Sustainability Policy and Management News6
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Designing a Sustainability Framework for China
Earth Institute Executive Director Steven Cohen traveled to Beijing to formalize a partnership with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, the preeminent think tank in China, to design sustainability metrics based on China’s unique development conditions.
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Aruba’s Sustainability Agenda
For many people, the island of Aruba probably generates images of Caribbean vacations and sunny beach resorts. However, those images should also include wind turbines, solar panels and renovated infrastructure, to capture the sustainability agenda that is moving Aruba towards a fossil fuel-free economy. Last week, Earth Institute Executive Director Steven Cohen hosted the prime…
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Managing Energy Efficiency: Translating Policy into Action
It seems logical that conserving energy is good for everyone: reducing carbon pollution is good for the environment, and conserving resources makes financial sense. Yet, getting customers to participate in cost-saving, energy-efficient programs is not as straightforward as one might think. To examine this issue further, on March 13, the Earth Institute co-hosted, with the…
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Driving Sustainability in China
In China, measuring sustainability is in a preliminary but progressive stage, and the government is playing a leading role in driving Chinese companies to go green. Behind the encouraging numbers, however, lie some less attractive facts.
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Hundreds of Ways to Measure Sustainability
Private companies and organizations in the public and non-profit sectors have begun to embrace the idea of sustainability: How to operate in ways that reduce consumption of water, energy and other resources, and help keep from depleting the planet’s natural resources. But how do we measure progress? Reliable metrics are needed – to understand what…
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Public Schools Lead Charge for Environmental Reform
School lunches are about to be carried in a brand new way. According to a recent article in The New York Times, six major urban public schools systems in New York, Orlando, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Dallas (collectively known as The Urban School Food Alliance) aim to make school lunches more sustainable. The goal…
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Research Questions in Urban Ecological Sustainability
Despite having been regarded as a series of “externalities” by conventional systems of economic thinking, our natural environment is not merely a backdrop to human activities, but is the very base upon which all human systems are built. This reality is certainly not new to sustainability science, but it is easy to lose sight of…
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Sustainability Ethics and Metrics
Today’s increasing emphasis on metrics in sustainability policy and management presents an interesting challenge for ethics. When ethics are discussed, probably one of the last things to come to mind is measuring them, particularly in numeric terms.
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Is Sustainability Sustainable in a Post-Bloomberg NYC?
With the end of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure drawing near, many are speculating which of his policies will survive the next administration. New York City’s comprehensive environmental plan, PlaNYC 2030: A Greener, Greater New York, has been championed politically by Bloomberg, but is grounded in science and data, and performance management. It has demonstrated progress,…
