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 →
On Monday, June 24th, 70+ medical organizations called the climate crisis “a health emergency” and put out a call for action for government, business, and civil society leaders, elected officials, and candidates for office to recognize climate change as a health emergency and to work across government agencies and with communities and businesses to prioritize … 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.
By: Nedra Rhone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | March 11, 2020 In 2018, when a water main break left more than 700,000 DeKalb residents under a boil water advisory, the WaterHub at Emory University became a lifeline for the school. During the three days that county residents were forced to survive without potable water, the WaterHub … Continue Reading →
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 Report | Feb. 12, 2020 Each year Emory Recycles and the Office of Sustainability Initiatives hold a recycling competition to determine which university building has the greatest increase in waste diverted from landfills (by weight) for the month of November compared to volumes of the previous November. The building winner for the 2019 competition … Continue Reading →
2020 applications for Atlanta Metro Chamber’s E3 awards are due on June 30th. Applicants should be companies, projects, organizations, and individuals who are innovating in the following areas: • Efficient building design, smart growth or urban planning • Sustainable solutions in clean tech sectors • Promoting collaboration, community involvement or education toward making Atlanta more … Continue Reading →
By: Erica Barton In addition to releasing a report that ranks countries’ progress toward achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) released the 2019 US Cities Sustainable Development Report, which ranks US cities on their progress toward these global goals. The SDGs should be achieved at the national … Continue Reading →
In their next meeting on June 19th, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners is voting on the resolution to phase out “single-use plastics” in all county-owned, -operated and -leased facilities. According to the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, the vast majority of plastics are not recycled, and much of it ends up in our waterways, including the Chattahoochee … Continue Reading →
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
Every year, Emory Recycles and the Office of Sustainability Initiatives hold a competition encouraging recycling efforts around campus. This contest, held throughout November, works to unite the actions of faculty, students and staff in order to demonstrate the largest comparative difference between buildings in recycling from the corresponding month of the previous year.
By: Jewel Wicker, For the AJC | April 14, 2020 Many organizations, both local and national, were planning large events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22, but the current COVID-19 pandemic has halted those plans and confined most people to their neighborhoods. Still, there are plenty of ways that people … Continue Reading →
The Emory Student Center pulsed with music, lights and laughter, as the campus community came together Wednesday, Sept. 11, for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the innovative new space. Hundreds of students, faculty, staff and Emory Board of Trustees representatives — as well as members of the wider community — mingled about The Commons for an … Continue Reading →
By Kimber Williams | Emory Report | April 17, 2018 A public ribbon-cutting ceremony is planned for the grand opening of the PATH at Emory, a new bicycle and pedestrian trail that links Emory’s Clairmont Campus to Mason Mill Park and points beyond. The project, developed in partnership between Emory and the PATH Foundation, an … Continue Reading →
By: Clare McCarthy, General Sustainability Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives On August 7, Emory’s 1599 Clifton Road Building became the first campus rooftop to house a solar installation through a partnership with Cherry Street Energy, an Atlanta-based power company. The partnership was established in May, and since then, progress has been made on three of … Continue Reading →
By: Office of Sustainability Initiatives When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Georgia and healthcare facilities rapidly developed protocols and procedures for providing care in the new era of coronavirus, Emory’s medical students were pulled out of rotations in hospitals and clinics to shelter in place at home. Students were left pondering a world where global pandemics, … Continue Reading →
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.
