Green Communications: Ready, Set, Go Green

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:16 GMT

Ready, Set, Go Green
Aaris Sherin, St. John's University

Aaris demystified the processes and methodology needed to achieve sustainable design solutions and provide a practical framework from which to approach eco-friendly production. No longer a fringe market, sustainable design is now driven by economics as well as ethics. Aaris described how innovations in production processes and materials have meant that responsibly produced graphic design doesn't have to compromise its visual aesthetic nor does it have to cost substantially more. Case studies and real-world examples illustrated how graphic designers can make the same great work and still work sustainably.

Aaris Sherin is an educator, writer and designer. She is an assistant professor of graphic design at St. John's University in Queens, New York. Aaris is a frequent lecturer and speaker at both national and international design conferences. Her writing has been featured in PRINT Magazine, STEP Inside Design, GroveArt Online and Leonardo. Aaris' upcoming book, SustainAble: A Handbook of Materials and Applications for Graphic Designers and Their Clients, will serve as a resource for communication designers looking to adopt sustainable solutions.

Green Communications: Redefining Green

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:16 GMT

Redefining Green
Don Carli, Institute for Sustainable Communication

The meaning of "green" is undergoing a widespread transformation that has profound implications for all communications professionals, including designers and print buyers. The "new green" is based on a conceptual framework called sustainability. Don provided an overview of the issues you need to consider and the steps you can take to address the challenges of sustainability and climate change in the design and production of print and digital media.

Don Carli is senior research fellow with the nonprofit Institute for Sustainable Communication, where he is director of The Sustainable Advertising Partnership and other programs addressing marketing, advertising, corporate responsibility and enterprise communication. He is also executive vice president of SustainCommWorld LLC, as well as founder and CEO of Nima Hunter Inc., a marketing research consultancy.

Green Communications: Responsible Paper for Responsible Design

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:16 GMT

Responsible Paper for Responsible Design
Melissa Stevens, Mohawk Fine Papers

Melissa covered the trends you see, the terms you hear and the questions to ask when choosing a responsible paper. Virgin versus recycled post-consumer waste fiber, third-party certifications and responsible manufacturing practices are just a few of the areas that should be considered. It's no longer just "a sheet of paper" — it's your message of sustainability.

Melissa Stevens has been the business development manager at Mohawk Fine Papers since 2003. She oversees the marketing efforts and environmental education for Mohawk brands in the New England market.

Redefining Green: Energy Insights for Communications Choices

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:16 GMT

Energy Insights for Communications Choices
Laxmi Rao, MIT Information Services & Technology

Most people know that paper and printing have a carbon footprint, but many are unaware that electronic communications also leave their mark on the environment. Laxmi discussed some considerations and issues to help guide energy-conscious choices for delivering effective communications.

Laxmi Rao is MIT's IT energy coordinator. She works with faculty, staff and students to develop computing energy savings guidelines, promote best practices, and coordinate energy-saving activities in support of campus-wide information services and technology activities.

Redefining Green: It's the New Black

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:16 GMT

Green... It's the New Black
Lora Gunsallus, RR Donnelley

Lora outlined the advantages of consulting with a printer early in your project to discuss ways to be environmentally friendly and stay within your budget. She reviewed the ways in which printers are responding to their clients' requests to produce greener publications, and she covered what her facility has been doing to adopt environmentally responsible business practices.

Lora Gunsallus is a senior account representative for RR Donnelley (W.E. Andrews plant). She began her printing career in 1988 and has been consulting with clients at the W.E. Andrews plant since 1999.

Redefining Green: Panel Discussion and Q&A

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 17:30:15 GMT

At this seminar, held in March of 2008, we learned what it means to think, act and design "green." Experts from the world of sustainability, graphic design, paper, printing and IT energy savings shared their knowledge on how we can make an environmental impact and still effectively communicate our messages.

Dr. Ashok Gadgil - 2012 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation Winner

Thu, 03 May 2012 07:03:13 GMT

Video profile of Dr. Ashok Gadgil, winner of the 2012 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Global Innovation for scientific solutions to the global water crisis, and energy and fuel efficiency.

Fixit Clinic XVIII at the MIT Edgerton Center

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:30:07 GMT

Education, empowerment and enlightenment through guided disassembly of your broken stuffPeter Mui ’82 holds Fixit Clinic XVIII at the MIT Edgerton Center

Dynamic Economic Systems

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:30:06 GMT

Conversation with Nicholas Ashford, a professor of technology and policy in MIT's School of Engineering.

Lemelson-MIT award winner: BP Agrawal

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:02:51 GMT

Video profile of BP Agrawal, 2010 Winner of the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

Reinventing the City @ MIT: Urban Ecology

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:59:19 GMT

Trashion Show 2011 at MIT Next House

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:02:25 GMT

Highlights from the first annual "Trashion Show" presented by Next House and the Undergraduate Association's Sustainability Committee. Check out the MIT news article here.

