Sustainability Commons^™

Methodology To Adapt And Update A Life Cycle Cost Calculator For Your Institution: A Step-By-Step Guide, Breanna J. Parker, Alexander R. Barron

Year on Climate Change: Other Materials

This guide provides a methodology for adapting a life cycle cost (LCC) calculator to your institution. An LCC calculator can be used to examine the present and future costs of any expenditure and can include a proxy carbon price in its analysis. Adapting an existing tool saves time and resources when compared to building from scratch. It also provides the most accurate information by accounting for specifics of context, such as energy costs and the greenhouse gas emission rates of energy sources, which vary by region.

This guide outlines a five-step process for adapting an LCC calculator to match your …

Displacement: People, Culture, And Design Practice | A Presentation And Response To Life Lived In An Age Of Reconfigurations | Tony Fry, Liberal Arts Division, Ncss Graduate Program

Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies (NCSS) Lectures

Lecture, September 5, 2018. 1:30 pm, Room 412 College Building, 2 College Street, Providence, RI 02903. In this talk Tony Fry will discuss the importance of design and the liberal arts. He will go on to suggest ways in which design understood as a form of politics will be central for building sustainable futures in radically changing times.

This event is sponsored by the Division of Liberal Arts graduate programs in Global Arts and Cultures and Nature-Culture-Sustainability Studies.

Tony Fry is one of the world’s leading scholars in the philosophy of design. He is the author of over 12 books …

2018 Fall Engr333 Project Assignment, Matthew K. Heun

ENGR 333

The Fall 2018 ENGR333 project focused on renewable energy generation.

I asked the students “What is the largest possible reduction in Calvin’s annual energy costs from a $5M investment in renewable energy?”

Customer

The customer for this project was Russell Bray, Director of Calvin’s Physical Plant.

New Market Opportunities And Consumer Heterogeneity In The U.S. Organic Food Market, Gwanseon Kim, Jun Ho Seok, Tyler B. Mark

Agricultural Economics Faculty Publications

This paper investigates what factors and characteristics of organic consumers affect annual organic food expenditure by using Nielsen’s consumer panel dataset from 2010 to 2014. To be specific, this paper explores new marketing opportunities by investigating organic consumer heterogeneity in different household income levels by utilizing the multilevel model. Findings in this study will contribute to the previous and existing literature in three-folds. First, we find that the organic consumers are more heterogeneous in the high-level of income groups (approximately above $60,000), as well as the low-income households between $35,000 and $45,000. This finding demonstrates that the income levels above …

Report Of Community Conversations About Gender Roles In Livestock, Mamusha Lemma, Wole Kinati, Annet Mulema, Zekarias Bassa, Abiro Tigabe, Hiwot Desta, Mesfin Mekonnen, Tadious Asfaw

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) gender and animal health teams facilitated community conversations (CCs) about gender roles in livestock husbandry in three districts in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and Amhara region from 30 May–07 June 2018. These dictricts were: Doyogena (Hawora Arara and Ancha Sadicha kebeles) of SNNPR from 30 and 31 May; and Menz Gera district (Sine Amba kebele) and Menz Mama district (Key Afer kebele) of Amhara from June 6–7. In Doyogena, the team held the conversations in farmer training centres (FTCs) …

Sdstate Sustainability Newsletter: Vol. 3 Issue 1, Jennifer Mclaughlin

SD State Sustainability Newsletter

Content:
SDSU Launches Sustainability Minor
Upcoming Events
While You Were Away
Recycling Update
Sustainability Tidbits

Umphlett Qci Sept 2018, Natalie Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Drought

Water Resources

Agriculture

Temperature

Precipitation

Achieving The Promise Of Integration In Social-Ecological Research: A Review And Prospectus, Neil Carter

