pandemic may have upended life as we know it, but there are a few things that haven’t changed, like the fact that it’s currently Earth Month at Arizona State University. To mark the occasion, Siobhan Lyon and Emmery Ledin, two members on the sustainability committee of the ASU staff council created the Earth Month Learning Series, a sequence of online discussions that are a part of ASU’s recognition of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
Experts are in agreement that one of the most effective ways to combat climate change is through an overhaul of our food system. Arizona State University chemistry instructor Zhihao Chen is working to take us one step closer to that reality.
How? Chen has created an innovative way of growing food called “cleantech.” A system that can work anywhere, cleantech is contained in two standard shipping containers. The first container is used to break down food waste, relying on a process called anaerobic digestion where certain bacteria under specific conditions break down the carbon chain in food waste, transforming it into fertilizer and methane. This container can process the same amount of waste an average grocery store discards each day.
This article was written by William H. Walker VI, a sophomore in the School of Sustainability. Edited December 2, 2020 by Alana Burnham.
From left to right: Team members Fatou Bintou Sarr, Sidikarou Badiane, Braedon Kantola, and Alana Burnham pose with a CFSA participant at a sabar or drum circle in Boulel, Senegal.
Imagine you are in rural Senegal, working on a farm. It's your livelihood, your culture, and a part of your well-being. You grow millet, peanuts, maybe even some tomatoes or eggplant. You do all you can to take care of your farm and your family. Yet, there is cause for concern: locusts and grasshoppers. One day, your field is suddenly overtaken by a swarm. You call your government’s USDA equivalent, but by the time agents arrive to spray pesticides, your harvest is all gone. How can you prevent this? What can be done to empower farmers? One way is by teaching them to identify and monitor pest species, so that they can inform authorities early on and outbreaks can easily be controlled. That’s what a team at Global Locust Initiative is working on, as a part of their larger project Communities for Sustainable Agriculture (CFSA) funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. Collaborating with the Senegalese Plant Protection Directorate (Direction de la Protection des Végétaux or DPV), locust experts in Senegal and France, and Senegalese community members, the team created a booklet on identification of locally relevant locust and grasshopper species. Master of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) student Braedon Kantola assisted this team as a part of his culminating experience—which brought him all the way to Senegal.
In February 2020, Kantola accompanied booklet-lead and outreach specialist Alana Burnham to communities in central Senegal, where the team workshopped symbols and illustrations developed for the identification booklet. Along with local locust experts Sidikarou Badiane, Alioune Beye, and Fatou Bintou Sarr, they met with 100 farmers to gather feedback.
Entomologist Fatou Bintou Sarr presents the first edition of the identification booklet to CFSA participants in Nganda, Senegal.
The finished identification booklet covers several topics: a general background on locust and grasshopper anatomy; species identification information such as markings, habitat, and diet; and contact information for local DPV agents. Written in French and Wolof, Senegal’s predominant local language, the booklet includes illustrations developed by Kara Brooks, a graduate student at the Herberger Institute for the Design and the Arts. This resource will complement a previous booklet on monitoring techniques, which is now available on GLI’s website.
A CFSA participant in Nganda, Senegal, reads a finished booklet on locust management. Participants in Nganda helped provide feedback on the booklets during the revision process.
During his time in Senegal, Kantola visited several rural communities, picked up a few phrases of Wolof, and even participated in a few Senegalese sabar or drum circles. Says Kantola, “having worked on this project has opened my eyes to so many experiences and learning opportunities.”
In the latest thought leader piece from the Global Futures Laboratory, "COVID-19: The Ultimate Stress Test for Our Global Futures," 21 co-authors from across disciplines at Arizona State University explore how COVID-19 is shaking our societal foundations and revealing how vulnerable our systems are to shocks — even though we've long had evidence that something like this could happen. The authors discuss what this pandemic means for society, make connections to the way we as a global population are handling climate change, and outline opportunities for optimal future responses.
According to the United Nations, the year 2050 could see more than 5 billion people suffer water shortages as a result of climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies. This forecast means that now more than ever, it’s important to create new ways of obtaining sustainable drinking water. One person working to make that a reality is Arizona State University professor Cody Friesen.
Arianne Cease and Ariane Middel, two senior sustainability scientists in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, recently received the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award. The award is given to the country’s most promising young faculty and it provides them with funding for five years to pursue outstanding research.
Arizona State University’s Healthy Urban Environments Initiative awarded an innovative team of science students from the Arizona College Prep-Erie Campus with a $50,000 grant for their work on a heat stroke prevention device. With funding, these 9th and 10th graders will build a prototype of the device to test on student athletes.
According to Rachna Nath, a science teacher for the ACP-Erie campus, she and the students have been working with Chandler Innovations on the project since August 2019. After testing the device, they will report all data collected to the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, of which HUE is a unit.
Editor's note: Although this summer's Tokyo Olympics have been postponed due to COVID-19, there is a possibility they will be rescheduled to next summer. With Tokyo's extreme summer heat and humidity, dangers to health would remain. The following information holds true for August in Tokyo, including August 2021.
