Professor Stiftel presented at the UN last month as part of the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) Global Event that was scheduled as part of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. In a panel entitled, “Highlighting innovative collaborations between Higher Education Institutions and the United Nations,” he described the RCE Greater Atlanta as well as Georgia Tech’s Serve-Learn-Sustain program.
In the Leadership for Social Good Study Abroad Program, students spend eight weeks abroad while learning about social entrepreneurship and the leadership it takes to develop strong civil societies. Students also have the opportunity to work with a nonprofit to help develop sustainable solutions to environmental and social problems.
Below, read Isabelle Musmanno's reflection from the program where she discusses the sustainable practices employed in Budapest, Hungary.
Adam Borsch, an SLS Global Student Ambassador, shares moments from his experience in the Netherlands with the Sustainable Transportation Abroad program. Each year, Dr. Kari Watkins teaches a course and takes students on a week long trip to the Netherlands to learn about sustainable transportation. During their week abroad, students bike across the country, experiencing the Dutch transportation system.
Read about the launch of Georgia Tech's Living Building Equity Champions initiative and the Kendeda Building's efforts to connect the campus and greater Atlanta community with equity-centered sustainability programs.
The Georgia Institute of Technology has begun construction on one of the first “Living Buildings” in the Southeast that seeks to transform the local building and construction industry. Living Buildings (similar to other green building programs) achieve certification by accruing credits across a number of criteria. Living Buildings must produce more energy than they use, treat all water on-site, and be regenerative spaces that connect occupants to light, air, food, nature, and community.
It is not difficult for me to find myself represented in most rooms. I can look toward female leaders and see someone who looks like me. Yet, walking into the Women in Green Luncheon, hosted by USGBC, I saw me. I was greeted by a room full of passionate women, many with similar untamed and curly hair, make-up free faces, and vaguely professional, neutral clothing that borders office attire and outdoor comfort.
Supporting GT’s already strong tradition of providing students with opportunities to present and discuss their research with their peers, SLS’s Student Showcase gathers students from across all six colleges. Students passionate about building sustainable communities present their research, which engages with the Sustainable Development Goals in their own unique way. The excellence of student research and the diverse set of approaches to sustainability made it very challenging to select winners.
This spring, I was generously sponsored by Serve-Learn-Sustain to attend the second annual Aglanta conference. The event was a joint effort by Agritecture Consulting, the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Resilience, and Southern Company, bringing together stakeholders in government, industry, and non-profits to discuss the future of urban agriculture in smart cities. The conference focused on seven intersections of agriculture with smart cities: resource management, operations, finance, education, distribution, retail, and urban development.