Human-Environment Systems Research Center Faculty Publications and Presentations

An integrated understanding of both social and ecological aspects of environmental issues is essential to address pressing sustainability challenges. An integrated social-ecological systems perspective is purported to provide a better understanding of the complex relationships between humans and nature. Despite a threefold increase in the amount of social-ecological research published between 2010 and 2015, it is unclear whether these approaches have been truly integrative. We conducted a systematic literature review to investigate the conceptual, methodological, disciplinary, and functional aspects of social-ecological integration. In general, we found that overall integration is still lacking in social-ecological research. Some social variables deemed important …

Governance For A Changing Climate: Adapting Boston’S Built Environment For Increased Flooding, Stephanie Kruel, Rebecca Herst, David Cash

School for the Environment General Publications

Climate Change is impacting everything in our society and in our world. The changes we are already experiencing are starting to multiply and accelerate. Determining how to respond to this new reality wisely within the governance and governmental structures that we have built is a complex challenge. Some might argue it is humankind’s greatest test. Given the monumental size of this task, it is difficult to simultaneously address all of the related issues both broadly and deeply. This is the third and final in a series of reports from the Sustainable Solutions Lab that were sponsored by the Boston Green …

New Neilson Library Life Cycle Assessment Report, Thornton Tomasetti

The New Neilson Library

Life cycle assessment results for achieving credits for LEED v4 MRc1 Building Life-cycle Impact reduction credit and its Option 4: Whole building impact assessment.

Translating Global Nature: Territoriality, Environmental Discourses, And Ecocultural Identities, José R. Castro-Sotomayor

Communication ETDs

In this study, I explore environmental discourses circulating among Indigenous transboundary organizations working on environmental initiatives at the border between Ecuador and Colombia. I focus on three global environmental discourses –sustainability, development, and climate change– as they are at the core of the global environmental governance vernacular. La Gran Familia Awá Binacional (GFAB), one of the few transboundary Indigenous organizations working along the binational border, utilizes these global concepts to frame their environmental initiatives and projects. I use a critical and interpretive qualitative approach to investigate, deconstruct, and rearticulate global environmental discourses circulating among and translated by two of the …

Analysis Of Temperature And Salinity Effects On Growth And Mortality Of Oysters (Crassostrea Virginica) In Louisiana, Troy Sehlinger

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Salinity (S) and temperature (T) control every facet of the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) life cycle, principally reproduction, development, growth, and mortality. Previous studies conducted in in the Breton Sound (BR) and Barataria (BA) estuaries have reported differences in growth and mortality rates between the basins. In the present study, environmental conditions were synchronized to compare growth and mortality rates between basins at similar combinations of T and S. Results indicate that when T and S are the same (synchronized), seasonal oyster growth and mortality rates differ between BR and BA. Seasonal analyses revealed that as salinities increased …

Growing A Sustainable City?: The Question Of Urban Agriculture By Christina D. Rosan And Hamil Pearsall, Matthew Zantingh

The Goose

Review of Christina D. Rosan and Hamil Pearsall's Growing a Sustainable City?: The Question of Urban Agriculture.

Estimating Watershed Residence Times In Artificially-Drained Landscapes And Relation To Nutrient Concentrations, Emma Beck, Lisa Welp, Alexandra L. Meyer

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Nutrient runoff from agricultural lands feeds harmful algae blooms that create a variety of problems in freshwater ecosystems. In order to reduce the effects of this nutrient runoff, Best Management Practices (BMPs) are being put in place in agricultural lands. Most of these BMPs focus on slowing down the flow of water through the watershed to give nutrient concentrations time to deplete before the water flows to the stream or river. However, the effectiveness of these BMPs are highly unknown and the process of monitoring nutrient runoff is often complex and costly. The data in this study consists of 7 …

Short-Term Organic Carbon Release And Chlorine Disinfectant Decay For Cross-Linked Polyethylene (Pex) Plumbing Pipes, Miriam Tariq, Christian J. Ley, Maryam Salehi, Andrew J. Whelton