Videography by Lan Li, edited by Josh Kastorf.

Reinventing the City @ MIT: Economics and the Sustainable City

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:17:41 GMT

Economics and the Sustainable City
Thursday, November 3, 2011, 5:00-7:00pm
MIT 3-133

Three urban economists discuss how economic principles will help cities to create a smaller environmental footprint.

David Albouy, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Michigan; Faculty Research Fellow, National Bureau of Economic Research; and Research Associate at the Office of Tax Policy Research
Nathaniel Baum-Snow, Assistant Professor of Economics, Brown University
Matthew E. Kahn, Professor, Institute of the Environment, Department of Public Policy, UCLA

Moderator: Frank Levy, Daniel Rose Professor of Economics, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

Responders:

Eran Ben-Joseph, , Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design; Head of the Joint Program in City Design and Development, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT
Judith Layzer, Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Head of Environmental Policy and Planning Group, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT

Computational Sustainability Seminar: Enabling a Sustainable Energy Infrastructure - a role for Information Technology

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:15:48 GMT

Sponsored by CSAIL

David Culler, Professor and Chair of Computer Science
Associate Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
Faculty Director of i4Energy at the University of California, Berkeley

After 150 years of industrial (r)evolution, as we contemplate how to arrest the rise in global temperature we must ask how we can bring Information Technology, which has brought such advances in productivity and performance, to bear on efficiency and sustainability. The problems of energy, climate, and sustainability are not crisp, clean technology challenges; they are complex Cyber-Physical Systems challenges. In this talk, we explore how to apply lessons of the Internet, i.e., design principles for building distributed and robust communications infrastructures, to develop an architecture for a cooperative energy network that promotes reduction in use and penetration of renewable sources. We explore how pervasive information can improve energy production, distribution and use. We investigate how design techniques for scalable, power proportional computing infrastructures can translate to the design of a more scalable and flexible electric infrastructure, encouraging efficient use, integrating local or non-dispatchable generation, and managing demand through awareness of energy availability and use over time. Our approach is to develop a cyber overlay on the energy distribution system in its physical manifestations: machine rooms, buildings, neighborhoods and regional grids. A scaled series of experimental energy networks demonstrate monitoring, negotiation protocols, control algorithms and Intelligent Power Switches integrating information and energy flows in a datacenter, building, and campus. We seek to understand broadly how information enables energy efficiencies: through intelligent matching of loads to sources, via various levels of aggregation, power proportional design, and by managing how and when energy is delivered to demand, adapted in time and form to available supply. Together these offer a path to a comsumer-centric grid with supply-following loads.

Nanotechnologies for an Efficient Energy Future - Part 1 - Prof. Vladimir Bulovic - MIT Club of Northern California

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:07:30 GMT

Please join us for our third MITEI on the Road event of 2011 and hear about promising MIT Energy Initiative research from one of the Institute's leading researchers, Vladimir Bulovi?.

The energy-efficient future will be built in part through the adoption of innovative new technologies for energy-efficient lighting, powered by sustainably generated solar electricity where practical. Professor Bulovi? discusses how scalable nanotechnologies will play a key role in their development.

Elizabeth Hausler - Profile Video

Thu, 05 May 2011 15:19:14 GMT

Video profile of Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, winner of the 2011 $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability.

TrashTrack

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:46:40 GMT

Winner of the NSF International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge, the video shows how TrashTrack uses technology to expose the challenges of waste management and sustainability. For more information go to: http://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack/index.php

The Energy/Climate-Change Challenge and the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting It

