This month Marco Janssen, a professor in the School of Sustainability and director of the Center for Behavior, Institutions and the Environment, started his two-year term as president of the International Association for the Study of the Commons. Founded in 1989, the IASC is devoted to bringing together multi-disciplinary researchers, practitioners and policymakers for the purpose of improving governance and management, advancing understanding and creating sustainable solutions for the commons, common-pool resources or any other form of shared resource.

The founding president of the IASC, the late Elinor Ostrom, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons. The study of the commons has extended beyond the traditional natural resources to applications in digital environments, health, urban space and space exploration.

An op-ed by Bob Litterman, titled "The Very High Costs of Climate Risk," was published by the New York Times. Litterman used the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's demise as an example of how climate change impacts business, and discussed a carbon tax can as a climate change solution.

The Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 7 will serve as a new gateway to the ASU Tempe campus. The approximately 258,000 gross-square-foot, high-performance research facility will foster an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge generation and leading-edge research, including innovative endeavors focusing on the sustainability of food, water and energy.

In addition to public outreach and exhibit spaces, ISTB7 will house Global Futures, the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, School of Sustainability, and the Institute of Human Origins. Designed by architect firms Architekton and Grimshaw, the facility is expected to be completed in 2021.

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ASU Now asked several Arizona State University professors about how our relationships with each other, the world around us and ourselves can make us happy. One faculty member they interviewed was Scott Cloutier, assistant professor in the School of Sustainability.

At ASU, Cloutier leads the Sustainable Neighborhoods for Happiness project and has developed the “Sustainability Through Happiness Index,” a tool that allows planners to engage with neighborhood residents and collaborate to better understand and implement changes that will create happy places to live.

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The next meeting for the Board of Directors of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability is coming up on February 25-26 in Phoenix, Arizona. Meeting materials will be available on the board website shortly. Should you have questions, please contact Emma Hopson: ehopson@asu.edu.

Amanda Ellis, executive director of Hawaii and Asia Pacific in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, was part of a panel discussion at the 2019 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland. In the discussion, titled “Women Leaders and the SDGs – How can women achieve the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals?,” Ellis showcased the WE Empower U.N. SDG Challenge, a program that celebrates extraordinary women entrepreneurs advancing the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Photo: Ellis (third from left) poses with the other panel speakers Márcia Balisciano, head of sustainability at RELX Group and board member of the Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizens; Sanjeev Khagram, dean of Thunderbird School of Global Management; and Alyse Nelson, president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership.

The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes is partnering with the Natural Capital Coalition, Conservation International, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to develop a Natural Capital Protocol for the Oceans.

The Natural Capital Protocol for the Oceans will be a framework to help businesses answer questions such as: How does your business depend upon ocean resources? How is this ocean natural capital changing and what risks and opportunities does this present? Which resources, information or expertise do you need?

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Congratulations to Arizona State University School of Sustainability alumna Debbie Namugayi, who in early 2019 started work as Eastern Kentucky University’s new sustainability manager. Namugayi earned her master's degree in sustainability in 2014, and has a history of connecting sustainability with higher education through prior positions at Bucknell University and the University of Maryland.

On top of accomplishment, Namugayi recently acted as the master of ceremonies for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education 2018 conferences.

Photo courtesy of Amanda Cain, Eastern Kentucky University

ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Associate Director for Conservation Evidence Samantha Cheng was the lead author of a paper titled “A systemic map of evidence on the contribution of forests to poverty alleviation” published in the Environmental Evidence Journal.

Abstract:

Forests provide an essential resource to the livelihoods of an estimated 20% of the global population. The contribution of forest ecosystems and forest-based resources to poverty reduction is increasingly emphasized in international policy discourse and conservation and development investments.

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Written by Katie Surrey-Bergman

Three thousand miles by plane, two and a half hours by car over the high-altitude mountain ranges of Quito, an additional six and half more hours down the Amazon river by single-motor boat and we arrive at the tiny village of Gomatan, set between the riverside and the jungle which would be our home for three days.

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On Saturday, January 19, 2019, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes team members participated in the OdySea Aquarium Conservation Expo.

This event, held in the courtyard outside the aquarium, brought together more than 40 local conservation-oriented organizations. Hundreds of families attended to interact with animal ambassadors, learn about conservation issues and engage in hands-on activities.