EcoChemory: a Sustainability Project in the Department of Chemistry EcoChemory was created by Dr. Kevin Sullivan (Hill Lab, Dept. of Chemistry), Elena Jordanov (Saikawa Lab, Dept. of Environmental Health), and Rachel Bender (Heemstra Lab, Dept. of Chemistry). The overall goal of EcoChemory is to incorporate the culture of sustainability into chemistry labs. We aim to … Continue Reading →
By: Clare McCarthy, General Sustainability Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently selected Emory University as 1 of 12 recipients of its 2020 Sustainable Materials Management Funding Opportunity. This opportunity provides a solution to the issue of American food waste sent to landfills by encouraging the expansion of anaerobic digestion (AD) … Continue Reading →
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 →
A small ceremony on Friday, Aug. 7, celebrated the operation of newly installed solar panels on the rooftop of Emory University’s 1599 Building on Clifton Road. This is the first of 16 installations that will include more than 15,000 solar panels across Emory’s Atlanta campus that will be installed over the next 12 months. In … Continue Reading →
Emory Report | Feb. 26, 2018 Emory University has once again received a Gold rating from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) for its leadership and innovation in university sustainability. With this Gold rating, awarded through AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS), Emory maintains its status since … Continue Reading →
The Emory Farmers Market has been a staple of the community since 2008 when it opened on the campus with its original seven vendors. The market was envisioned as part of Emory’s Sustainable Food Initiative, bringing the Emory community the opportunity to build relationships with farmers and producers who grow and make their food.
ATLANTA, GA – Emory Healthcare celebrated today the groundbreaking of the new Emory Musculoskeletal Institute, located in Brookhaven, Georgia, to continue its commitment to develop innovative treatments and provide solutions for health care challenges facing the local communities. As the newest addition to Emory’s Executive Park health innovation district, the approximately 180,000-square-foot, LEED-certified building will … 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.
From Climate@Emory | July 31, 2018 To help accelerate the smart growth of solar in Georgia, representatives from Emory Law School’s Turner Environmental Law Clinic, Georgia Institute of Technology’s Strategic Energy Institute, and the University of Georgia have published the Georgia Model Solar Zoning Ordinance and accompanying explanatory guide. The ordinance strikes an important balance … Continue Reading →
Emory School of Medicine pediatrics faculty member Dr. Rebecca Pass Philipsborn co-authored a new paper released today that provides evidence that “climate change threatens to reverse the gains in global child health and the reductions in global child mortality made over the past 25 years . . . With implications for all of humanity, climate … Continue Reading →
By Jamie Lutz, OSI Intern According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), a typical laboratory is 3-to-4 times more energy intensive than an average commercial building and can account for up to 70% of a campus’s energy footprint. This presents huge potential for energy reduction strategies in lab spaces on campus. In order to … Continue Reading →
The 2016 Sustainable Campus Index, a publication of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), highlights top-performing colleges and universities in 17 areas and overall by institution type, as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS).
A class of Emory College students invites the entire Emory community to come out Friday to learn about sustainable food practices — and sample some tasty treats — at the 12th annual Sustainable Food Fair.
A new technology employed by Emory University to move toward a more efficient and sustainable electrical system has arrived on campus: Cogeneration or Combined Heat and Power (CHP), which will produce one megawatt of clean power for the campus.
By: Kristin Kuwada, Communications & Marketing Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives As of September 28th, Emory University Hospital (EUH) no longer offers single-use plastic bags in its retail spaces, including Clifton Café, Asbury Café and the gift shop. According to Sabrina Bauggue, the Director of Food and Nutrition Services at EUH, this initiative will save … Continue Reading →
Emory University’s sustainability initiatives illustrate the University’s long-standing commitment to sound environmental policies. Built around development of a model for healthy living on campus that translates to communities around the globe, Emory’s initiatives set an example for an ethical approach to creating a healthy and productive place to live, learn and work.
In the May 31, 2019 issue of Science, young scientists lent their perspectives on personal sustainable behavior change in the article NextGen Voices: Science-inspired sustainable behavior. The Emory Office of Sustainability Initiatives recently posed the same question to our weekly newsletter readers: How has your awareness of science inspired you to adopt more sustainable and … Continue Reading →
Since 2007, the Office of Sustainability Initiatives has recognized sustainability champions of Emory University and Emory Healthcare by celebrating their inspiring and committed work with the Robert S. Hascall Sustainability Innovator Awards and Outstanding Sustainability Representative Award. These awards are given to students, faculty and staff who employ research, academics, engagement and leadership to foster sustainability in 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.