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/25/2010 4:00 PM Wong AuditoriumThe Honorable John P. Holdren, '65, SM '66, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the PresidentDescription: In a meaty lecture that serves as a concise and comprehensive primer on the twin challenge of energy and environment, John Holdren lays out the difficult options for contending with a world rapidly overheating. "There is no question the world is growing hotter," says Holdren, "and we do have a pretty good handle on influences on climate that are changing the average temperature of the Earth," he says. Since the mid"19th century, there has been a 20"fold increase in the world's use of energy, the preponderance of which comes from burning fossil fuels. The U.S. is 82% dependent on these fuels, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up. If all nations continue business as usual, says Holdren, by 2030 energy use will increase by about 60% over 2005 levels, with fossil fuels comprising about 70% of world energy use. While there is legitimate concern about the economic, political and security risks of fossil fuel dependence, he says, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that result from fossil fuel combustion pose an immense, immediate threat to the planet. From urban and regional air pollution to massive wildfires and fierce storms that bring coastal inundation, dramatic climate disruption is upon us and demands action now. In order to avoid the biggest risks, such as a temperature increase of several degrees centigrade, we must "sharply change the ratio of energy used essentially immediately," Holdren says. But it would cost around $15 trillion to convert the world's fossil fuel dependent energy system into something less destructive, and this conversion would take too long, even if nations could agree on an alternative system. So we are confronted with striking a balance between mitigation and adaptation. Scientists think stabilizing CO2 emissions at 450 parts per million by 2030 might give humanity a shot at avoiding a planet with temperatures as high as those 30 million years ago (when crocodiles swam off Greenland and palm trees swayed in Wyoming). Looking to cut CO2 emissions drastically, the Obama Administration is intent on achieving changes in vehicle fuel efficiency, promoting public transportation and other measures. But realistically, adaptation must also come into play, including changes in agricultural practices, engineering defenses against rising coastal waters, and warding off tropical diseases. The longer we wait, says Holdren, the more expensive mitigation and adaptation become. The wrenching changes needed across the board to reach the ambitious goal of 450 ppm require "barrier"busting incentives," and cannot be accomplished without eliminating "perverse incentives" that encourage business as usual. Holdren believes carbon pricing is essential and inevitable, despite the current climate in Washington. Nuclear power has a critical role to play in this transformation -- including the elusive goal of fusion reactors -- but it must be part of a larger surge in R&D spending on new energy technology ($15 billion versus the current $4 billion per year). The political will to meet this challenge remains a sticking point, and so scientists must do a better job explaining climate change to people, says Holdren. Since there is no silver bullet for the problem, he concludes, "we have got to do it all. If you look at the magnitude of the challenge and the amount by which we must reduce the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to useful energy supplied to the economy, we can leave no stone unturned, and that's what we're trying to get done." About the Speaker(s): John P. Holdren, President Obama's "Science Czar," previously served as Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co"founded and co"led the interdisciplinary graduate"degree program in energy and resources. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and has specialized in energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's board of trustees.Host(s): School of Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering

Invitation to MIT's SDM Systems Thinking Conference - October 21 & 22, 2010

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:43:12 GMT

MIT's System Design and Management Program will host this years Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges Conference in the New Media Labs 6th floor space on October 21st and 22nd. This years conference will focus on systems thinking challenges in sustainability, energy, health care and service systems. For more information please visit the conference website at sdm.mit.edu

Hines: The Man, The Company

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 1:00 PM e14"633Gerald D. Hines, Founder and Chairman, HinesDescription: An iconic figure in real estate development, Gerald D. Hines relates lessons learned over his half"century career to an admiring industry audience. Leveraging know"how in mechanical systems and project management, and not a small amount of chutzpah, Hines opened a one"man office in 1957 Houston, intent on buying, renovating and managing his own buildings. From this tiny start"up, the Hines development business has grown into an international powerhouse, controlling $22 billion in assets, and employing 3,300 people in 245 cities dealing with hundreds of millions of square feet of commercial, residential and mixed"use projects. Hines ticks off a handful of reasons for this spectacular success. First, he believes in "quality architecture" and mechanical systems that provide good service at low cost. When buildings embody these principles, he says, you can "mitigate risk in any economic cycle." Such architects as Philip Johnson and Kevin Roche have drawn tenants to his buildings. You want to be the "last to lose occupancy and the first to gain it back," says Hines. Second, he advocates a steadfast commitment to sustainable technologies, which also "makes good business sense." Even in the era prior to LEED standards, Hines sought ways to streamline buildings for greater operating and energy efficiencies. Other lessons he imparts: there are opportunities in acquiring existing buildings if you are "sure you can add value;" and "mixed use development makes for better communities and a better world." The average tenure for Hines' employees runs in the decades, and the company's organizational structure contributes in great part to this retention rate, as well as to its global successes. Hines describes the autonomy top managers enjoy in their various divisions. The company also offers these managers 50% of equity in new ventures. The "people leading the project have something to lose," says Hines, and a great deal to gain as well. Hines sees a real estate landscape that is a lot tougher to break into today, and one fraught with great uncertainty, especially in current economic times. He was chairman of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank in the early 1980s, and witnessed a bust that "wiped out the real estate industry." He sees parallels today to those times, and warns his listeners, "Button down your hatches, guys, it could come overnight." About the Speaker(s): Gerald D. Hines grew a one"man operation into one of the largest real estate investment, development and management firms in the world. Since its inception in 1957, Hines has developed or acquired more than 980 projects in 245 cities globally and 17 countries, representing more than 330 million square feet of commercial, residential, mixed"use and industrial projects. The Hines firm controls assets valued at approximately $22.9 billion and partners with major institutional investors as well as individual investors through the Hines REIT. Hines is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has received the Urban Land Institute's J.C. Nichols Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development. An industry pioneer in aesthetics and sustainability, Hines has championed and supported real estate architecture and urban planning programs at Harvard, Yale and Rice universities; the College of Architecture at the University of Houston is named in his honor. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

