Nearly 100 hydropower dams are planned for construction along the Mekong River in Southeast Asia. While they are expected to provide clean energy to countries in the region, the dams may also offset natural river patterns if not managed properly.

In a December 2017 issue of Science magazine, Senior Sustainability Scientist John Sabo and his collaborators propose a solution.

“We have figured out the relationship between river flows and fish catch, and we have developed an algorithm for dam operators to use that will increase fish harvests and still generate power,” Sabo says. “Dams are going to be built no matter how much fuss we make; our research shows how we can be more strategic about the buildout and operations of these dams in the Mekong.”

ASU Project Cities held its first semester-end project showcase with the city of Apache Junction at the university's Memorial Union on November 29, 2017.

Professors and students from multiple campuses presented on the findings of seven courses, during which extensive time was spent researching and creating recommendations for the city that straddles Maricopa and Pinal counties. Roughly 150 people attended the showcase, including members of the Apache Junction government and community, ASU faculty, and graduate and undergraduate students.

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ASU's Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives is among the groups working to expand research and resources for an exhibit called Water/Ways.

The exhibit is part of the Smithsonian’s Think Water Initiative, which raises awareness of water as a critical resource for life through exhibitions, educational resources and public programs. Through the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program, Water/Ways will be transported to 12 rural communities around Arizona starting in 2018.

“This is another opportunity to educate the public about the challenges we face, of the importance of water and to try and help make us more intelligent managers of the resources in our world that support our lives,” says Senior Sustainability Scholar Paul Hirt, state scholar for the project. “Just explaining to people that there is an imbalance between the supply and demand is an important first step in solving it.”

Arizona State University’s Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative (SPRI) is collaborating with the United States Environmental Protection Agency to launch a website that makes it easier for companies looking to make environmentally conscious purchases.

Sustainablepurchasing.issuelab.org is a searchable database that contains a trove of information on research articles that discuss “servicing,” a popular sustainability concept that has received a stamp of approval from the United Nations Environmental Programme.

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To help organizations interested in eco-friendly purchasing, ASU's Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative is partnering with the Environmental Protection Agency on sustainablepurchasing.issuelab.org.

The website features a searchable database of research articles related to the concept of “servicizing,” which promotes a more environmentally responsible way for businesses, nonprofits, governments and individuals to meet their purchasing needs.

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Management practices that promote soil health in croplands can deliver multiple benefits for nature and people, including cleaner air and water and greater crop yield stability.

In the United States alone, one or more of these practices – which include cover cropping, reduced tillage, nutrient management, and more – could potentially be implemented on nearly 400 million cropland acres. Yet, rangelands in the US occupy nearly twice the area that croplands do, and some rangelands have also experienced soil degradation issues, such as erosion.

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The 23rd Conference of the Parties – a U.N. climate conference in Bonn, Germany – attracted dignitaries from around the world. Luckily, those at home had School of Sustainability student Julia Colbert to fill them in.

Colbert, a student worker with the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, shared her video coverage of COP23 on YouTube. On top of that, she connected with fourth-to-twelfth-grade classrooms throughout the country via Facetime or Skype, teaching conference-related lessons like “how to negotiate.”

"It was inspiring to see how much they really wanted to learn,” said Colbert. “It made me hopeful that this next generation will be the change-makers that truly make a difference in the fight against climate change."

Small acts of kindness – something as simple as lending a neighbor a cup of sugar – not only bind us together, but are critical to our survival as a species. That's according to Senior Sustainability Scientist Amber Wutich, an anthropology professor and director of ASU's Center for Global Health.

"Sharing is so important, that in most cultures it has its own special vocabulary and rituals," Wutich explains in a November 2017 KEDtalk. "Sharing helps families survive, and it's a core part of people's identity that defines their place in their communities. That's why anthropologists like me have studied how humans share in cultures in every part of the world."

The Natural Capital Coalition recently published a report on responsible business practices to reduce environmental impact of natural resources.

In November 23, 2017, the report was included in the print edition of The Times, which has a circulation of over 1.05 million readers in the United Kingdom.

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Ryan Johnson, Executive Director of Sustainability Education and Training for ASU's School of Sustainability, has been appointed as a member of the Global Reporting Initiative Stakeholder Council for a term beginning January 2018. Johnson is also a student in the Master of Sustainability Leadership program at ASU.

GRI is an independent international organization that has pioneered sustainability reporting since 1997. The initiative helps businesses and governments worldwide understand and communicate their impact on critical sustainability issues such as climate change, human rights, governance and social well-being.

The GRI Stakeholder Council is the formal stakeholder policy forum within the GRI governance structure. The council's key governance functions include appointing Board members and deliberating on issues of strategic importance to GRI.

