In 2017, Emory honored seven individuals on campus who have played an integral role in helping take Emory’s sustainability initiatives to the next level. The Robert S. Hascall Sustainability Innovator Awards were selected through their affiliation with Emory as an employee, faculty member, student, sustainability representative and alum. Student Innovators Cassidy Schwartz and Olivia Morgan … Continue Reading →
This Spring semester, Emory students and staff engaged with the campus and community through events and activities that facilitate conversations and raise awareness about important sustainability-related topics.
The Office of Sustainability Initiatives and Procurement Services at Emory are excited to announce the next step toward the Emory Sustainability Vision goal: “All university events will be zero municipal landfill waste by 2020.”
Emory’s 2025 Sustainability Vision identified four main action arenas, including utilizing Emory’s landscape, buildings, and operations to model best practices. This past year, campus departments made important strides toward realizing Emory’s Sustainability Vision goals
The Division of Animal Resources (DAR), headquartered in the Whitehead Biomedical Research Building, made strides in sustainability when they turned to recycling and composting laboratory materials and was recently recognized for its efforts.
Emory students participating in the “Don’t Dump It — Donate It” recycling program as they moved out of residence halls last month turned their used books, clothing, furniture and housewares into support for a local charitable non-profit, re:loom.
By Taylor Spicer | Emory Report | Dec. 4, 2019 In fall 2018, Emory students, faculty and staff were involved in the midterm elections at higher rates than ever before: they registered to vote at campus events, submitted absentee ballots, boarded Emory Votes Cliff Shuttles and were walked by volunteers to nearby polls. These efforts … Continue Reading →
Emory University has been recognized by the City of Atlanta for its commitment to energy and water conservation through the 2016-2017 Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge.
An Emory University collaboration with members of Atlanta’s Westside community, to test urban soil for contaminants, has led to a site investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The ongoing community collaboration is funded by Emory’s HERCULES Exposome Research Center, dedicated to understanding how environmental exposures affect health and community well-being. The EPA told the … Continue Reading →
Emory University ranked fifth nationwide in a “Campus Score” to measure the “urbanism, greenness and on-campus living” of 103 research-intensive universities in the US. Emory ranked first for the most greenspace of the campuses surveyed.
The Environmental Justice Movement: Definitions and Distinctions Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives is recognizing July as Environmental Justice (EJ) Month. We would like to start the conversation by focusing on language – definitions of terms that seem the same but all address nuanced aspects of environmental justice. The Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as … Continue Reading →
Introduction to EJ History in the U.S. By: Thora Middleton, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Intern, July 2020 The EJ movement rose up along with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, when people started to see the public health dangers of environmental injustice. This movement was started primarily by people of color who wanted to … Continue Reading →
Environmental Justice in Georgia: History, Current Injustices, and Progress By: Thora Middleton, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Intern, July 2020 Atlanta, Georgia is the second largest majority black metropolitan area in the country. The average household income in Atlanta is $98,757, but there is a staggering poverty rate of 21.63% (World Population Review, 2020). Atlanta is … Continue Reading →
Dispelling the Myth of the Emory Bubble: Connecting Calls to Action from the Environmental Justice Movement to Campus and Community Change Many who come to Emory, especially undergraduate students, may have heard the term “the Emory Bubble,” which is most often used to describe a feeling of geographic and social disconnect between Emory community members … Continue Reading →
Intersectional Environmentalism: a Framework for Environmental Thought By: Danielle Clarkson-Townsend, MPH, PhD Candidate, Environmental Health Sciences, Emory University Black feminists have long expressed the necessity to consider race and gender together, rather than separately, but it wasn’t until the late 1980’s that the theory of intersectionality was introduced to American discourse through Kimberlé Crenshaw’s work, … Continue Reading →
In the summer of 2016, the Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI) announced the recipients of its inaugural Green Offices at Emory and Green Labs at Emory Incentives Fund programs, created to encourage students, faculty, and staff to contribute innovative ideas for achieving the goals outlined in Emory’s 2025 Sustainability Vision.
By: Leanna Ehrlich, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Q: What are the origins of the soil remediation project? ES: My lab is working on greenhouse gas emissions, and we’re interested in how different agricultural techniques for growing corn affect greenhouse gas and ammonia emissions. We realized there was a lot of urban gardening going on … Continue Reading →
When Emory crafted its current Sustainability Vision, one of the University’s most transformative — and ambitious — goals was a commitment to divert 95 percent of campus waste from municipal landfills by 2025, effectively a zero-waste policy.
Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives is reflecting on and mourning Tony McDade, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and many others whose names we do and don’t know but whose lives have all been taken by recent and historic, senseless police and vigilante violence and systemic racism. We mourn with you. Our words cannot fill … Continue Reading →
By Nathan Lindsey | June 20, 2018 On Friday, Jun. 8, I had the privilege of attending the Regional Center for Expertise (RCE) Quarterly Meeting, in downtown Atlanta, at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) office. At the meeting, professionals from higher education (Emory, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, Georgia State, Spelman, Agnes Scott, University of … Continue Reading →
Nestled in the acreage behind Emory University Orthopaedics and Spine Hospital (EUOSH), this small yet mighty garden provides an amazing bounty of organic, sustainably raised produce used in the preparation of patient meals.
The Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI) invited Emory students, faculty and staff to submit a two-minute video that creatively and effectively educated about the importance of landfill waste diversion, including the social and environmental impacts of landfills.
