By: Dylan Shapiro and Rutva Patel, Masters students working with ASU LightWorks on the Digital Carbon Warehouse

This week’s blog post will address some of the nuances and misconceptions of the monster-under-the-bed that is scope 3 emissions. Diving right in, what really distinguishes scope 3 from scopes 1 and 2? The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines scope 3 as, “the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organization, but that the organization indirectly impacts in its value chain.” A value chain is the full network and processes that support a particular business. This scope 3 definition is a very high-level explanation that creates a lot of gray areas for businesses and institutions. This ambiguity, complemented by the fact that organizations are not mandated to report on scope 3, takes the pressure off industries to address a significant aspect of decarbonization, let alone in a meaningful way. Scope 3 emissions are the epitome of the last mile and no marathon is complete until one goes the full distance. Greenhouse Gas Protocol's accounting and reporting standard, "Technical Guidance for Calculating Scope 3 Emissions" provides a helpful animation to visualize what activities are associated with scope 3 emissions.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on.

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The WE Empower Challenge honors innovative women leaders from around the world who are pushing the SDGs forward through sustainable business practices and inspiring others to follow suit. The opportunity recognizes their innovative work and provides Awardees with capacity-building training sessions and opportunities to connect with an unparalleled global network to advance their enterprises.

In 2021, the WE Empower Challenge Awardees will participate in events surrounding the 76th UN General Assembly as well as will connect with renowned business experts from around the world.

Applications are due April 15, 2021.

Our March newsletter features an invitation to our upcoming USAID/RTAC virtual workshop, inspiring articles about sustainability in business, and relevant events. Read about Nike's 2025 sustainability goals and learn why sustainability should be part of your business model.

View the full newsletter in your browser.

Researchers at the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology and their colleagues have been awarded the 2021 Rudolph Hering Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. Their lauded study describes new approaches to rid ecosystems of a dangerous chlorinated chemical known as trichloroethene.

The prestigious award recognizes the best paper of the preceding year from the Journal of Environmental Engineering. Sustainability scientists Bruce Rittmann and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown are among the authors of the paper, entitled Modeling Trichloroethene Reduction, Methanogenesis, and Homoacetogenesis in a H2-Based Biofilm.

Read more on the Biodesign website. The paper's abstract follows.

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With more than 250 presenters, this event will dig into best practices for community-university collaborations. Registration is free. March 24-26. More information.

Want to take your research or teaching abroad? Thinking about applying for Fulbright? Join the Office of the University Provost on March 24 for ASU’s Fulbright Day. There will be a number of information sessions covering the Fulbright specialist, scholar and student programs. The event is open to all ASU faculty, staff and students.

More information and registration.

Margaux Hein is an ecologist specializing in restoring coral reefs and linking theory to practice. Her work seeks to better assist managers and practitioners in designing, implementing, and monitoring their restoration efforts.

In this Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science Monthly Seminar, set for March 25 at noon Arizona time, Hein will review the status and trends in the field of coral reef restoration and present results from her research on its long-term effectiveness.

More information and Zoom link.

The Urban Resilience Project at Island Press has published a free, online e-book: Resilience Matters: Reimagining the Future in a Tumultuous Year. The book compiles reporting from the previous year and includes diverse thought leaders in climate, health, politics, water, smart growth, and racial justice.

Authors include ASU sustainability scientists Ann Kinzig and Shade Shutters. These fresh insights from on-the-ground practitioners offer alternatives to the unsustainable, inequitable status quo.

Nature Partner Journals announces its inaugural issue of npj Urban Sustainability, an open-access, online-only journal dedicated to publishing high-quality papers that describe the significant and ground-breaking research covering urban environments through the lens of sustainable development, studied across a broad range of research topics.

Several of the articles in the inaugural issue feature work from ASU's Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network.

Read the inaugural editorial.

Read the ASU Now story

Throughout April, which is also Earth Month and Citizen Science Month, the ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes invites the ASU community and the entire state of Arizona to participate in a citizen science project to help us document flowering plants and pollinators on ASU’s Phoenix-area campuses.

Watch the promo video.

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Dave White, deputy director of ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, was featured March 8 on the KAET news and current affairs program Horizon, where he discussed the dependability of electricity, gas and water in times of extreme and/or unexpected weather.

“What we saw in Texas is a classic example of what we call cascading risk, so an extreme weather event in this case extreme cold, caused disruption to the states electrical grid. That disruption and power loss subsequently caused a number of other impacts including disruption to water systems, disruptions to transportation networks, unfortunately loss of life, and a variety of other impacts to the residents of Texas,” White said.

