Mark Van Putten, a friend of SNRE with more than 30 years of experience in environmental policymaking and nonprofit organizational leadership at the international, national, regional, and local levels, delivered the Spring 2013 Commencement Address to graduating students Saturday, May 4.

Sustainability, once thought to be the province of scientists and environmentalists, is now a mainstream business strategy. But for people like Andrew Hoffman, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, it's not cause for victory. He fought the early battles to get environmental responsibility into the C-suites, and the initiatives he's observed don't align with sustainability's original intentions.

It's the kind of scientific question tailor-made for interdisciplinary research. How does Q-fever, a highly contagious and still largely untracked disease, move among people, livestock, and wild animals, and what are the long-term effects of its presence on human health and economic systems? Answers may be closer to emerging because of M-Cubed, a new University of Michigan program that is awarding nearly 200 grants to jump start interdisciplinary work. The two-year, $15 million effort encourages faculty to explore major issues facing the planet, from climate change and poverty to health and energy.

The largest harmful algae bloom in Lake Erie's recorded history was likely caused by the confluence of changing farming practices and weather conditions that are expected to become more common in the future due to climate change. Rather than an isolated, one-time occurrence, it was more likely a harbinger of things to come, according to U-M researchers and other.