Three sustainability scientists have presented recently at events hosted by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Mathematics.

In November, Nancy Grimm presented the academic perspective on the topic of urban sustainability, as part of the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability. Grimm was one of three presenters during the hour-long webinar. View Grimm’s presentation, or watch the full event.

In December, Marty Anderies and B.L. Turner II presented during a three-day workshop, Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities for Sustainability Science. The workshop’s steering committee included board members Pamela Matson and William Clark. Explore videos of the entire workshop here.

Anderies was a panelist on the topic of adapting to shocks and surprise. View Anderies' presentation video, and review his slides. Turner presented on the topic of sustainability science as a growing field of scholarship. Watch Turner's presentation video and review his slides.

By: Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, Angela Fox

In 2001, Japan's Ministry of Environment partnered with the Japanese Green Purchasing Network to create a "green product database" to help sub-national governments pursue sustainable purchasing. Municipal governments are encouraged to adopt green purchasing and have this database as a resource to guide their endeavors.Government purchases in Japan account for 19.8% of the gross domestic product. Examples of these items include vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials. Collectively, they contribute to global climate change and other environmental concerns.

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Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, Angela Fox

Japanese governmental purchases account for 19.8% of its gross domestic product. These purchases include vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials, to name a few. Collectively, these purchases are significant contributors to global climate change and other environmental concerns. Green purchasing policies are one way that Japan can significantly curb environmental impacts while stimulating the global demand for green products and services. For this reason, Japan's national government has developed guidelines for "green" or environmentally conscious purchasing.

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By: Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, Angela Fox

In Japan, sustainable purchasing policies are required at the national and federal level. To assist, Japan’s Ministry of Environment has developed guidelines for "green" or environmentally conscious purchasing. At the municipal level, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that implementation is inconsistent, which means they are missing important opportunities to improve the environment.

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The NASEM Gulf Research Program is accepting applications for the 2021 GRP Early-Career Research Fellowship Track 1: Human Health and Community Resilience. Applications are due January 13.

The Gulf Research Program’s Early-Career Research Fellowship supports emerging scientific leaders as they take risks on research ideas not yet tested, pursue unique collaborations, and build a network of colleagues who share their interest in improving offshore energy system safety and the well-being of coastal communities and ecosystems.

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On December 8, 2020, 35 participants learned from ASU’s Research Data Management Officer, Phil Tarrant, about the research data support services offered by Knowledge Enterprise and the ASU Library. They then shared their own best practices and lessons learned, in a robust dialogue about their work in decision support tools and research. Read the event recap here.

If there is one takeaway that is relevant for all sustainability scientists and scholars, it is to affiliate your new or existing ORCID with ASU. ORCID is your research “social security number,” unique to you. Consider it your system of record for research activity and fill out your profile completely.

The event presentation on research data management services, which begins at 03:38 of the event video, touches on a free electronic research notebook solution, ASU’s research data repository, and recommendations for developing decision support tools and models.

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“It is important to allow yourself to make mistakes because it is most often that you learn faster and quicker through making mistakes than to try very hard to avoid them. Your growth path is extremely restricted if you try to be perfect all the time”.

WE Empower UN SDG Challenge Finalist, Radhika Chaudhary - CFO and Co-Founder, Deeya Panel Products Private Limited, India

2020 WE Empower Finalist, Asia Pacific

Plastic waste is leading to significant environmental and humanitarian challenges across the world. Radhika Chaudhary is addressing these issues in India through her company, Deeya Panel Products Private Limited, which is paving the way for a future that is better equipped to handle the unprecedented effects that plastic waste is having on ecosystems and society. WE Empower intern, Sidney McKee, interviewed Chaudhary and explains how Deeya Panel Products Private Limited is leading to innovative uses of plastic waste that also hold great importance in creating a better future.

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Sustainability scientist Mikhail Chester, director of ASU’s Resilient Infrastructure Laboratory, has published a new book. Urban Infrastructure: Reflections for 2100 is an edited volume imagining infrastructure transitions and goals at end-of-century.

The book overview follows.

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Dec. 9: Rae Zimmerman, the NYU lead for ASU's Urban Resilience to Extremes Sustainability Research Network, will present a new UREx researcher-practitioner paper on GI and stormwater management as part of the "Innovative Initiatives 2" session.

The presentation will take place on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, from 14:25 - 14:40 CET time (6:25 a.m. AZ time). See p. 5 of the program for more details.

Read the paper, and register for the event.

How can you recognize human-caused climate change with natural causes for elevated carbon dioxide? Do scientists agree that humans activity is behind global warming? Why should we care about biodiversity? These are some of the questions two of our ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes scientists, Leah Gerber and Steffen Eikenberry, help answer in this Q&A segment of ASU Now – Discoveries.

Gerber is a professor in the School of Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes. Eikenberry is a postdoctoral research associate in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.

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What are the challenges and opportunities facing the incoming Biden Administration as they confront the realities of climate change? What will be their likely priorities—domestically and internationally—and how will they engage the diverse collection of stakeholders?

Join us for a special interview by Emmy-award-winning television journalist and Global Futures Fellow Frank Sesno with former White House Senior Director for Energy and Climate Change John E. Morton, who was responsible for coordinating policies and strategies on international energy and climate change issues for the Obama administration.

Hosted by the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, this one-hour live Zoom event starts at 10 AM MT on Friday, Dec. 18. Register via Zoom.