Re-Engineering Buildings: Innovations in Building Technology

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 11:00 AM e14"633Tony Ciochetti, Chairman, MIT Center for Real Estate; John Ochsendorf, Associate Professor, Department of Architecture; Alex (Sandy) Pentland, PhD '82, Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Director of Human Dynamics Research, MIT Media Lab; Sarah Slaughter, 82, SM'87, PhD 91, Associate Director for Buildings & Infrastructure, MIT Energy InitiativeDescription: The built environment consumes a very large share of the nation's energy, and so offers rich opportunities for reducing our overall carbon footprint. MIT researchers share innovations that could soon radically alter the energy profile, as well as form and function, of buildings. Their work may prove invaluable to those in the real estate or construction industries seeking not just efficiency, but a good investment. Pumping gas into a car, we can get a good sense of its energy costs, says John Ochsendorf. But when it comes to buildings, which are huge capital investments, "we have practically no literacy" around energy performance. Now we are entering a "new frontier," says Ochsendorf, as pressure builds to achieve substantial, swift reductions in energy consumption. He is helping to develop new metrics for measuring the amount of energy a building uses over its entire lifespan, from construction through many years of occupancy. Ochsendorf maps the material and energy flow involved in producing a can of Coke, from the extraction of minerals for aluminum smelting, to the French beets used in its sugar syrup, and suggests that this level of detail should be available for our buildings as well. This means "lifecycle assessment with rigorous benchmarking of building performance," down to the CO2 emissions per square foot. Ochsendorf is working with concrete and cement manufacturers to help them achieve steep reductions quickly, and to design buildings that use local waste material such as clay, and operate with zero net energy use. The value of buildings derives from their capacity to "protect and enhance the health, safety and well"being of occupants and communities," says Sarah Slaughter. There are measurable benefits, too: Acoustically quiet classrooms improve student retention, and reinforced buildings can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Slaughter is interested in using "low impact development" for healthy, resilient buildings. She takes a "system of systems" approach, examining first the interaction of systems within a building. Could use of rainwater capture, for instance, decrease the need for non"potable water, or could "daylight harvesting" permit the downsizing of artificial lighting? Slaughter next considers the building's connections to the larger environment, including its neighborhood and region. She sees a "value"added chain" that ultimately includes municipalities and state and federal agencies. By targeting the right links in the chain, one can achieve both performance enhancement and cost efficiencies. This leads to "clearly demonstrable bottom"line benefits -- less than a year payback for some upgrades" as well as improved buildings that "allow people to complete their organizational missions more effectively." Alex (Sandy) Pentland hopes to make buildings more productive and efficient, but focuses on people rather than structures. He has devised methods for mapping human activities, following cellphone and other wireless signals. For example, Pentland can track face to face meetings taking place in an organization, and troubleshoot areas of low"productivity. He describes changing the time for coffee breaks in a Bank of America call center, and saving that business $15 million. He has detailed how "tribes" of people move about in cities, and can make astonishingly accurate predictions about where and when these groups go to eat and the kinds of things they buy. Real estate developers could look at transportation patterns, for instance, and build stores in places convenient to a target group. These tools are powerful enough to reveal socioeconomic patterns, such as crime rates, disease and even life expectancy among different groups. Data mapping, believes Pentland, will prove increasingly useful to many institutions, although it presents some perils around privacy issues. About the Speaker(s): Tony Ciochetti leads the Center for Real Estate's mission to improve the global built environment through industry relevant research and to promote more informed professional practice. Prior to his appointment at MIT, Ciochetti was the Director of the Center for Real Estate Development and a Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Ciochetti is also a visiting Professor in the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge University in England. His teaching areas of expertise include Commercial Real Estate Development and Real Estate Finance. He has created or taught courses in these areas at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, the University of Wisconsin"Madison, Indiana University, and the University of North Carolina"Chapel Hill. Ciochetti's research interests lie in two broad areas: commercial mortgage credit risk and the role of real estate within pension plan portfolios. His work has appeared in leading scholarly journals, including Real Estate Economics, and the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, among others. Ciochetti is currently the President of the Real Estate Research Institute, where he is also an academic fellow, and serves on the Board of Directors of Real Estate Economics. Ciochetti received his B.A. in Finance from the University of Oregon, and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin"Madison. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

What Does Re-Engineering Mean for Real Estate?

