School of Natural Resources and Environment

Kevin Merrill's blog

In an interview with The Financial Times, SNRE Professor Andy Hoffman discusses the role that waste conservation is playing within companies as they pursue broader sustainability agendas.

“In an age of plentiful and cheap resources you can afford to throw them out,” Hoffman is quoted in the story. “But as the price and the scarcity starts to go up, capturing them and bringing them back will be critical.”

The article, by Sarah Murray, is titled "The sustainable path to profit: don’t throw out the rubbish."

Three University of Michigan researchers were lead convening authors of chapters in the 1,100-plus-page National Climate Assessment, which was written by a team of more than 240 scientists.

In the coming decades, climate change will lead to more frequent and more intense Midwest heat waves while degrading air and water quality and threatening public health. Intense rainstorms and floods will become more common, and existing risks to the Great Lakes will be exacerbated. Those are some of the conclusions contained in the Midwest chapter of a draft report released last week by the federal government that assesses the key impacts of climate change on every region in the country and analyzes its likely effects on human health, water, energy, transportation, agriculture, forests, ecosystems and biodiversity. Three University of Michigan researchers were lead convening authors of chapters in the 1,100-plus-page National Climate Assessment, which was written by a team of more than 240 scientists.

Forty master's and professional-degree students from eight schools and colleges at the University of Michigan, including 17 from the School of Natural Resources and Environment, are beginning the Dow Sustainability Fellows Program today, marking the first cohort of fellows in the $10 million program launched last spring.

SNRE Professor Rosina M. Bierbaum has contributed an essay on energy in the context of sustainabilityas part of the current issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The issue presents thinking from leading scientists on the question of how limiting the effects of climate change requires a substantial transformation of the energy infrastructure.

Secretary Chu (left) and SNRE Professor Greg Keoleian

Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy and China’s Ministry of Science and Technology met in Washington last week to review joint energy research projects, including one on clean vehicles led by University of Michigan. SNRE Professor Greg Keoleian, who is part of the project and also directs the school's Center for Sustainable Systems, also gave a presentation to Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

Laura Rubin (M.S. ’94, M.B.A. ’95,) was so enthused by the dual-degree idea, first proposed in the early 1990s, that she enrolled voluntarily even before the ink was dry on the plan. She knew instinctively then what so many incoming Erb students now take for granted: the paths of business success and environmental stewardship are intertwined and must therefore be studied in tandem.

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