Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Campus-Based Agriculture: The Future Of Food At Gettysburg College, Bryn K. Werley

Student Publications

This research investigates various methods for producing food on the campus of Gettysburg College in order to improve food sustainability. The transportation of food contributes to the increased use of fossil fuels, which in turn leads to global warming and climate change. By producing a larger portion of its food on-campus, Gettysburg College could reduce the amount of food transported to the school, thereby lessening the College’s environmental impact. Urban farming techniques, hydroponics, aquaponics, and greenhouse-based agriculture are explored as viable methods for achieving this goal. Examples of the use of these techniques on college campuses are drawn from Allegheny …

Libraries As Sustainability Leaders: Ala's Special Task Force, René Tanner, Rebekkah Smith Aldrich, Monika Antonelli, Adrian K. Ho

Library Services Publications

This article discusses the work of the American Library Association (ALA) Special Task Force on Sustainability, which identified 52 recommendations, including the adoption of sustainability as a core value of librarianship. The group aims to promote libraries as catalysts, connectors, and conveners to promote sustainability, resilience, and regeneration. The Task Force is guided by the concept of the triple bottom line, which states that an organization's practices must be not only economically feasible but also socially equitable and environmentally sound. The article also provides examples of how libraries engage in sustainable practices to support the cities and towns they serve.

Spotsylvania Solar: A Stakeholder Analysis Of Corporate Involvement, Merissa Shebell

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar Projects

This report investigates the major corporations that hold a stake in sPower’s 500-Megawatt Spotsylvania Solar Project through the framework of corporate social responsibility. The major corporations include the investors in the project, Microsoft, Apple in collaboration with Akamai, Etsy, and Swiss Re, and the University of Richmond, as well as the energy provides and distributors, Dominion Energy and PJM Interconnection. Through an evaluation of the investors’ sustainability and environmental reports, the motivations behind their agreements with sPower can be attributed to a desire to meet their renewable energy goals. By purchasing a portion of the electricity generated by the solar …

Sustainable Energy Governance In South Tyrol (Italy): A Probabilistic Bipartite Network Model, Jessica Belest, Laura Secco, Elena Pisani, Alberto Caimo

Articles

At the national scale, almost all of the European countries have already achieved energy transition targets, while at the regional and local scales, there is still some potential to further push sustainable energy transitions. Regions and localities have the support of political, social, and economic actors who make decisions for meeting existing social, environmental and economic needs recognising local specificities.

These actors compose the sustainable energy governance that is fundamental to effectively plan and manage energy resources. In collaborative relationships, these actors share, save, and protect several kinds of resources, thereby making energy transitions deeper and more effective.

This research …

Sustainability On Campus, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews three Bucknell student activists. The group discussed a recent campus sustainability forum, and expanded on various sustainability-related topics. Issues included food waste and insecurity, divestment [fossil-fuel], and economic sustainability versus environmental sustainability. The students also discussed campus culture and the challenges with and opportunities for engaging with the campus community and encouraging sustainable actions.

Environmental Decision-Making (Nrc 494 Ei), Ezra Markowitz

Sustainability Education Resources

Over the past 30 years, there has been a growing recognition amongst environmental advocates, resource managers, policymakers and researchers that the underlying cause of most environmental, conservation and sustainability issues is human behavior. As NRC and ENVIRSCI majors, you have received extensive technical training in how natural systems operate yet relatively little training when it comes to influencing or understanding how people make environmental decisions that affect those natural systems. Recognizing the fundamental role that human decision-making plays in shaping the environment reveals a new set of tools and approaches for both understanding the challenges we face and confronting those …

From The Anthropocene To Mutual Thriving: An Agenda For Higher Education In The Ecozoic, Ivan Vargas Roncancio, Leah Temper, Joshua Sterlin, Nina L. Smolyar, Shaun Sellers, Maya Moore, Rigo Melgar-Melgar

College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Publications

Higher education in the global North, and exported elsewhere, is complicit in driving the planet's socio-ecological crises by teaching how to most effectively marginalize and plunder Earth and human communities. As students and activists within the academic system, we take a firm stand to arrest this cycle, and to redirect education toward teaching how to create conditions for all life to thrive. In this paper, we articulate a research and education agenda for co-constructing knowledge and wisdom, and propose shifts in the 'ologies from the current, destructive modes to intended regenerative counterparts. We offer to shift from an ontology of …

Natural Resources Governance Employing Blockchain-Based Decision-Making, Farinaz Sabz Ali Pour, Adrian Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Natural resources are essential structures of socio-economic systems which shape the well-being of humanity, environment, and the economy. Human actions have become the critical responsibility for environmental changes and pressuring many planetary boundaries. Having a systematic approach can provide a governance platform including the inherent characteristics of the resource, the historically established form of use, and transaction costs. A natural resource governance framework is developed by applying Blockchain technology as the primary goal of this study to regulate and manage the extraction and trades. Blockchain technology provides a distributed concurrency monitoring system for sustainable resource management. Persistent and pervasive cooperation …