Arizona State University Executive Master of Sustainability Leadership student Danielle Leoni certainly has enough accomplishments under her belt without a master’s degree. She is the executive chef and co-owner of The Breadfruit & Rum Bar in downtown Phoenix; she owns her own business, Leoni's Focaccia; and she was recently named as a 2018 James Beard Foundation Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership program fellow. Last summer, Leoni was awarded a “Seafood Sustainability Seal” by the James Beard Foundation after she participated in its Smart Catch sustainable seafood program.

Even having accomplished all of that, Leoni is driven to learn and do more in the realm of sustainability — thus, her enrollment in the EMSL program in the ASU School of Sustainability. Read on for why she chose the program, how she balances all of her responsibilities and how she hopes other restaurants will incorporate sustainability into their practices.

Question: Why did you decide to join the EMSL program?

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When we heard that Arizona State University School of Sustainability alumna Haley Paul became Audubon Arizona’s new policy manager, we knew we had to catch up with her. Paul graduated with a Master of Science in sustainability with a thesis examining the 1980 Groundwater Management Act and its impact on agriculture in south-central Arizona. After receiving her degree, she went on to work in fields related to water resources and water conservation before landing at Audubon Arizona in April 2018.

Paul answered several questions for us including how she became interested in sustainability and advice she has for current ASU sustainability students.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you received a degree in?

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Robert “Bob” Kates, an emeritus board member of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, passed away on April 21, 2018 at the age of 89. Kates’s family and friends remember him as collaborative, curious and creative — a man who asked big, complex questions and engaged others to help answer them. At the heart of everything Kates did was a question he often pondered with those closest to him: "How does one do good in the world?"

In addition to serving on the ASU Wrigley Institute’s board, Kates’s work was cited in the "Temozón Retreat Report," which was instrumental to the founding of the institute. His sustainability research — and much of his work — centered around another major question: “What is and ought to be the human use of the earth?” Kates described sustainability science as the most interdisciplinary field in his professional life.

With an academic and scientific mind, Kates’s impact spanned several universities and institutions. He was a geography professor at Clark University in Massachusetts; he helped create what is now the Institute of Resource Assessment in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania; he directed the Feinstein World Hunger Program at Brown University; he was a senior research associate at Harvard University; he was the executive editor of Environment magazine; and he was the presidential professor of sustainability science at the University of Maine.

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¿Te has preguntado si la ciudad en la que vives es realmente sustentable?, ¿Que tipo de paradigmas amenazan la resiliencia de nuestras ciudades a condiciones futuras?, ¿Podremos seguir aplicando las mismas filosofías de crecimiento y desarrollo en nuestras ciudades? En este programa el Profesor David Manuel Navarrete nos comenta sobre algunos puntos de reflexión acerca de la conceptualización de nuestras ciudades y viejos paradigmas ponen en riesgo elementos esenciales de una buena calidad de vida en ciudades y prevalencia de su equilibrio ante eventos extremos de clima. Nuevas maneras de pensar son necesarias para afrontar retos en nuestras ciudades.

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In partnership with Charles Darwin Foundation, ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Founding Director Leah Gerber will be facilitating a workshop titled "Linking knowledge to conservation outcomes in the Galapagos Marine Reserve" in Ecuador on June 19, 2018.

In the Galapagos Islands, a large no-take marine protected area was recently established around the remote islands of Darwin and Wolf. This reserve represents one-third of the greater Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) and is entirely closed to fishing.

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The ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes has recently joined other ASU units to launch a five-year collaborative research initiative in partnership with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

This new ASU-STRI effort follows a successful earlier partnership that finished in 2015. The new partnership aims to cultivate a shared research agenda to understand and manage human and ecological systems in the tropics and to train the next generation of tropical scientists. Specific research foci include:

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In the fall of 2017, the Global Drylands Center, a unit of Arizona State University's Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, released a call for proposals aiming to foster collaboration between ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, a public research university in Israel. Successful proposals were funded and are starting to gear up.

As a result of a funded proposal, Senior Sustainability Scientist Enrique Vivoni, who teaches at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, is visiting professor Tal Svoray at Ben-Gurion University to consolidate their research agenda. Their research is aimed at understanding ecohydrological controls on vegetation distribution patterns in drylands. While visiting the university, Vivoni will deliver a seminar titled “Channel transmission losses and streamflow yield in arid piedmont slopes.” This event is open to the public.

