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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Sustainability

2015

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Articles 31 - 49 of 49

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Scaling Up Local Food Sourcing: A Mulit-Campus Farm To College Pilot, Mary Ellen Mallia Jan 2015

Scaling Up Local Food Sourcing: A Mulit-Campus Farm To College Pilot, Mary Ellen Mallia

NECSC Conference 2015

Starting with the commitments from 12 State University of New York (SUNY) campuses to purchase tomato sauce ahead of the growing season, “SUNY Commits to Agriculture” launched a pilot to leverage its large and predictable buying power to boost the NYS agricultural infrastructure. This initiative led to a funding opportunity through a specialty crop block grant from U.S. Department of Agriculture, that involves four state colleges working with the Farm To Institution New York State (FINYS) to create a Farm to College pilot program. This involves a statewide partnership of agricultural, public health and economic development interests who are working …


Your Future In The Anthropocene, Hunter Lovins Jan 2015

Your Future In The Anthropocene, Hunter Lovins

NECSC Conference 2015

Hunter Lovins keynote address presentation


Finance 101 For Sustainability Officers, Janna Cohen-Rosenthal Jan 2015

Finance 101 For Sustainability Officers, Janna Cohen-Rosenthal

NECSC Conference 2015

No abstract provided.


Beyond Offsets: Innovative Approaches To Achieving And Exceeding Our Climate Commitments, Laura Drauker, Greg Norris, Daniel Greenberg Jan 2015

Beyond Offsets: Innovative Approaches To Achieving And Exceeding Our Climate Commitments, Laura Drauker, Greg Norris, Daniel Greenberg

NECSC Conference 2015

Climate change is a defining issue of our time, and colleges and university are leading the way by setting ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets. Many of us are even striving for carbon neutrality under the President’s Climate Commitment. To meet these targets we take measures to reduce our footprints, or do “less bad”. In this situation, we often reach a point where no more reductions are possible, and to meet our targets we need to consider purchasing offsets or renewable energy credits. But instead of spending money in these abstract ways that leave very little room for student interaction, could …


Fy13-Fy15 Scope Iii Emissions Methodology And Data, Mohamad Farzinmoghadam, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham Jan 2015

Fy13-Fy15 Scope Iii Emissions Methodology And Data, Mohamad Farzinmoghadam, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham

Campus Data

UMass Amherst has developed it's own methodology for calculating the Scope III emissions of the University, which includes emissions generated from air travel and employee and student commuting miles to campus. This report explains the methodology and presents the data outcomes for Fiscal Year 2013 (FY13) through Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15).


Get Two For One—The Same Strategies Help You Go Green And Improve Wellness, Jean S. Waters Jan 2015

Get Two For One—The Same Strategies Help You Go Green And Improve Wellness, Jean S. Waters

White Papers

Going green and losing weight may very well be two of the biggest ever lifestyle buzzwords. Both require conscious effort, planning and systematic changes and both yield beneficial results. Drawing comparisons between green and wellness campaigns, Jean Waters, environmental engineer, discusses costs, benefits and strategies of pursuing sustainability.


Gentrified Sustainability: Inequitable Development And Seattle’S Skewed Riskscape, Troy D. Abel, Jonah White Jan 2015

Gentrified Sustainability: Inequitable Development And Seattle’S Skewed Riskscape, Troy D. Abel, Jonah White

College of the Environment on the Peninsulas Publications

This paper examines the tensions of sustainable development in Seattle, Washington, a commonly recognised urban environmental leader. Drawing on the perspective of sustainability as a conflicted process, this research expected a negative relationship between gentrification and environmental justice when affluent residents outcompete less affluent ones for neighbourhoods with fewer environmental hazards. The methods combine geographic cluster analysis and longitudinal air toxic emission comparisons to analyse socioeconomic changes in Seattle Census block-groups between 1990, 2000, and 2009 coupled with measures of relative potential risk and pollution volume. The property and development conflicts embedded within sustainability lead to pollution exposure risk and …