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:00:00 GMT

10/01/2010 2:00 PM e14"633Dr. Ray Torto, Global Chief Economist, CBRE; ; Joseph Azrack, Managing Director, Apollo Commercial Real Estate; Brad Case, Vice President " Research & Industry Information, NAREIT; Tom Garbutt, Managing Director, TIAA"CREF Global Real Estate; Doug Linde, President, Boston Properties; Lynn Thurber, Chairman, LaSalle Investment ManagementDescription: Who better to comment on current realities of real estate investment than practitioners immersed in the business at the highest level? Moderated by prominent real estate economist Ray Torto, this panel includes five senior executives with well over a century of collective experience at major development and investment firms and an industry information organization. Kicking off the discussion from the audience, Jacques Gordon of LaSalle Investment Management asks about the stark contrast in previous panels between views of academics espousing the "complexity" of markets, historical data and prognostications, and the "simplicity" of the perspective of renowned developer Gerald Hines. The consensus is that quantitative analysis and technical skills are dazzling, but it is essential to streamline and make a case that real estate investors can easily comprehend. Joseph Azrack tells his staff, "You've got to be able to figure it out on a piece of paper. Don't give me all the spreadsheets." Lynn Thurber acknowledges that complexity is inevitable but you have "to focus, to make a decision andcourse correct when the information later on tells you that you're going the wrong way." Torto invites the panelists to nominate one key term to epitomize what students must learn for real estate careers. Tom Garbutt offers "global" -- adding, "Get experience outside the US See how decisions are made in other cultures." Thurber's mantra is "risk management"; investment success comes from "being able to understand that risk and price that risk correctly." Brad Case stresses discipline. Firms must have mechanisms in place to "minimize the opportunities to destroy value." Azrack, citing renegade musician Frank Zappa, believes in being contrarian. He advises departing from conventional wisdom to identify fruitful investment opportunities in out"of"favor assets and markets. On the critical topic of the impending trillion dollar debt rollover, Doug Linde refutes doomsayers, forecasting that well"located properties will provide redeeming value. "As long as the financial system has maintained enough cushion," declares Linde, "I don't think systemically we are going to be into this sort of Armageddon." With measured optimism, Garbutt concurs that in today's climate the risk premium for investors in real estate is better than in alternative assets, and high quality properties should create inflation protection. All the speakers embrace environmental sustainability as paramount to their business. Energy efficiency is an ever"present consideration, and measuring a carbon footprint is common parlance. Azrack states, "If you have a choice between a LEED building and another oneyou're going to go with the LEED." Thurber agrees that green buildings help "attract and retain tenantsreduce our operating expensesand our investors are interested in the subject matter. Sustainability is going to be an integral part of everything we doto make sure that our assets remain competitive." Garbutt draws an analogy to the 1950s when air"conditioned office buildings came into vogue; without this amenity, "you were in big trouble," unable to satisfy tenant demand. In closing, Torto asks for research ideas that might enhance the real estate industry. Case proposes "a set of indexesthat will bring a lot more transparency to the market," and the development of effective hedging instruments. He would also like to learn which methods of entering the asset class produce superior returns -- for example, REITs versus private funding. About the Speaker(s): Ray Torto is a widely recognized analyst and prognosticator of the macroeconomics of commercial real estate. As cofounder of CBRE Econometric Advisors (originally Torto Wheaton Research), he furnishes research and commentary to guide institutional investors in commercial real estate. His roles as international consultant and spokesperson evolved as a culmination of many years in academia and the public sector. Torto was an economics professor and department chair at the University of Massachusetts, and prior to that, a policy manager in state and local government. He participates on the boards and committees of numerous national and local real estate organizations, including the Pension Real Estate Association. Torto is the author of four books and an array of articles in the field of real estate market economics. He earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate in economics from Boston College. In 2007, he received the Graaskamp Award for Real Estate Research Excellence.Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

William McDonough - Cradle to Cradle: A Strategy of Hope

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 16:24:16 GMT

This talk was given on April 22, 2010 as the Earth Day Colloquium, sponsored by the MIT Energy Initiative and the United Technologies Corporation. - About the Speaker - William McDonough is an internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents and shapers of what he and his partners call 'The Next Industrial Revolution.' Time magazine recognized him in 1999 as a 'Hero for the Planet', stating that "his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that-in demonstrable and practical ways-is changing the design of the world." Time Magazine again recognized Mr. McDonough and Michael Braungart as "Heroes of the Environment" in October 2007. In 1996, Mr. McDonough received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the nation's highest environmental honor; and in 2003 earned the U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. In 2004 he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. In October 2007, Mr. McDonough was elected an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Looking Ahead to the Future of NASA