As a part of the Sustainability Vision and Strategic Plan, Emory has committed to reducing energy use per square foot by 50 percent by 2025 and total energy use by 25 percent.
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 →
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 →
By Claire Dakhlia | June 29, 2018 The importance of agriculture is emphasized all over Emory, whether in the Educational Gardens on the Druid Hills campus or at the Oxford Organic Farm on Emory’s Oxford campus. Students, faculty and staff have been involved in these initiatives on campus, but until recently, similar initiatives did not … Continue Reading →
From Emory News Center – read original article here. Joe Reynolds wasn’t born into a farming family. But that didn’t stop him from finding his way to a life deeply rooted in the rusty Georgia soil. For the past 12 years, Reynolds and his partner, Judith Winfrey, have been raising organic crops on leased land … Continue Reading →
Scientists, researchers and environmental experts from across the state convened at Emory last week to draft the “Georgia Climate Research Roadmap” — a set of targeted research questions that could help Georgia better understand and address one of the century’s defining challenges.
By Leslie King | July 31, 2018 Emory Transportation and Parking Services offers a Commute Alternatives Program (CAP) that saves employees money and links to the state’s Georgia Commute Options program for even more financial incentives to give up driving solo to work. “Whether you carpool, vanpool, take public transit or one of our Emory … Continue Reading →
Everyday choices by students, faculty and staff are key to reaching Emory’s goal of diverting 95 percent of waste from landfills by 2025. The impact of those individual efforts is highlighted each year with the November Recycling Competition, which kicks off Friday. The competition, held by Emory Recycles and the Office of Sustainability, encourages faculty, … Continue Reading →
Emory senior Rebecca Park looked across a sprawling field of shallow plastic trays carpeting a flat, open-air swath of rooftop on the Math and Science Center and saw real estate ripe for rebirth.
By Nedra Rhone, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution From https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/green-school-buildings-put-metro-atlanta-design-spotlight/KWGNtVKVZE1dIWK8N1o2YK/ When Scott Starowicz was in elementary school, things like iPads and iPhones didn’t exist. “I had to go outside. We are bringing that back,” said Starowicz, CFO of the SAE School in Mableton, a year-round project-based learning school founded in 2011. SAE students spend more time outdoors … Continue Reading →
By: Neha Pathak, MD | Sept. 11, 2019 If the global healthcare sector were a country, it would be the fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet, a new international report shows. This is one of the major findings from the 48-page report by the nongovernmental organization Health Care Without Harm in collaboration with technical advisor … Continue Reading →
During the 2016 fiscal year, Emory successfully diverted 55 percent of waste materials from the landfill. With an almost 5 percent increase from 2015, the University is making progress toward achieving the goal of 95 percent diversion by 2025.
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.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day — a day when the world takes a moment to reflect on our environmental impact and the action needed to protect human and planetary health. Established in 1970 and inspired by a proposal from Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, the first earth day coordinated nation-wide local marches, … Continue Reading →
Annually since 2013, the Ray C. Anderson Foundation has celebrated his life by hosting Georgia’s families and sustainability groups at Serenbe for a festival – RayDay. Since the beginning, Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives has joined the celebration and hosted a table to help share with festival attendees the sustainability work done at Emory University … Continue Reading →
By Leanna Ehrlich, OSI Intern Emory University’s commitment to sustainability over the last decade includes updating one of the largest uses of energy on campus: lighting fixtures. OSI recently spoke to Kevin Keefe, an Electrical Engineer at the University, and he detailed the steps that Campus Services has taken to reduce lighting’s energy use, from … Continue Reading →
Note: The following content comes from a 2016 Emory Report article, which you can read here. In 2016, after three semesters researching and mapping the university’s sustainability network of over 700 staff, faculty and undergraduate and graduate students, the Graduate Sustainability Group (GSG) has launched an interactive Emory Sustainability Ecosystem map. The map affords … Continue Reading →
By: Rachel Musetti, General Sustainability Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Since 2016, almost 100 Emory offices have been certified as Green Offices at Emory. This comprehensive certification program, developed by the Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI), provides Emory work spaces with tangible actions, tools and resources to help guide more sustainable daily decision making and … Continue Reading →
Emory Campus Services – Emory Recycles and the Office of Sustainability Initiatives are hosting monthly meetings to answer questions about the University’s new.