ASU’s Community Capital Lab, led by sustainability scientist Mark Roseland, has published the Sustainable Maryvale StoryMap. Developed in collaboration with ASU’s Design Studio for Community Solutions, the tool focuses on a Phoenix, Arizona neighborhood to demonstrate how we can localize the Sustainable Development Goals. The Lab proposes using six forms of Community Capital to redirect local systems toward community sustainability by localizing the SDGs. Sustainable Maryvale demonstrates the value of this approach at the neighborhood level and how it can be replicated in neighborhoods across the US and beyond.

The Sustainable Maryvale StoryMap has been submitted to the 2020 ArcGIS StoryMap Competition for the Sustainable Development Goals hosted by ESRI and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). Winners will be announced in February 2021. ASU is one of more than 850 university members of the SDSN. The SDSN was established in 2012 to mobilize global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable development, including the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

On December 2, 2020, ASU Project Cities hosted our 7th biannual Student Showcase for the Fall 2020 semester. The event included video slideshow presentations from each student project group as well as Q&A sessions for more in-depth conversations about student’s recommendations for city leadership. The projects spanned a variety of topics, ranging from waste management and communicating during the pandemic, to developing smart towns, and sustainable parks. This transdisciplinary group of students had undergraduates, graduates, or individual capstone students from different backgrounds and educational interests.

This semester, the program supported 12 new projects and 240 students participated. Students partnered with two communities: the City of Peoria and the Town of Clarkdale. A video recording of the event is available on our Youtube channel.

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Biodiversity is the variety of living species on Earth and the ecosystems they form. We need biodiversity for many critical functions of our lives as humans. From food production to medicine to clean air and water, biodiversity plays a crucial role in sustaining human populations across the globe.

So, how does this relate to extinction? What happens to an ecosystem when a species goes extinct? When will the next mass extinction occur? Can we bring back a species from extinction?

Join Leah Gerber as she walks us through these topics and describes reasons for hope in sustaining life on our planet in a series of curated videos produced in partnership with EdPlus as part of their Learn with Me initiative.

Gerber is a professor in the School of Life Sciences and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Outcomes.

Join sustainability scientist Peter Byck, producer and director of carbon nation and carbon cowboys, for a premiere of his students' work this semester. The event format will be to showcase one film, then do a Q&A with the filmmakers, then repeat for the second film. Join via Zoom on Friday, December 11, at 10:00 a.m. Arizona time.

The Visitors demonstrates how the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of wildlife and parks to human health and well-being, while addressing waste management and other pressing sustainability challenges.

Inseparable provides a perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic as a wake-up call to our inextricable connection to the Earth and an opportunity for us to reconnect to nature to find peace amidst increasing uncertainty.

The Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy announces a call for proposals for their Babbitt Dissertation Fellowship.

The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy established the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy in 2017. The Babbitt Center is focusing on the Colorado River Basin, beginning in Arizona and Colorado and expanding throughout the Basin. The Babbitt Center takes a four-pronged approach to securing a better water future: 1) research; 2) innovation; 3) build and strengthen partnerships; and 4) education. Read more.

The center invites applications from doctoral students who are conducting dissertation projects in fields that address the Babbitt Center’s primary interest areas in improving the integration of land use and water management and policy. This fellowship provides an important link between the Lincoln Institute’s education mission and its research objective by supporting scholars early in their careers. Apply by March 1.

Several years ago ASU's Center for Biodiversity Outcomes developed the Environmental Leadership and Communication Graduate Certificate to empower students to communicate with the press, the public, policymakers and other relevant stakeholders. This certificate is a 15-credit course of study consisting of 12 elective credits in policy, management, communication, leadership, a student’s subject of interest and a capstone 3-credit course in Environmental Leadership and Communication (BIO 578). This is the only required course and may be taken at any point during the student’s certification.

Sustainability scientist Leah Gerber will be teaching the required course BIO 578 in Spring 2021 and would like to reach a wider student audience, both with the course and the certificate. Contact Gerber with questions.

Join Foreign Policy magazine in partnership with Arizona State University for a fascinating look at the future of higher education as a catalyzing force for meaningful social change. Learn more and register.

As the world continues to grapple with the fallout of COVID-19, the pandemic serves as an urgent warning that we are approaching tipping points across societies, economies, and ecosystems. With less than 10 years to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN has called for a decade of action that will define humanity’s long-term future.

How can education serve to ignite transformational leadership and change? Tune in to hear from leading thinkers:

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Are you a graduate student who is passionate about conserving nature? Do you wonder what is the most effective way to influence change? Are you ready to take your communication and leadership skills to the next level? If so, the Graduate Certificate in Environmental Communication and Leadership may be for you.

The ECL graduate certificate is a compilation of key courses designed to train graduate students in honing their leadership skills and communicating environmental science to the general public, stakeholders and decision-makers.

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The School for the Future of Innovation in Society (SFIS) at Arizona State University is seeking a post-doctoral research fellow for a one-year position on a sponsored project related to public interest technology (PIT) and responsible innovation (RI).

The project is funded under the Public Interest Technology-University Network (PIT-UN), organized by New America Foundation and seeks to study three institutions (ASU, Howard University and Estrella Mountain Community College) to identify what they do and could do across their missions and functions to implement PIT comprehensively and strategically. PIT generally refers to “the study and application of technology expertise to advance the public interest/generate public benefits/promote the public good.” It is largely cognate with tech-for-good, responsible innovation, and other similar terms.

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