Mon, 10 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/10/2010 3:00 PM 32"123Gen. Charles Bolden, NASA AdministratorDescription: From the MIT News Office: NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr. defended President Barack Obama's controversial plans for the U.S. space agency's future and touted the president's plan to invest billions of dollars in basic science research. Some in Congress have criticized Obama's proposal to cancel the Constellation program, which would have sent humans to the moon by 2020, saying such a move will effectively cede U.S. space leadership to other nations. But Bolden noted that the White House's plan would also invest an additional $6 billion in NASA over the next five years, including a 60"percent increase in earth sciences research funding, as well as a 20"percent increase in planetary sciences research. Such an expansion could revitalize NASA's ties with institutions like MIT, which has played an instrumental role in the agency since NASA was founded in 1958. Bolden said NASA was going through what he called a "difficult, but very interesting" period. As a former astronaut who completed four space flights, Bolden expressed sadness about the prospect of ending NASA's space"shuttle fleet, admitting he is "emotionally attached" to the shuttle program. But he insisted that NASA is "committed" to Obama's new era of space exploration, which calls for a flexible path approach for NASA to gain progressively more experience, such as a lunar fly"by or exploration of asteroids, before making a trip to Mars. The plan also calls for developing a "heavy"lift" system to launch spacecraft into deep space, as well as technologies to protect humans from long"term radiation. In the future, NASA would lease vehicles from private companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station. "The president, with my full agreement, made a change - a big change," Bolden said of Obama's decision to undertake a new direction for NASA, adding that the agency's fundamental goal "to boldly advance the human presence beyond the cradle of Earth," has not changed, and that Mars remains an "especially compelling target." Bolden outlined several tracks that NASA has proposed to achieve its goals, such as developing robotic technologies to scout new targets and test precision landings. He said the agency remains focused on using the International Space Station to learn more about human health issues, referring to ongoing work by ISS researchers to develop a salmonella vaccine. He pledged NASA's commitment to develop a commercial launch industry for carrying humans into low Earth orbit, but said that the agency was still fine"tuning specific operations details, such as whether a crew would be trained at NASA facilities. He also said the agency was honoring Obama's request to collaborate with other countries like Saudi Arabia to foster science research. When pressed to name a timetable for a manned mission to Mars, Bolden said it was "pretty vague," but that if NASA started to develop the architecture for a heavy"lift launch vehicle right now, it could be as soon as the early 2020s that a spacecraft orbits the moon, and maybe 2025 for a spacecraft or robot to land on an asteroid. Those advances could make travel to Mars a reality by 2030, he said. Host(s): School of Engineering, Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium

Concentrate on Distracted Driving: A Challenge to MIT Students from US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood

Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/03/2010 12:00 PM E14"674Ray LaHood, US Secretary of TransportationDescription: From the MIT News Office: Research has shown that talking on a phone while driving, even with a hands"free cellphone, causes as much of an impairment to driving ability as being drunk. And yet, says U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, while the nation has successfully cracked down on drunk driving, when it comes to cell phone use in cars, nearly everybody does it. This dangerous "epidemic" must stop, he said, and he hopes that smart people like the students at MIT will come up with ways - technological, social or political - to help curb the phenomenon, which kills thousands of people every year and causes many thousands more injuries. To emphasize the point, LaHood invited a local couple, Jerry Cibley and Jeri Katz of Foxborough, Massachusetts, to come to his talk to share their experience: Three years ago, Jerry was talking on the phone to his son Jordan, who was driving at the time; Jordan dropped the phone during the conversation, bent down to pick it up, and slammed into a tree. He was killed instantly. In calling for students to help find solutions to the problem, LaHood said, "Your time at MIT is more than an opportunity, it's a responsibility." He urged students to devote themselves to helping to find solutions to real"world problems such as the "driving while distracted" issue that he stressed in his talk, or the problem of reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. "Something needs to be done," he said. "I challenge all of you to find solutions." About the Speaker(s): As Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood leads an agency with more than 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget that oversees air, maritime and surface transportation missions. Secretary LaHood's primary goals include safety across all modes, restoring economic health and creating jobs, sustainability _ shaping the economy of the coming decades by building new transportation infrastructure, and assuring that transportation policies focus on people who use the transportation system and their communities. Before becoming Secretary of Transportation, LaHood served for 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives from the 18th District of Illinois (from 1995"2009). During that time he served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and, after that, on the House Appropriations Committee. Prior to his election to the House, he served as Chief of Staff to U.S. Congressman Robert Michel, whom he succeeded in representing the 18th District, and as District Administrative Assistant to Congressman Thomas Railsback. He also served in the Illinois State Legislature. Before his career in government, Secretary LaHood was a junior high school teacher, having received his degree from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He was also director of the Rock Island County Youth Services Bureau and Chief planner for the Bi"States Metropolitan Planning Commission in Illinois. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