Transportation and Parking Services recently announced the installation of a new EV charging station located on Oxford Road, directly outside of the Barnes and Noble on Emory’s main campus. Now the fourth EV charger on main campus, this station is equipped with two ports and offers fast charging capabilities. The charger—known as a CPE250 … 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.
Partnership Highlight: Michael Chanin, CEO of Cherry Street Energy, Shares about Shine On Workforce Development Program By: Christie Jones, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Intern, June 2020 Emory University recently partnered with Cherry Street Energy to bring renewable solar energy to its Druid Hills campus. Under the Solar Energy Procurement Agreement (SEPA), Cherry Street has started … Continue Reading →
Plans to develop a new bicycle/pedestrian trail that would link Emory’s Clairmont Campus to Mason Mill Park — and points beyond — are rolling forward, according to the PATH Foundation, an Atlanta nonprofit dedicated to developing public greenway trails.
By Ramsey Baden | July 29, 2018 Discovery is part of the fabric of chemistry at Emory, and Dr. Simon Blakey’s lab pushes for discovery every day. Some of his team’s most innovative practices are rooted in sustainability. In Blakey’s words, his lab practices “sustainability on a molecular level.” Blakey’s lab seeks to create methods that reduce the … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | August 27th, 2018 The Emory Dance & Movement Studies Program places great value on our relationship with our surroundings. In the words of Director Lori Teague, “the fundamentals of dance are body, energy, space, and time.” It is fitting, then, that Emory Dance’s office is a Gold-certified Green Office. The office takes a number of … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | August 26, 2018 Emory’s Department of Biology is one of the most active in the country for a reason – there will always be questions waiting to be answered in the life sciences! The Hickman Lab is a biology lab that focuses on fungi: how they reproduce and how they respond … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | July 22, 2018 On the fourth floor of the Modern Languages Building at Emory, the Institute of Quantitative Theory & Methods has been innovating for six years in the field of data science. The office’s goal is to collaborate with everyone to bring data science skills into every field, from the natural sciences … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | July 15, 2018 At the Emory School of Medicine, Dr. Shonna McBride and her team of researchers are hard at work learning how the pathogen Clostridium difficile survives in mammalian intestines and spreads to infect others. C. difficile is a pathogen that causes diarrhea, nausea, and fever. According to Dr. McBride, “you definitely want to make sure … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | August 19, 2018 The Morran Lab is an Emory Biology lab that studies coevolution (which accounts for much of the evolution that occurs in nature) and mating systems (which account for the distribution of genetic variation). To do this, it looks at worms like the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. As a certified Green Lab, … Continue Reading →
By Ramsey Baden | August 12, 2018 The Steinhauer Lab is a microbiology and immunology lab at Emory, and it is on the front lines against influenza. Their study of the structure and functions of the virus HA (hemagglutinin glycoprotein) is directly related to the development of vaccines. Sustainability was already practiced at the Steinhauer Lab when they … Continue Reading →
From Woodruff Health Sciences Center | Jan. 11, 2019 In the United States, there are persistent racial disparities in asthma prevalence, morbidity and mortality. These disparities can largely be explained by looking at socioeconomic and environmental factors, such as access to healthcare, a nationwide analysis shows. The findings highlight the potential of targeted interventions, such … Continue Reading →
The United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) has officially acknowledged a new regional sustainability network, RCE Greater Atlanta. RCEs are Regional Centres of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development. The designation makes Atlanta one of only six Regional Centres of Expertise in the U.S.