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Maryam Abdul Rashid took a big risk enrolling in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. Coming from Malaysia, she said people back home questioned her prospects about what her future might be. But she took the leap anyway.

"I forever feel blessed to have been given the chance to travel 9,021 miles just to come to school here," Rashid said. "Coming here to ASU and the School of Sustainability was one of the best decisions I have ever made."

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The Arizona State University Center for Biodiversity Outcomes will be participating in the OdySea Aquarium Conservation Expo this Saturday, January 19, 2019, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the OdySea Aquarium.

CBO will facilitate hand-on activities designed to help people of all ages better understand how seafood consumption options affect marine life ecosystems.

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At Arizona State University, successful results often come from collaborative action, especially when making events more eco-friendly. Thanks to ASU students and the work of two ASU sustainability leaders, Colin Tetreault and Lesley Michalegko, the NCAA Women’s Collegiate Triathlon National Championships that took place at Tempe Town Lake on November 4, 2018, was a more sustainable endeavor.

Tetreault is an instructor in the School of Sustainability and Michalegko is a program manager for University Sustainability Practices. Through mutual effort and the support of students, they made the NCAA triathlon a place where functionality met sustainability. They found ways to reduce waste, save money, and increase the fan and competitor experience while simultaneously driving revenue.

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Sarra Tekola, a PhD student in the School of Sustainability who is a first-generation college student, is a recent awardee of the distinguished Ford Foundation Fellowship. The Ford Foundation awards research-funding fellowships to both predoctoral and postdoctoral researchers.

Tekola took advantage of ASU’s support of Ford Fellowship applicants via the Graduate College's Distinguished Graduate Fellowships Initiative, developed in partnership with the Office of National Scholarship Advisement at Barrett. She attended information sessions and writing workshops, in addition to other rigorous pursuits in the process of strategically writing, reviewing and revising — and then redoing the whole process over again and again, until her Ford application was perfect.

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For almost 20 years, the Ministry of the Environment in Japan has tried to get local municipalities to adopt green purchasing policies (GPP), to mixed results. Last year, Arizona State University’s Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative collaborated with Waseda University’s Research Institute for Environmental Economics and Management (RIEEM) to determine why.

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C. Tyler DesRoches, an Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainability, is part of a research team that recently won a €10,000 (approximately $11,400 grant) from the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science to develop a new research project entitled “Philosophy of Sustainability Science.” The primary purpose of this project will be to develop a systematic and philosophically sophisticated understanding of sustainability science, legitimize it as a field of science and propose effective strategies for its development.

DesRoches explained that a philosophy of sustainability science will answer many questions, including: “What, if anything, is distinctive about sustainability science? What makes sustainability science different from other scientific practices? What is the role of values, particularly ethical values, in sustainability science? Is ethics essential to sustainability science? Finally, sustainability scientists are keen to promote interdisciplinarity, but is scientific integration always a good thing? What conditions must be satisfied for successful interdisciplinary exchange?”

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Postdoctoral Research Associate Danica Schaffer-Smith will present a talk entitled “Risks and opportunities: can we improve water quality and reduce catastrophic flooding in the Cape Fear River Watershed, North Carolina under ongoing climate change?” as part of the CEE 591: Graduate Hydrosystems Seminar.

Danica is a current NatureNet Science Fellow examining the use of nature-based strategies to address nutrient pollution and flooding in Eastern North Carolina using remote sensing and watershed modelling methods, in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy North Carolina.

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A significant proportion of the Earth’s biodiversity has been erased, not from the world, but from our collective depiction of nature.

Join us this Thursday, January 17, 2019, from 1-2 p.m. for a brown-bag lunch talk on compassionate conservation.

The talk will take place in ASU Tempe campus, Life Sciences-E Wing, Room 244.

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A spacious Marriott conference room, six round tables with every seat filled, each table with a designated sign, including “Community Planning for Climate Change” or “Weather and Climate Monitoring.” This was the setting where stakeholders interested in the intersection of cities and climate met. At the American Meteorological Society annual conference, climate experts and Arizona State University Sustainable Cities Network partners were brought together to discuss local questions about climate change. Twelve climate experts were selected to lead roundtable discussions on six different topics chosen by cities.

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