The risk of things like skin cancer, extinction of sensitive amphibians and degradation of outdoor buildings is now lower, thanks to the fact that the hole in our ozone layer – which protects Earth from the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation – has shrunk.

Satellite measurements indicate that the ozone hole is about 1 million miles smaller than when measured a year ago, a positive trend that NASA says can be explained by an unstable and warmer Antarctic vortex. Senior Sustainability Scientist Kevin Gurney is heartened by this news, which suggests that other negative trends can also be reversed.

With regard to influencing the direction of climate change, Gurney says, "It suggests more than a possibility — it suggests that we can achieve the solution to a large global environmental problem."

Carbon-dioxide removal could be a trillion-dollar enterprise because it not only slows the rise in CO₂ but reverses it.

Many companies are vying to prove that carbon removal is feasible, but also owe their origins to the ideas of a physicist and sustainability scientist named Klaus Lackner, who now works at Arizona State University.

Featured in The New Yorker, this article chronicles the journey that led Klaus to found the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions.

Shirley-Ann Augustin-Behravesh, a lecturer with the School of Sustainability, won the Decision Sciences Institute's conference paper competition for her outstanding thesis research paper titled "Uncovering Sustainable Business Practice Bundles."

Augustin-Behravesh's effort to bring together both the School of Sustainability and W. P. Carey School of Business allowed her to produce a paper that demonstrates how decision landscapes for businesses can be rooted in sustainability.

Save the date! CAP LTER will be holding its 20th Annual Poster Symposium and All Scientists Meeting on January 5th, 2018 at ASU's SkySong facility in Scottsdale. Weiqi Zhou, Professor in the State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, will be the keynote speaker. Dan Childers will give us an update on CAP LTER and there will be presentations by the leaders of the Integrated Research Teams.

On November 15, 2017, The ASU School for the Future of Innovation in Society hosted a film screening of “Wild Freedom: The Border and its Environmental Impact,” followed by a panelist discussion featuring videographer Samantha Lloyd, wildlife biologist Sergio Avila-Villegas, and ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Faculty Affiliate Jan Schipper.

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According to Kelly Swette, CEO of Sweet Earth Enlightened Foods, "The future of food is plant-based and the disruption has begun."

In a November 2017 interview with Nil Zacharias on his One Green Planet podcast #EatForThePlanet, Swette discusses her decision to sell Sweet Earth to food giant Nestlé. She also talks about her goal to make convenient, sustainable and healthy foods the new norm, and how best to market such foods.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development and ASU LightWorks® believe that carbon pricing is one of the most efficient means of driving the transition to a low-carbon world. As an increasing number of jurisdictions have adopted – or are considering adopting – carbon pricing, a recent document by the WBCSD focuses on the “what” and “how” rather than the “why.”

The WBCSD released the document in hopes of stimulating discussions between policymakers and business leaders on how best to implement the carbon price so that it can incentivize low-carbon innovation and investment, create a global level playing field and support the attainment of the UNFCCC 2°C goal in a sustainable way.

In summary, carbon pricing is a monetary cost put on the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It must be implemented by governments through legislation. Despite significant progress made with the Paris Agreement, the need to bring emissions to net-zero later this century is not yet reflected in the overall transition picture.

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ASU Center for Biodiversity Outcomes Faculty Affiliate Jan Schipper led an online PitchFunder campaign to save the Atelopus varius last year. Through this successful initiative and philanthropic support, these harlequin frogs continue to breed.

“The ethics of saving a species is a new one for humanity,” Schipper said. “We have a moral imperative to not let any species go extinct due to our reckless nature and heavy footprint on Earth, but we are also finding the value of the species is far more than just intrinsic.”

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What lessons can the U.S. Army impart on a sustainability movement in need of momentum? More than a few, according to this Thought Leader Series essay – titled "Seeing the mission through: growing an army for sustainability" – by author and Sustainability Hall-of-Famer Alan AtKisson.

A Thought Leader Series Piece

by Alan AtKisson

When it comes to sustainability as it is practiced today, I helped get a number of things started, from the use of sustainability indicators, to the concept of training “sustainability change agents," to the search for measures of our planet’s ecological boundaries, to weaving the concept of sustainability into the practice of developing the “Blue Economy” – the economy of our oceans and seas.

By making this statement, I do not mean to imply that I take credit for those things — far from it. The emphasis is on “helped." These were processes that would have happened anyway, no doubt. I was just lucky enough to be around in their early, generative moments, and to lend a hand.

Don’t worry: the main purpose of this short article is not to reminisce, as you will see, but to look ahead and reflect on what the sustainability movement needs going forward. But sometimes, to see the way ahead clearly, we have to look back.

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