The Interaction Between Poverty, Growth and Democracy

Mon, 03 May 2010 04:00:00 GMT

05/03/2010 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumPresident Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru 2001"2006Description: Alejandro Toledo has remained a passionate advocate of reform since departing the presidency of Peru in 2006. In his home country, he embodied the possibility of transformation, having risen from poverty in an Andean village to top political power, where he initiated a process of economic and social change for Peru. Now he serves as a kind of roving ambassador on behalf of the most deprived populations in Latin America. Toledo is advancing a particular initiative, the "Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America," which asserts an inextricable link between effective, inclusive political institutions, and economic justice. "If we're not able to reduce high levels of poverty, inequality and social exclusion, then poverty can conspire against democracy," says Toledo. Natural resources are not a solution, but actually a burden, he believes. Many nations rich in mineral or agricultural wealth, including Peru, have very low standards of living. Inequitable foreign exchange and trade, buttressed by corrupt leaders, often robs these nations of their treasure, and of any chance for investing in development at home. The poor remain poor and, with no way of achieving a decent income or meeting their basic needs, hopeless. They "lose faith in democracy," says Toledo. The path out of poverty and corruption represents an opportunity and challenge for Latin America, says Toledo. Citizens must demand that their institutions be accountable, and political leaders must provide a plan for economic development that incorporates "explicit social policies that go beyond trickle down." Topping Toledo's agenda is quality education. Investing in the minds of people is a long"term proposition, acknowledges Toledo, and many politicians "don't have the patience, when they know the return will take 18 to 20 years before the kid turns out to be an engineer." But only education can "bring a family, a region, a nation, into a world of opportunity." Educated populations create citizens "with a sense of solidarity," who can work their way out of indigence and engage meaningfully in a democracy. Toledo also wants sustainable development in Latin America, so future generations can enjoy clean water and healthy forests. He is a fan of microfinance as well: "You give me $1 to invest in a poor woman ... and we begin changing the face of the world." He encourages fellow Latin Americans in the audience to return: "Latin America is a promising continent, but ... it will only play a crucial role in the world economy and democracy if you are there." About the Speaker(s): Alejandro Toledo was born in a remote village in the Peruvian Andes, one of 16 brothers and sisters from a family of extreme poverty. At the age of six, he worked as a shoe shiner and sold newspapers. By chance, he had access to a decent education, and went on to earn a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration from the University of San Francisco, and two masters degrees and a Ph.D. in the Economics of Human Resources, all from Stanford University. He worked as the Director of Peru's Economic Development Institute, and in positions at the World Bank, the Inter"American Development Bank in Washington, and the United Nations in New York before running for president of Peru. After his presidential term, Toledo left Peru and served as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University from 2006 to 2008. During this period, he was also a Payne Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a CDDRL (Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law) Visiting Scholar. More recently, Toledo was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., and also a Non"Resident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution < br> Toledo founded and continues to serve as the President of the Global Center for Development and Democracy, which is based in Latin America, the United States, and the European Union. Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

Lunch with a Laureate: Eric Chivian

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

In 1978, in his last years of residency in psychiatry at Mass General Hospital, Eric Chivian decided to do something bold.

From Relief to Reconstruction — Practical and Policy Challenges

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

Oxfam's Raymond Offenheiser scrutinizes what will ultimately be "crucial to the outcome, in the Haitian context, of a successful recovery and rehabilitation by the Haitian people and for the Haitian nation-distributed leadership.

Passionate about Energy? How One Volunteer Makes a Difference

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:37:53 GMT

Learn how Douglas Spreng '65 helps advance the MIT Energy Initiative through networking events and philanthropy and what you can do to get involved.

Steve Eppinger on Developing Sustainable Products

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:31:20 GMT

MIT Sloan Executive Education professor Steve Eppinger describes his research into developing sustainable products. Learn more about professor Steve Eppinger.

Transportation, the Built Environment and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Developing Cities

