Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Building Powerful Partnerships: Lessons From Portland's Climate Action Collaborative, Jennifer H. Allen, Fletcher Beaudoin, Beth Gilden

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

There is growing interest in partnerships between universities and communities and how such collaborations can help address the wicked challenges facing the world today. This article traces the development of the institutional commitments at Portland State University (PSU) in its efforts to build sustainability-focused community–university partnerships. The Institute for Sustainable Solutions at PSU has served as a mechanism to catalyze and nurture such partnerships on and off campus. This article examines two cases under the Portland Climate Action Collaborative that illustrate how community–university partnerships have emerged, what impacts they have had on the community, and what factors contributed to their …

Oregon Wasted Food Study: Measurement, Motivations And Opportunities To Waste Less Food, Laura Moreno, Christa Mcdermott, Doc Billings

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality partnered with Portland State University’s Community Environmental Services to conduct a five-part study on wasted food generation in the State of Oregon. The main research objectives for this study are:

• Understand the informational, psychological, socio-economic, and structural drivers that contribute to the generation of preventable wasted food;
• Collect reliable data on wasted edible food, including loss reasons and reporting biases; and
• Provide the state, cities, counties, and consumer-facing businesses, such as grocery retailers and restaurants, with basic methods of establishing their own wasted food baselines and assessing shifts in waste prevention behaviors or levels …