By: Clare McCarthy, General Sustainability Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives The Resilience and Sustainability Collaboratory (RSC) is a newly established, Emory-based “think and do tank” that unites the expertise of thought leaders from corporate, governmental, non-governmental, community, and academic groups from Emory and beyond in order to address complex challenges at the nexus of the environment … Continue Reading →
As a nationally recognized leader in scientific education and research, Emory University has hundreds of teaching and research labs throughout its campuses. Beginning in the Summer of 2019, labs will now be included in Emory’s mission towards 95% landfill waste diversion. Launching in the Rollins School of Public Health in May 2019, Emory’s Laboratory Landfill … Continue Reading →
Every day, colonies of ravenous microorganisms—dwelling within the dense root systems of hydroponically grown plants—help clean and repurpose nearly 400,000 gallons of campus wastewater for non-potable uses. These colonies are just one of the complex biological processes that make up Emory’s cutting-edge WaterHub. Five years ago, the WaterHub became the first facility of its kind … Continue Reading →
By Ayla Ekici At the end of the academic year, Emory’s thousands of student-residents moved out of the residence halls, requiring them to make choices about what to keep and what to discard and how. Housing, ResLife, Building and Residential Services and the Office of Sustainability once again teamed up for the “Don’t Dump It, … Continue Reading →
From educational gardens to research labs, projects funded by the latest round of grants from Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives (OSI) hope to support pollinators, improve energy use and reduce waste across the University.
By: Erica Barton The 2019 Sustainable Development Report was released last month and ranks 162 countries on their progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The goals are focused on improving various areas of economic, social, and environmental development in order to create a more sustainable world for all. With Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and France … Continue Reading →
Theater Emory presents several productions each year and with every new program, old scenery materials are replaced by new pieces for current performances. Instead of dumping previous set pieces into a landfill, Theater Emory has found innovative and creative ways to divert about 95% of its waste.
By: Mary Caldwell for the AJC Part of a nurse’s job is to learn about issues that can affect patients’ health, and the importance of climate change has gained increased attention in recent years. With 18 of the 19 warmest years on record occurring since 2001, according to the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, … Continue Reading →
ATLANTA – Emory University will install more than 15,000 solar panels across 16 buildings on its Druid Hills campus, which will generate approximately 10 percent of Emory’s peak energy requirements and reduce Emory’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 4,300 metric tons. Emory has awarded Cherry Street Energy a 20-year agreement to install 5.5. megawatts (MW) … Continue Reading →
More than 40 species of elm are native to the Netherlands, the birthplace of Emory President Claire E. Sterk. As part of Sterk’s formal inauguration program Wednesday, she planted the Ulmus Americana, or American elm, on the Quad.
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 →
For the third year, a group of Emory students coordinated the Emory Sustainability Case Competition, which asks student teams to come up with an innovative and practical solution to a real-world energy issue for the United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise (UN RCE) Greater Atlanta on Education for Sustainable Development and the City of Atlanta.
By: Kristin Kuwada, Communications & Marketing Intern, Office of Sustainability Initiatives Emory University has been recognized as one of the Georgia Water Coalition’s “Clean 13” for the WaterHub at Emory, a wastewater treatment plant that reclaims about 40% of Emory’s total water to use for utility purposes. This annual list recognizes 13 organizations and individuals … 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.
Coronavirus Plastic Crusade: Fight it, Don’t Join It By Davida Halev, Senior in Emory College, Sociology Major and Sustainability Minor COVID-19 has reinvigorated plastic consumption and production in industry and in our personal lives. Drop in petroleum prices and lifestyle changes – specifically, increased demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) and single-use plastics (SUPs) – … Continue Reading →