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The use of cross-linked polyethylene (PEX) plumbing pipes has grown in popularity for residential applications. However, PEX pipes can leach organic materials into water that can enable biofilm growth, cause off-tastes and -odors, and may react with disinfectants to form disinfection by-products (DBP). Varied manufacturing processes that are applied to create PEX pipes add to the complexity of understanding organic materials released. In this study, organic carbon release from three PEX pipe brands was monitored for up to five days using a series of stagnation periods. Seven stagnation periods of 1, 2, 4, 8, 24, 72, and 120 hours were …

Psu University Services Building Leed Eb Materials Audit Report, Christa Mcdermott, Emily Murkland, Bryan Nguyen, Tay Stone, Rushada Wimer

Campus Sustainability Office Publications, Reports and Presentations

This report provides Portland State University’s (PSU) Campus Sustainability Office (CSO), with an objective third party LEED O+M Materials Assessment of PSU’s University Services Building (USB). The data collected for this audit provides CSO with insight into the building’s current waste composition and diversion rate. Additionally, it identifies opportunities to reduce the amount of recoverable materials ending up in the landfill stream. Community Environmental Services (CES) conducted material audits for 100% of USB’s landfill-bound, commingled recycling, and compost streams during a 24-hour period. While, audited construction and demolition (C&D) materials were generated over the course of a week.

Cover Crops Have Negligible Impact On Soil Water In Nebraska Maize–Soybean Rotation, J. Burdette Barker, Derek M. Heeren, Katja Koehler-Cole, Charles Shapiro, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Roger W. Elmore, Christopher A. Proctor, Suat Irmak, Charles A. Francis, Tim M. Shaver, Ali T. Mohammed

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

One perceived cost of integrating winter cover cropping in maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation systems is the potential negative impact on soil water storage available for primary crop production. The objective of this 3-year study was to evaluate the effects of winter cover crops on soil water storage and cover crop biomass production following no-till maize and soybean rotations. Locations were near Brule (west-central), Clay Center (south-central), Concord (northeast), and Mead (east-central), Nebraska, United States. Treatments included crop residue only (no cover crop) and a multi-species cover crop mix, both broadcast-seeded before …

Sustainability Of Utilizing Renewable And Nuclear Energy In Saudi Arabia Using Different Types Of Life Cycle Assessment, Kamel Almutairi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Evaluating the global environmental impacts of the current and future energy policies in Saudi Arabia using Life cycle assessment (LCA) method was the main objective of this dissertation. First, the attributional life cycle assessment (ALCA) framework was used to evaluate the Saudi’s air conditioning systems, as they are responsible for about 70% of the total Saudi residential electricity consumption. The ALCA’s results showed that the AC use phase produces the largest share of the environmental impact and the magnitude of the environmental impacts is influenced by the type of primary fuel used for electricity generation.

Emerging non-fossil sources of electricity …

Looking Toward The Future: The Value Of Geothermal Energy In The United States Power Market, Reilly R. Moran

STAR Program Research Presentations

States are creating renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) that require utilities to run off a certain percentage of renewables. With the new RPSs and current emission standards the dynamic of the grids energy and reliability needs are changing. Because RPSs and emission standards, utilities are procuring the cheapest renewable resources, which tend to be solar and wind. As RPSs increase over time this causes higher procurements of solar and wind. Higher procurement and increasing penetration levels of solar and wind is causing their energy values to decrease as well as some reliability concerns. While geothermal energy value will continue to stay …

Opto-Thermal Characterization Of Plasmon And Coupled Lattice Resonances In 2-D Metamaterial Arrays, Vinith Bejugam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Growing population and climate change inevitably requires longstanding dependency on sustainable sources of energy that are conducive to ecological balance, economies of scale and reduction of waste heat. Plasmonic-photonic systems are at the forefront of offering a promising path towards efficient light harvesting for enhanced optoelectronics, sensing, and chemical separations. Two-dimensional (2-D) metamaterial arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles arranged in polymer lattices developed herein support thermoplasmonic heating at off-resonances (near infrared, NIR) in addition to regular plasmonic resonances (visible), which extends their applicability compared to random dispersions. Especially, thermal responses of 2-D arrays at coupled lattice resonance (CLR) wavelengths were comparable …