Arizona State University's Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative (SPRI) welcomes two new undergraduate interns. Anna Elovitz is a junior undergraduate student at the School of Sustainability and the W.P. Carey School of Business, pursuing two bachelor of science degrees in sustainability and economics. Matthew Santino is a senior undergraduate student pursuing a bachelor of science degree in sustainability at the School of Sustainability.

SPRI recently facilitated two national surveys of local governments in Spain and South Korea. Anna and Matthew will be working with these survey data and developing reports that summarize the survey findings. They will be interning with SPRI until May 2022.

Anna is interested in working with SPRI because of the combination of sustainability and data analytics within the research projects and because sustainable purchasing is becoming a global priority. She feels this internship is a great opportunity to understand how countries can be more successful at advancing sustainable procurement. Matthew joined SPRI because government purchasing accounts for such a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. He believes purchasing is an important mechanism to reduce emissions. Both students are eager to learn more about how government spending impacts the advancement of sustainability policies and practices in Spain and South Korea.

Upon graduation, Anna plans to combine her passion for sustainability with her knowledge of economics to assess sustainability in supply chains and corporations. Matthew would like to work with a city government in urban planning and believes this internship provides an interesting opportunity to see what changes researchers can recommend at a city scale.

The SPRI team is pleased to welcome Anna and Matthew and appreciates their assistance in our ongoing sustainable purchasing research. SPRI's research could not be possible without student interns, student research assistants, and our global university partners who comprise the SPRI Fellows. We are looking forward to sharing the findings from Spain and South Korea mid 2022. In the meantime, please visit SPRI’s website to view our already published reports on local governments’ sustainable purchasing activities in United States, Mexico, Australia, Japan, and Italy.