Professor Sonja Klinsky, a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, recently published a book that examines how transitional justice theories and approaches can address climate change issues. Klinsky co-wrote “The Global Climate Regime and Transitional Justice” with Jasmina Brankovic, a senior researcher with the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in South Africa.

More information about “The Global Climate Regime and Transitional Justice” is available on Sun Devil Shelf Life, ASU’s new searchable database of books by university staff, faculty and alumni.

Beginning this summer, members of 12 rural communities throughout Arizona will get the chance to explore the past, present and future of water’s environmental and cultural impact in Arizona and beyond when the Smithsonian Institution's traveling exhibit Water/Ways visits their town. The first location to see Water/Ways is the Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum between June 2 and July 15.

Presented by Arizona State University and Arizona Humanities, the exhibit's journey continues through March 2020.

“Partnering with the Smithsonian on this project gave us an opportunity to expand the scope and impact of the work being done at the Decision Center for a Desert City to well beyond Phoenix and Arizona, to provide an informal educational experience in rural areas and reach an audience much broader in scope and background than we had previously been able to reach,” said David White, director of DCDC and a senior sustainability scientist at ASU’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

Christine Vogt and Megha Budruk, faculty from ASU’s Center for Sustainable Tourism, joined Conservation International in Cempedak Island in Indonesia to develop a sustainable tourism and conservation revenue funding proposal for the region during a two-day workshop held April 9-10, 2018. See below for their report on this exciting initiative.

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Written by Vogt and Budruk

At an October 2017 Conservation International meeting in Adelaide, a group of CI staff collectively identified potentially effective revenue generating opportunities that channel funds directly to conservation. At this workshop, tourism-related revenue mechanisms emerged at the top of the list of potential opportunity areas for further investigation. In addition, several country programs (incl. Samoa, Timor-Leste, Philippines, Indonesia and New Caledonia) identified ongoing or short-term on-the-ground opportunities to develop meaningful engagement with the tourism sector.

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Arizona native Adam Gabriele loves to learn. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science, a master’s degree from the School of Sustainability, and now he’s working on a doctorate from ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

Gabriele’s mix of interests led him to pursue a unique research topic while at the School of Sustainability. His scientific paper, called “Living in a Wounded World: Sustainability and Psychological Trauma,” explored the psychosocial benefits of agricultural therapy for combat veterans impacted by PTSD and moral injury. “The results strongly suggest that sustainable agricultural can be of powerful clinical benefit to traumatized veterans and that sustainable behaviors and values in general increased as trauma symptoms decreased,” Gabriele wrote.

Read on for how Gabriele got inspired to do this research and what sustainability means to him.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?

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In the city of Apache Junction, at the foothills of the Superstition Mountains, graduate students from Arizona State University performed a series of theatrical scenes related to the city’s history. This event, called “Positively Ghostly,” brought to life tales of ghosts and lost treasures gathered from local residents, and illustrated the Old West history ingrained in the city. These performances allowed residents to connect with local legends and landscapes while reflecting on the value that their city brings to Arizona.

“Positively Ghostly” was a collaboration between the city of Apache Junction, ASU School of Sustainability students involved in Project Cities, and ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts students. The event was part of a wider tourism project called “Positively Apache Junction” led by Project Cities, a university-community initiative within ASU's Sustainable Cities Network.

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School of Sustainability undergraduate Austin Crane has achieved a lot in the past year. Besides working on his bachelor's degree, Crane has been interning at Ewing Irrigation & Landscape Supply as a sustainability intern.

Since he started at Ewing in the summer of 2017, Crane has helped implement a variety of sustainability projects, including a sprinkler controller recycling program and community service events. He’s also made changes to the way Ewing’s employees are engaged in sustainability by creating training materials and relaunching a company-wide “Green Team.”

“Ultimately, my work is concerned with spreading the word about sustainability and letting people know that living sustainably is easy and doable,” Crane said. “I believe that we as sustainability professionals can only be successful if we can convince people to join us on our quest.”

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¿Que son los eventos climáticos extremos?, el Dr. Agustín Robles, líder académico de la ciudad de Hermosillo en la Red de Resiliencia Urbana a Eventos Extremos (UREx) nos explica que son estos y por que es importante estudiarlos.