Asked whether something similar can happen in Arizona, White responded, “Yes absolutely. Although we’re doing everything we can to prepare for and to prevent such disasters from affecting us here in Arizona, we should be aware of these risks and how these risks can affect us here."

Watch the full interview on KAET.

The Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems focuses on innovative ideas and solutions to the many challenges of current food systems. In this series, we’re sitting down with the Swette Center affiliated faculty to catch up on food systems, innovation, and what makes a good meal.

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BioScience journalist Randy Showstack interviewed ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber in an article published today titled “Ensuring that Science Has a Seat at the Table.”

In this article, Gerber shares her insights on the importance of translating scientific research into decision-making tools across all sectors. “Evidence and science should be used for decision-making across the board, especially in natural disasters,” she explains.

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Written by Jane Coghlan, Sustainable Food Systems Undergraduate Student

Did you know that ASU Tempe campus is a food forest? There is a diverse community of trees all throughout campus that grow edible fruit such as oranges, grapefruits, peaches, pecans, kumquats, lemons, and more.

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ASU School of Sustainability Research Professor Jack Kittinger led a recently published paper titled “Applying a jurisdictional approach to support sustainable seafood” in Conservation Science and Practice.

Other co-authors include School of Life Sciences graduate students from the Conservation Innovation Lab, Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber and affiliated faculty.

This publication is the result of the ASU-Conservation International partnership.

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“A half-trillion corals live in just one ocean. Does that mean they are safe?”

This is the title of a new Science article published on March 4, 2021, by Elizabeth Pennisi, quoting ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Associate Center Director Beth Polidoro, among other scientists.

Polidoro is an associate professor in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, New College, and also helps lead the partnership between ASU and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

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In this inaugural Distinguished KAITEKI Lecture, Stratos Pistikopoulos will present the foundations of a Circular Economy Systems Engineering framework and highlight the advantages, limitations, and open questions of this framework as seen through multiple case studies.

Register to attend via Zoom. More information.

In honor of International Women's Day and Women's History Month, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Educational Outreach and Student Services, and the ASU SDG5 Coalition are curating a series of events that showcase ASU’s partnerships advancing Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and Girls.

Join us on International Women's Day, March 8th at 11am MST (6pm GMT/1pm EST) for the first event of the series. We will launch the WE Empower UN SDG Challenge 2021 and examine the barriers women face with World Bank Women, Business, and the Law. To learn how ASU is combatting these challenges by partnering with global organizations on SDG5 initiatives, join us to hear from Inter-Parliamentary Union Secretary General, Martin Chungong, ASU's Inaugural SDG5 Male Champion for Change.

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Last month's winter storms proved Texas' utility systems are not prepared to persevere through extreme weather, but what about the rest of the nation? Or the planet?

It goes without saying that more extreme weather events are on the horizon. In the latest thought leadership piece for Medium by Peter Schlosser, Steven Beschloss, Clea Edwards and Jason Franz, we look at how Texas responded to their lack of preparation and how the rest of the nation and the world can avoid a similar collapse.

Given that electrification is not only a cornerstone to a functioning modern society but also central to the success of critical infrastructure systems supporting water, food, fuel, and much more, this lack of preparedness is stunning. But Texas is not alone in the failure to adequately prepare. While Texas did intentionally place itself on an energy island, isolating itself from the two national grid systems that allow for greater backup and sharing, it should be seen as a bellwether of growing and increasingly interconnected threats. In California, for example, rising heat levels and massive wildfires crippled its energy system and required rolling blackouts.

We can hope that this catastrophic failure of preparedness will be a loud signal to leadership in Texas and beyond to confront the flaws of their systems amid continuing climate change. But hope is not enough: It will take massive new resources, rethinking the national and regional power grid systems, and redesigning them so that they are resilient enough to withstand extreme weather conditions.

Read the full article here.

Gary Dirks, senior director of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and executive director of ASU LightWorks, recently sat down for a conversation with Marc Serber from the International Policy Digest. In this exchange, Dirks shares ASU's history in energy research and why this pandemic has shined a brighter light on the need to transition fuel sourcing and production away from fossils and to renewables.

"Well, COVID-19 has had a very negative impact on the oil industry, and it’s probably the last nail in the coffin for coal also," Dirks said. "I think it’s drawn forward a lot of the thinking about the pace at which we aim to decarbonize, probably by as much as 10 years, and that has opened up a lot more thinking about how and when we actually deploy renewable energy."

Read the full interview here, and learn more about the work going on at LightWorks.