Sustainability News

Sustainability scientist Julianna Gwiszcz is co-facilitating two sessions at this year's SRI Congress, hosted June 12-15, 2021, online and in Brisbane, Australia. The Sustainability Research & Innovation Congress 2021 (SRI2021) is the world’s first transdisciplinary gathering in sustainability – it will be a space of fierce advocacy for sustainability scholarship, innovation, collaboration and action.

This annual event unites global sustainability leaders, experts, industry and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation. For the first time, the Congress will launch as a live virtual event with a diverse and innovative online program. In addition to the 100+ sessions available throughout the day and night, thanks to the global reach of SRI and partners, the SRI2021 Online Package includes workshops, training and more.

Julianna Gwiszcz, will be co-facilitating two sessions on transforming narratives at this inaugural SRI Congress. Working with Narratives for Transformation is scheduled for Sunday, June 13, at 3:00 p.m. Arizona time. Exploring Dominant and Regenerative Narratives and the Worldviews they Reflect is set for Tuesday, June 15, 12:00 a.m. Arizona time.

Visit the congress website for more details and full agenda, and to register to participate.

Sustainability scientist and GIOSI deputy director Dave White and recent School of Sustainability PhD graduate J. Leah Jones published a paper, A social network analysis of collaborative governance for the food-energy-water nexus in Phoenix, AZ, USA, in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.

The authors conducted a social network analysis of food-energy-water nexus governance in the Phoenix metropolitan area, as part of a project funded by the National Science Foundation and led by Professor Ross Maciejewski from the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering. The social network analysis revealed challenges to collaborative governance of FEW nexus stakeholders, such as limited trust between actors. However, the research found that by leveraging bridging there are opportunities to increase collaborative governance between sectors. This study was a component of Jones’ dissertation.

The abstract follows.

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Registration for this year's virtual Global Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education (GCSHE) has officially opened.

Attendees can register today to reserve their spot for a virtual event that saw over 6,800 registrants last year bringing together more than 400 institutions from 36 countries.

Register today to explore this year's theme, "The Future Is...", and reflect with everyone on the uncertainty about the future that many feel while recommitting yourself to the urgent work of building a future that is sustainable, equitable and resilient. Ultimately, the future is ours to make.

Scientists and scholars are invited to join Project Cities and the City of Peoria to co-develop class projects for the 2021-2022 academic year. Peoria staff from 9 departments will join for a virtual workshop to develop proposed project scopes and discuss new ideas, with the aim of matching you and your students to a real project with real impacts. The program is designed to support most class formats and work across disciplines.

Project Cities is currently recruiting faculty to support the upcoming program cycle. Get in on the opportunity to meet our community partners early and secure an applied project for your students. This will be a virtual event with the freedom to move between round-table breakouts with city department staff, to discuss collaboration opportunities and learn more about their proposed projects.

Register for the virtual event, scheduled for June 24, 2021, from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m.

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Arizona State University faculty and staff are already members of AASHE, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. AASHE is home to the STARS rating sytem, offers professional development including webinars on sustainability curriculum, and provides a number of faculty resources, including a faculty community, awards and the annual AASHE Conference & Expo. AASHE's Campus Sustainability Hub is home to thousands of resources related to curriculum, research, operations and more. In addition, webinar archives are available for free to all AASHE members.

Here's how to activate a new account.

1. Visit aashe.org.
2. Click New Account in upper right.
3. Enter your name, asu.edu email address, and campus zip code. Continue.
4. Select an existing account, if you've previously logged in, or click New Account.
5. I am affiliated with: Type or scroll to "Arizona State University" (ID: 4531).
6. Role: Employee.
7. Add your profile and contact information.
8. Choose your contact preferences. Most faculty would be most interested in "AASHE Conference & Expo" – click the right arrow to move all else to the "opt out" column.
9. Add your department, discipline and position.
10. Continue to complete your registration.

School of Sustainability assistant professor Tyler DesRoches, sustainability fellow Daniel Fischer and their co-authors have published a new paper, Sustainable consumption communication: A review of an emerging field of research, in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

According to Fischer, the paper provides a review of sustainable consumption communication (SCC) as a field of research. Analyzing 67 papers, the authors describe 4 types of SCC research that conceptualize and relate the terms very differently.

The abstract follows.

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The IASC 2021 Conference: Knowledge Commons aims to bring together scholars and practitioners to address problems defined by knowledge systems. Topics include: innovation spaces; digital resources like Wikipedia and Stack exchange; open-source software development; the future of science and education; the archival of existing knowledge; cultural commons; and citizen science. More information and registration.