También en este episodio la Dra. Olga Barbosa nos explica que tipo de acciones y proyectos se llevan acabo en la red y como es que esta contribuye a mejorar nuestras ciudades. Pon mucha atención tal vez tu recuerdes tu experiencia durante un evento extremo como lo hace una profesionista, Fernanda Rodgriguez de Ciudad Obregón Sonora.

Si tiene preguntas o sugerencias para episodios futuros, envíenos un correo electrónico a futurecitiespodcast@gmail.com o encuéntrenos en Twitter @FutureCitiesPod.

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Half of the world’s people, particularly in Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, depend heavily on one staple food crop: rice. Although rice is one of the world’s most important crops, it is also one of the most water intensive. For centuries, farmers have grown rice by flooding fields with fresh water, requiring more than two times the water needed for wheat or maize. We use a third of the world’s freshwater resources just to cultivate rice.

The flooding method may be its own worst enemy. Waterlogged soil in rice paddies creates the perfect home for microbes that release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat. By contributing 20 percent of the world’s man-made methane emissions, rice production helps drive climate change, which then threatens the water supply that sustains it.

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School of Sustainability student Zoë Stein is a go-getter. In April, she won an Arizona State University Pitchfork Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Leader. She is currently a master's student in Global Sustainability Science, a dual degree program that awards degrees from ASU and Leuphana University in Germany. Once she graduates, Stein plans to run for local office.

“Zoë is going to change the world,” said Katie Ulmer, the School of Sustainability's academic advisor for graduate students. “She is the globally engaged Sun Devil! She will one day be a household name in the Phoenix area, synonymous for many great achievements.”

With that in mind, we wanted to pick Stein’s brain about her experience as a sustainability student. Here are a few of her answers.

Question: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to study the field you majored in?

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Amanda Ellis, the Executive Director of Hawaii and Asia Pacific, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, hosted the inaugural Hawaii Sustainability Speaker Series lecture at the East-West Center on May 24. The lecture was delivered by Bill Ritter Jr., the former governor of Colorado and the current director of the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University.

Among the attendees were Hawaiian Electric Companies Senior Vice President Colton Ching and Oahu Economic Development Board President and CEO Pono Shim. Russell Lau also came to represent his wife, Hawaiian Electric Industries President and CEO Connie Lau.

Since 1970, Earth Day has provided a platform to raise awareness about environmental sustainability, has acted as an opportunity for educational experiences, and has promoted a call to action to protect the planet. Today, Earth Day is a worldwide campaign supported by millions of people in 192 countries working together to fight for a clean environment.

On Earth Day 2018, staff from Arizona State University’s LightWorks attended EarthX and presented the latest research and technologies that address today’s climate change issues. EarthX is the world’s largest Earth Day expo, where people gather to share ideas and solutions from all over the world.

LightWorks, in association with ASU’s Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, participated in the Clean Capitalism Challenge Panel hosted by EarthX. Scholars discussed with organizations from across the country an outline of an efficient, pro-business, pro-growth clean tax code that can tilt the playing field in the direction of cleaner, more efficient solutions to transform capitalism into clean capitalism. Watch the highlights on the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability's YouTube channel.

As Joni Adamson tells it, these are exciting times for the environmental humanities. And she should know: Adamson, a senior sustainability scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, was recently awarded a highly sought-after fellowship from the National Humanities Center and is now looking forward to advancing her work in this realm.

Adamson, whose work explores the intersections between literature and the environment from the perspective of environmental justice, has been tapped to receive the Benjamin N. Duke Fellowship of the Research Triangle Foundation. She is working on a new book that aims to trace the origins of human thinking on climate.

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Greenhouse gas emissions are a growing problem, but Arizona State University sustainability scientist Elisabeth Graffy believes that the electric utility industry can be a force for change. Graffy recently co-wrote an article, “Corporate Finance and Sustainability: The Case of the Electric Utility Industry,” about this topic in the Journal of Applied Corporate Finance.

The electric utility sector “accounts for about half of all climate emissions and is the foundation of all sustainable energy futures that generally get discussed,” said Graffy, who leads several initiatives at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, including the LightWorks program’s Energy and Society group. In the article, Graffy and three analysts discuss how the industry can transform to meet sustainability goals — no small feat.

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