This summer’s Tokyo Olympics are expected to be one of the hottest Olympic Games on record. According to Jennifer Vanos, an assistant professor in Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, long-term climatology tells us that the question is not if it will be hot and humid in Tokyo, but rather how much hotter than normal it could be. In an effort to obtain more precision on these marginal differences and how the extreme heat will impact athletes, spectators and volunteers, Vanos and an interdisciplinary group of global researchers just published a paper in the journal Temperature.
ASU psychologist Athena Aktipis and collaborators weigh in
Cooperation is essential during a pandemic. As societies deal with the rise of disease in different ways, a consistent theme is that knowing how diseases spread and evolve can put you in a much better position to evaluate what is or isn’t a real threat.
We asked Arizona State University’s resident expert on cooperation, Athena Aktipis, and some of her collaborators about how to encourage cooperation during a pandemic. Aktipis is an assistant professor of psychology in the ASU Department of Psychology who studies cooperation and cheating and co-directs the Human Generosity Project.
As ASU continues to monitor COVID-19, the university is temporarily transitioning classes wherever possible to remote teaching and learning, starting March 16, 2020. The university’s primary goal is the continuation of classes and the commitment to high-quality delivery of learning. ASU has collected all the resources available to you on one website so that you are prepared to teach, learn and work through digital remote options.
Right now, there are hundreds of billions of locusts wreaking havoc on vegetation across Africa. Experts are sounding the alarm, including United Nations humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, who said the swarm has the potential to be "the most devastating plague of locusts in any of our living memories if we don't reduce the problem faster than we're doing at the moment."
The outbreak has hit East Africa particularly hard as many countries in the region are heavily dependent on agriculture. Locust swarms devastate food crops and raise food insecurity, an issue many of the countries already struggle with. According to the UN, the swarms are the largest in Somalia and Ethiopia in 25 years and the largest in Kenya in 70 years. In Kenya, Joseph Katone Leparole — who has lived in the hamlet, Wamba, for most of his 68 years — described the plague as being similar to an umbrella covering the sky.
In a global economy, it is not unusual for decisions made on one end of the world to affect what goes on in the opposite end of the globe. So, when China decided in 2018 to limit the number of reusable materials it accepted from the United States (due to their recycling facilities becoming overwhelmed), many Arizona cities like Mesa, Tucson and Casa Grande were compelled to reduce or eliminate their recycling programs.
In 2004, Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow convened a meeting in Temozón, Mexico, of a small but distinguished group of intellectual leaders who were exploring a new idea: sustainability science. Could sustainability be a core value of a large public research university?
It would have to instruct and inspire new generations. It would have to solve pressing real-world problems. And it would have to walk its talk.
On the 15th anniversary of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, ASU has proven it can do all of that and more. Read more about the accomplishments and evolution of the ASU Wrigley Institute in these ASU Now stories:
As we continue to grapple with the adverse effects of climate change, there is a renewed urgency about the need to transition to renewable sources of energy. However, transitioning comes with its own set of challenges, some of which include the high costs of some alternate sources of energy and questions about their efficiency. One renewable source of energy that ticks both of the previous boxes is solar energy.
Solar energy, while quite expensive, still remains one of the most promising sources of alternate energy. It’s why researchers at the Holman Research Group in Arizona State University have been working on innovative ways to reduce its cost. Led by Zachary Holman, an associate professor of electrical engineering and a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, the research team has published new findings in the science journal Joule that show how a minute change to the industry-standard silicon wafers significantly enhances solar cell composition.
Pakistan. Somalia. Ethiopia. Kenya. Locust swarms of near biblical proportions are currently wreaking havoc across a wide swath of southwest Asia and east Africa.
According to the United Nations, the swarms are the largest in Somalia and Ethiopia in 25 years, and the most severe in Kenya in 70 years. Firdous Ashiq Awan, Pakistan’s special assistant to the prime minister for information and broadcasting, called the infestation the “worst in more than two decades.” Both Pakistan and Somalia have declared national emergencies as they struggle to contain the impact of the pests' invasion. As a testament to the significance of the threat, Somalia’s Ministry of Agriculture warned that the locusts posed “a major threat to Somalia’s fragile food security situation.” It was a sentiment echoed by Qu Dongyu, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization.
Across the globe, wildfires continue to occur with increasing frequency and higher intensity. The world watched in shock as the still-burning flames in Australia engulfed thousands of homes, scorched millions of acres and burned alive more than a billion animals. The unprecedented disaster has experts worried.
In the latest thought leader piece from the Global Futures Laboratory, "A world on fire: Will we respond?," Peter Schlosser, Clea Edwards, Steven Beschloss, Nina Berman and Upmanu Lall discuss the impacts of the devastating fires in Australia and our collective responsibility to act. "It is the responsibility of all of us — Australian or not — to take this staggering moment to work for change on a global scale," they say.
In 2007, Arizona State University was ahead of the curve when it came to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. That’s when ASU pledged to reach zero greenhouse gas emissions from campus operations by 2025. To underscore the urgency to act, ASU reached that goal six years early — on June 30, 2019.