Submit a scientific session or workshop proposal for the 2022 AAAS Annual Meeting. This year’s meeting theme, Empower With Evidence, aims to inspire sessions that illustrate the transformative power of evidence-based discoveries and that address the challenges of rebuilding the public trust in science and focuses on science literacy, evidence-based decision making, and the use of validated knowledge to drive public policy for the benefit of all.

The deadline to submit a proposal for Scientific Sessions and Workshops is June 17, 2021. If you would just like to attend a session or workshop, meeting registration will open in September. To submit a proposal or learn more, visit the AAAS website.

Competitive Intelligence is the ethical collection and analysis of information to provide actionable intelligence for informed decision-making. The Competitive Intelligence Working Group (CIWG) is open to anyone who is currently performing strategic and competitive intelligence activities, or interested in learning more about this growing area in research development. Our members are primarily professional staff in higher education who are advancing the research activities of their institutions.

The CIWG meets and discusses best practices, shares useful resources, and creates a network of academic professionals across the nation who seek to define how CI is used and is perceived in the academic environment. This group connects with colleagues from other universities to expand our understanding of how research development professionals are working with CI and to share common issues and interests.

Bring your questions to the year-end session, May 25, 10:00 a.m. AZ time. Learn more and register. ASUrite login required.

What do Indigenous futurisms and climate fiction have in common? To find out, listen to Indigenous Futurisms And Climate Fiction, a recent episode of "Word" — a KJZZ original podcast about the literary arts in Arizona and the region.

The May 11 episode included Joey Eschrich, editor and program manager for the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University and assistant director of Future Tense, a partnership of ASU, New America, and Slate that explores emerging technology, public policy, and society.

In collaboration with ASU’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, Eschrich runs the Everything Change global climate fiction contest. A new anthology of climate fiction, Everything Change can be downloaded for free.

This year, undergraduate student William Walker had the privilege of executing one of his goals, which was to bring representation to overlooked identities in sustainability through a student-led course.

With support from the School of Sustainability, Walker developed a student-led, faculty-advised course named "Intersectional Environmentalism and Sustainability." The course, which included undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, examined how identities such as race, class, and gender create different realities for different people and how those people navigate the world around them.

According to Walker, students in the class taught the class on topics such as Black representation in sustainability, ecofeminism, and Indigenous leadership in sustainability. Walker said, "This initiative was awe-inspiring because it broadened student's horizons on what inclusion really means."

A web page describing the course and all the students' topics was created by fellow students Tahiry Langrand and Jordan Sene.

University students will strengthen their mapping proficiency with a new online platform. The YouthMappers Academy is a new online learning platform for network members. The Academy will strengthen YouthMappers students’ knowledge and proficiency to work with the ecosystem of OpenStreetMap software and tools and the social and organizational skills related to creating open spatial data for humanitarian and development needs.

Sustainability scholar Patricia Solis is co-founder and director of YouthMappers, a rapidly-growing consortium of student-led chapters on more than 264 university campuses in 58 countries who create and use open spatial data for humanitarian and development needs in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development, the main co-founding sponsor.

YouthMappers Academy course materials encourage YouthMappers to engage more confidently in open mapping communities and seek to stimulate critical thinking around research and mapping activities, leading to higher quality outputs. The added opportunity to earn micro-credentials will enhance YouthMappers’ job marketability by providing formal recognition of proficiency and achievement in targeted geospatial techniques and concepts.

Read more about the YouthMappers Academy in the May 17, 2021, press release.

Broadening access to higher education. Advancing research that helps people. Taking responsibility for the communities it serves. These are promises laid out in ASU’s charter, and now — to better fulfill those promises — they are the three “pillars” around which the university will organize its efforts going forward. Get a crash course in the Academic, Knowledge and Learning enterprises that will guide the university’s efforts going forward from ASU News.

Many consumers rarely think about where the food and products they buy come from, nor do they understand how harmful the production of these items can be on people and our environment.

In fact, these consumer goods are responsible for 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions, two-thirds of tropical deforestation, 80% of global water use and three-quarters of forced and child labor. That’s a message that Arizona State University’s Sustainability Consortium (TSC) tries to convey to the public in their annual impact report.

This report, released on May 13, shows the work they do is helping consumer goods companies have a positive impact on the planet.