A Management Framework For Municipal Solid Waste Systems And Its Application To Food Waste Prevention, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes Jan 2015

A Management Framework For Municipal Solid Waste Systems And Its Application To Food Waste Prevention, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Waste management is a complex task involving numerous waste fractions, a range of technological treatment options, and many outputs that are circulated back to society. A systematic, interdisciplinary systems management framework was developed to facilitate the planning, implementation, and maintenance of sustainable waste systems. It aims not to replace existing decision-making approaches, but rather to enable their integration to allow for inclusion of overall sustainability concerns and address the complexity of solid waste management. The framework defines key considerations for system design, steps for performance monitoring, and approaches for facilitating continual system improvements. It was developed by critically examining the …


Collective Impact: Results From A Multi-Campus Farm To College Pilot Program, Mary Ellen Mallia, Jamie Adams, Hannah Morgan, Lisa Mitten, Deborah Howard Jan 2015

Collective Impact: Results From A Multi-Campus Farm To College Pilot Program, Mary Ellen Mallia, Jamie Adams, Hannah Morgan, Lisa Mitten, Deborah Howard

Presentations

Presented at Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) Conference and State of NY Sustainability Conference.


Linking Sustainability To Quality Management And Firm Performance, Rajat Mishra, Randy Napier Jan 2015

Linking Sustainability To Quality Management And Firm Performance, Rajat Mishra, Randy Napier

Faculty Publications

Environmental management practices have evolved significantly over the past two decades. During that time, sustainable operations management practices have purportedly made positive contributions to overall firm performance. This paper develops two conceptual frameworks regarding the relationships among specific elements of environmental management, quality management, and firm performance. We suggest that innovation in quality management mediates the relationship between design for environment and firm performance, and that statistical process control techniques moderate the relationship between environmental management systems and firm performance. We identify future research possibilities, based on these frameworks, to inform scholarly research and practice in environmental management and quality …


What Is Valuable?, Kelly Harer Jan 2015

What Is Valuable?, Kelly Harer

SR & SC Masters Projects

No abstract provided.


Aligning Public Participation To Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study On Sustainable Urban Development In Phoenix, Arizona, Matthew Cohen, Arnim Wiek, Braden Kay, John Harlow Jan 2015

Aligning Public Participation To Stakeholders’ Sustainability Literacy—A Case Study On Sustainable Urban Development In Phoenix, Arizona, Matthew Cohen, Arnim Wiek, Braden Kay, John Harlow

Earth and Environmental Sciences Publications

In public planning processes for sustainable urban development, planners and experts often face the challenge of engaging a public that is not familiar with sustainability principles or does not subscribe to sustainability values. Although there are calls to build the public’s sustainability literacy through social learning, such efforts require sufficient time and other resources that are not always available. Alternatively, public participation processes may be realigned with the sustainability literacy the participants possess, and their capacity can modestly be built during the engagement. Asking what tools might successfully align public participation with participants’ sustainability literacy, this article describes and evaluates …


Sustainability And Economic Analysis Of Propylene Carbonate And Polypropylene Carbonate Production Processes Using Co2 And Propylene Oxide, Yaşar Demirel Jan 2015

Sustainability And Economic Analysis Of Propylene Carbonate And Polypropylene Carbonate Production Processes Using Co2 And Propylene Oxide, Yaşar Demirel

Yaşar Demirel Publications

Currently, the industrially important polycarbonates are synthesized from bisphenol A and diphenyl carbonate, which are highly toxic and hence other feasible alternatives are preferable. Following the considerable advances on the catalyst for the synthesis of carbonates from CO2 and propylene oxide (PO), industrial scale processes for the productions of propylene carbonate (PC) and polypropylene carbonate (PPC) have been designed and simulated with sustainability and economic analyses. The CO2 is supplied by a nearby bioethanol plant, while the PO from a petrochemical process. The first part of the study is for the production of 200 million lb/year cyclic PC …


