September 27, 2012
Dear Board Member,
Our newsletter for September features a Thought Leader Series piece by Hunter Lovins, a founder of the field of sustainable management and a past Wrigley Lecture Series speaker. Please feel free to email or call us with any questions or comments about this briefing. We look forward to seeing you at our meeting next week.
Best regards,
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 A Thought Leader Series Piece
By Hunter Lovins
Note: Hunter Lovins is a past Wrigley Lecture Series speaker at ASU's Global Institute of Sustainability and was a keynote speaker at the inaugural conference of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education held at ASU in 2006.
Business is probably the only institution on the planet that is nimble and well-managed enough to respond to the global sustainability crises facing humanity. Such challenges as the impacts of climate change, soaring resource prices, poverty, and loss of biodiversity are threats, but are also opportunities. The businesses that successfully respond will be big winners in the marketplace.
Business sustainability leaders already outperform their less sustainable peers. Over 40 studies from all the major management consulting houses, as well as from academic journals such as Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Review, show that the companies that are sustainability leaders have higher and faster growing stock value, better financial results, lower risks, and more engaged workforces than other companies.
Despite all this, we’re losing. The international Convention on Biological Diversity report, Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, highlights a sobering loss of species and habitats among the world’s ecosystems. Threats like the acidification of the oceans could, worst case, end life as we know it on earth. This has happened several times before on our planet with up to 90 percent of species going extinct. Meanwhile, both the International Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development warn that unless global leaders implement more sustainable practices immediately we will, perhaps as early as 2017, lock in an unsurvivable amount of global warming.
Read more »
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ASU to lead first-ever national algae testbed with grant from DOE
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The $15 million grant allows the algae national testbed partnership to jumpstart innovation, increase collaboration among researchers, and accelerate the commercialization of biofuel. Read more » |
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ASU's Nobel Laureate launches sustainability training for teachers
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Sustainability Science for Teachers prepares future educators with methods for teaching sustainability science at the K-8 level and ways to inspire new sustainability researchers. Read more » |
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NSF funds to boost sustainability research, education
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The Global Institute of Sustainability received and administers $4.7 million dollars in National Science Foundation awards for research ranging from food systems to ecological vulnerability. Read more » |
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Urban wetland fosters an early appreciation for science, nature
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A team of university undergraduate and graduate researchers and Phoenix high school students mentor one another while conducting studies at the Tres Rios urban wetland. Read more » |
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EPA Honors Sustainable Cities Network as 2012 Environmental Hero
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The Sustainable Cities Network receives the award for their work in green government, ensuring local collaboration on sustainability issues across Arizona. Read more » |
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ASU named one of nation's best, 'greenest' schools
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The Princeton Review lists ASU as one of "the best 377 colleges" in the U.S. and for the fourth consecutive year, one of the nation's "greenest universities." Read more » |
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New software tracks changes in spatial patterns over time
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The free program led by Luc Anselin, OpenGeoDa, is used to better understand issues ranging from health care access to economic development to crime clusters. Read more » |
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The Atlantic Cities features ASU researcher's work on U.S. economic growth
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José Lobo charted economic growth data from over 350 U.S. cities and found that Phoenix was among the Sun Belt metro areas who were hit the hardest by the Great Recession. Read more »
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Sustainability Scientists to explore large-scale deployment of biomass energy crops
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A $1.5 million, NSF-granted project brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds to identify sustainable bioenergy crop hot spots on degraded and abandoned farmland across the U.S. Read more »
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ASU's Biodesign Institute scientists use heat to refine renewable biofuel production
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Professor Roy Curtiss from the School of Life Sciences and colleague Xinyao Liu have been genetically optimizing cyanobacteria for biofuel production, naming the method "The Green Recovery." Read more »
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ASU engineer will use Fulbright award to share expertise in renewable energy
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Sustainability Scholar Jean Andino is set to consult on air quality and energy issues, develop collaborations, give seminars, and teach at a Panama university. Read more »
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Extreme climate change linked to early animal evolution
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In the latest research, a dramatic increase in atmospheric oxygen levels allowed organisms and animals to flourish, which gives new insight to the evolution of our ancestors. Read more »
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