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In 1980, the Arizona Legislature passed the Groundwater Management Act after decades of rapid expansion of farms, industries and cities pushed the use of groundwater to unsustainable levels.

A key goal of the Groundwater Management Act is to achieve "safe-yield" by 2025. "Safe-yield" is a balance between the amount of groundwater withdrawn and the renewal of that resource in the Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott regions.

As Colorado River water becomes less available, parts of Arizona will need to rely more and more on groundwater, increasing the urgency to preserve it as a savings account for a drying future.

But less than four years away from 2025, meeting and sustaining this goal will likely be impossible under the Arizona Department of Water Resources’ current regulatory authority.

The Myth of Safe-Yield, a new report by the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Morrison Institute, explores what stands in the way of safe-yield and the limits of safe-yield. It offers new strategies and actions that should be considered to secure the long-term sustainability of groundwater in some of Arizona’s most populous regions.

It's considerably less costly to provide permanent supportive housing to people with chronic mental illness than if they experience frequent homelessness. This according to Housing is Health Care, a Morrison Institute report released May 12 concludes.

Some individuals with serious mental illness experience severe, long-term symptoms of their disease. They may lack insight into their condition, not adhere to treatment, and have high support needs, among other challenges.

These individuals can be considered to have a chronic form of serious mental illness. Without appropriate treatment, support, and housing, they can experience recurrent crisis episodes, homelessness, and frequent interactions with emergency, criminal justice, and health systems, incurring great public expense.

The Morrison Institute study examines how housing and in-home supports affect public spending on individuals with chronic mental illness in Maricopa County and outlines recommendations from interviews with dozens of experts who work with and care for individuals with chronic mental illness in Maricopa County about reducing costs and improving care.

During the Spring board of directors meeting, the United States Energy Association confirmed Nathan Johnson to its board of directors. Johnson is a senior sustianability scientist and associate professor in The Polytechnic School at ASU. Johnson and Babcock Power president Michael LeClair were appointed by USEA executive chairman Vicky Bailey.

According to Johnson, USEA's mission is to enhance energy access and energy security for developing countries, and the relationship with ASU will allow both organizations to provide greater innovation to the energy sector and increase solutions research delivered globally.

USEA Acting Executive Director Sheila Hollis said: "Given the global pandemic, changing international energy patterns, and accelerating technological innovation, USEA continues its important mission to inform and promote a nonpolitical dialogue on energy policy and technical developments. The arrival of these two new members diversifies and strengthens the already outstanding experience we are fortunate to have on USEA’s Board.”

The Art in Focus gallery highlights artwork from the museum's permanent collection. As ASU Art Museum, along with many museums across the country, actively works to build a more diverse collection that tells a representative history of art, they make it a priority to collect and exhibit artists who have been marginalized. A recent study of the artists represented in the collections of eighteen major American art museums found that only 12.6% are women.

This installation features works on paper, ceramics, baskets and wood objects made by a range of influential women artists, including Betye Saar, Faith Ringgold, Sandra Ramos, Maria Martinez, Rose Cabat and Louise Nevelson.

To ensure the well-being of all our visitors and staff, we ask that you please comply with our new ASU and city guidelines to keep all of us safe. Reserve your free timed-entry tickets and learn more about the museum's new guidelines before visiting.

Image credit: Yolanda M. Lopez, “Women's Work is Never Done” (from 10x10: Ten Women/ Ten Prints portfolio), 1995, Screenprint, serigraph, 18 color, on Lenox 100 paper, 20 1/8 x 19 1/2 in. (51.12 x 49.53 cm). Gift of the Arizona Print Forum, ASU.

Join ASU's Universal Design and Access Technology (UDAT) Working Group for a morning of virtual, interactive presentations to raise awareness and understanding of digital access and inclusion for the more than 1 billion people with disabilities and impairments.

The 2021 Global Accessibility Awareness Day virtual conference is a great introduction to accessibility for faculty, staff and students who create online content. Virtually "drop-in" for one or more sessions!

Topics include accessible course design, inclusive pedagogy and ASU accessibility resources. More information and registration.

The IASC 2021 Conference: Polycentric Governance aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from various sectors, disciplines, and epistemological traditions to advance our understanding of how polycentric governance works in practice and share knowledge as a diverse research community.

This virtual event is one of a series of Our Commons Future conferences organized by the International Association for the Study of the Commons. Future topics include water commons, knowledge commons, and land and forest commons. Learn more and register.