The Damaging Effects Of Climate Change Denial, Richard Snow, Mary Snow Jan 2015

The Damaging Effects Of Climate Change Denial, Richard Snow, Mary Snow

Publications

It has been said that those who are denying climate change are like the ostrich that sticks her head in the sand, but is this analogy entirely accurate? By hiding from the threat, does the ostrich make the threat go away, mitigate it, or make it greater? Probably, she does not. However, denying the existence of climate change does exacerbate the problem and exponentially so. As the renowned British economist Nicholas Stern reports, the longer world leaders wait to take serious action to curtail climate change, the more it will cost. As the Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on …


The Impact Of Climate Change On Human Health, Mary Snow, Richard Snow Jan 2015

The Impact Of Climate Change On Human Health, Mary Snow, Richard Snow

Publications

Climate change is impacting human health. An obvious effect of a warmer environment is more frequent and severe heat waves. During the European heat wave of 2003, there were an estimated 35,000 more deaths than normal in the first two weeks of August. Many of the deaths resulted from cardiovascular complications among the elderly. As heat waves become more commonplace in the future, so will the number of heat strokes and the onset of other cardiovascular problems. Higher summertime temperatures also increase tropospheric ozone concentrations which in turn affects people with asthma and causes lung and heart damage. Increases in …


Epa Gameday Recycling Challenge Final Report, Jordan Chan Jan 2015

Epa Gameday Recycling Challenge Final Report, Jordan Chan

Student Showcase

This report highlights the EPA Game Day Challenge, a national collegiate competition where colleges and universities compete to reduce waste through recycling and composting at football games and tailgates. It provides a brief background regarding the other colleges and universities that have participated nationally. This report aims to discuss the need for implementing the challenge. In addition, this report examines the planning, people, obstacles, and results of participating in the EPA Game Day Challenge at UMass Amherst on Wednesday, November 12, 2014. In addition, the report considers the implementation of the EPA Game Day Challenge for future years at the …


Failure Of Science, Death Of Nature, H.F. Recher Jan 2015

Failure Of Science, Death Of Nature, H.F. Recher

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

As a people, Australians have lost contact with the world of nature, Risking the collapse of civilization. One factor in the alienation of nature in Australia is the failure of the scientific community to take responsibility for the technology created by the knowledge generated from scientific research. Science has failed to protect Australia's flora and fauna. Scientists must communicate more widely with society, but need to be educated on how to communicate and on their ethical responsibilities to others and other species. Government needs to show leadership in environmental management and nature conservation, while conservationists need to 'invert the paradigm', …


Ridazz, Wrenches, And Wonks: A Revolution On Two Wheels Rolls Into Los Angeles, Donald Parker Strauss Jan 2015

Ridazz, Wrenches, And Wonks: A Revolution On Two Wheels Rolls Into Los Angeles, Donald Parker Strauss

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

How can we make cities more livable? Los Angeles, in particular, is a notably challenging place to live. For many, it is hard to see Los Angeles—city or county—as anything other than a huge, sprawling, and some would say placeless place. Los Angeles is known by many as the place that tore up more than 1,000 miles of streetcar lines to make way for millions of cars and hundreds of miles of freeways. Because of this, Los Angeles is also known for its poor air quality and jammed freeways. Those who live in Los Angeles know that it can be …


Integrating Geoscience Into Undergraduate Education About Environment, Society, And Sustainability Using Place-Based Learning: Three Examples, David Gosselin, Steven Burian, Tim Lutz, Julie Maxson Jan 2015

Integrating Geoscience Into Undergraduate Education About Environment, Society, And Sustainability Using Place-Based Learning: Three Examples, David Gosselin, Steven Burian, Tim Lutz, Julie Maxson

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

From water to energy, and from climate change to natural hazards, the geosciences (marine, Earth, and atmospheric science) have an important role to play in addressing a wide range of societal issues, with particular relevance to how humans can live sustainably on Earth. Although arguably important to developing solutions for many societal issues, more often than not, students have limited exposure to the geosciences in high school or college. To address this geoscience literacy problem, the Interdisciplinary Teaching of Geoscience for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) Talent Expansion Center has engaged members of the geoscience community and their colleagues in allied …