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:00:00 GMT

04/06/2010 4:00 PM 3"270Chris Zegras, Ford Career Development Assistant Professor of Transportation and Urban Planning, MITDescription: It seems that income and travel are inextricably linked. As communities gain wealth and prosperity, their travel footprint increases. While this relationship affords benefits to those in developed nations, it is not scalable. Global population is projected to increase by nearly 2 billion people by 2030. If this newly added population drove just 3,000 kilometers a year, they would emit more tonnes of C02 annually, more than all the countries of Latin America emit today. "The world simply cannot afford to add another Latin America", says Chris Zegras. Zegras observes that fundamentally, people do not desire travel . they wish to have accessibility. Travel is a derived demand, prompted by our activities. If we could make better use of telecommunications, or, if our cities were more compact, perhaps we would find less need for vehicle trips. This is not a new concept for Americans. Nearly 100 years ago, planners envisioned "garden cities" where urban space could be better designed to promote community and neighborhood. Zegras and his students are modeling the trajectory of travel and growth in the developing world" primarily Asia and South America. In Santiago, Chile there has been a large growth of the middle class, accompanied, not surprisingly by an increase in automobile ownership. However, vehicle ownership and rising income are only part of the explanation. The research has noted that distance to the Central Business District, and proximity to Santiago's Metro system are also important factors. Neither urban density nor income entirely explains the picture of travel behavior. In Jinan, China the research team has compared travel in four distinctly different types of neighborhoods, and conducted a survey with 9 areas and 300 households per district. Counter intuitively, the data shows vehicle trips are more prevalent in higher density. These are new style developments consisting of very tall residential superblocks. In fact, looking at total energy consumption, the superblocks use more mega joules of energy than households in more traditional or older Chinese neighborhoods. At the end of the day, Zegras notes that there is a complex, and perhaps reflexive mechanism between the built environment and travel. The built environment may simply not provide enough accessibility to get us to a different standard, and behaviorally, people may cling to their implicit "travel time budgets". If they are able to reduce their daily travel on the one hand, might they then accumulate the savings, so to speak, and take one longer, leisure trip at month"end on an airplane? Measuring the carbon footprint of transportation within the built environment is difficult and there is "leakage". If we save in one area, we might spend in another. About the Speaker(s): Chris Zegras teaches graduate"level courses in urban transportation planning, statistics, and land use"transportation planning in the Department of Urban Studies at MIT, where he has also co"taught urban design and planning studios and Practica in Beijing, Santiago de Chile, and Mexico City. He currently serves as the MIT Lead for the MIT"Portugal Program Transportation Systems Focus Area. He is also a member of the Campus Energy Task Force of the MIT Energy Initiative. Zegras previously worked as a Research Associate at MIT's Laboratory for Energy & the Environment. He also spent 6 years with the International Institute for Energy Conservation (IIEC) in Washington, DC and Santiago de Chile. He has consulted widely on transportation, land development, environment, and finance, including for the International Energy Agency, the Government of Peru, the World Bank, the U.S., Canadian, and German overseas development agencies, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Zegras holds a BA in Economics and Spanish from Tufts University, and the Master in City Planning, the Master of Science in Transportation, and the Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Creating Value in a Volatile World

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

02/23/2010 4:00 PM 3"270David Simchi"Levi, Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil EngineeringDescription: The need for flexible management of supply chains to increase operational efficiencies could not be greater, as modern companies outsource and manufacture overseas. David Simchi" Levi observes that between 2003 and 2008 labor costs increased by 21% in Brazil, 19% in China, and 3% to 8% in other countries. Meanwhile, logistic costs, as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), began to rise in 2003, after declining steadily. Adding to this unstable business mix has been tremendous volatility and fluctuation in oil prices. While these challenging market factors have emerged, there has been an offset and gain from information technology and processing power: IT technology allows easier integration or decision support systems, more data is available, and processing time grows increasingly faster. According to Simchi"Levi, " These improvements are key to breakthroughs in logistics operations and management. As you think about managing a transportation system or supply chain with hundreds or thousands of facilities and products, computing power plays an important role. Optimization technology (the combined effect of algorithms and machines) means that some things in 1988 that took two months to solve, in 2004 they took less than 1 second. Between 2004 and 2008, algorithms improved by a factor of 100! So, with the power that has been generated, I want to take advantage of this, to look at the challenges." Simchi"Levi provides a case study of a national food and beverage company using an optimization of their supply chain/ logistics. In his example, the company had 5 locations and five product lines. Clearly transportation costs would go down if each plant produced four more "product families" or lines, but the costs of production would increase if each plant produced four additional lines. Modeling the supply chain produced a surprising result: each plant did not need to produce all five product lines; they simply needed to add a degree of flexibility to their manufacturing. In fact, 80% of the financial benefits to the total cost could be achieved if each of the five plants added just a second, minimal line of capacity. The key to this puzzle was that if each plant did some of the work of the others, but not all of it, it produced a "long supply chain" that had domino effects. It led to reduced transportation costs. And, it protected the company against manufacturing disruptions ( e.g. labor strikes, earthquakes) because changes in the supply chain could be compensated and satisfied by adjusting production elsewhere. Simchi" Levi observes that with an optimization of the supply chain, many costs went down and plant utilization increased. He describes this as making small adjustments in the business strategy to gain high returns. About the Speaker(s): David Simchi"Levi holds a Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University. His research currently focuses on developing and implementing robust and efficient techniques for logistics and manufacturing systems. He has published widely in professional journals on both practical and theoretical aspects of logistics and supply chain management. He has been the principal investigator for more than five million dollars in funded academic research. He is the Editor"in"Chief of Operations Research, the flagship journal of INFORMS, the former Editor"in"Chief of Naval Research Logistics and a member of the board for several scientific journals including Management Science, Networks, Transportation Science and Telecommunication Systems, and a former Area Editor of Transportation for Operations Research. Simchi"Levi's most recent book (with P. Kaminsky and E. Simchi"Levi), is Managing the Supply Chain: The Definitive Guide for the Supply Chain Professional. The book serves as a reference for consultants and managers involved in any one of the processes that make up the supply chain. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:00:00 GMT

02/09/2010 4:00 PM 3"270John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT Description: Transportation systems, as we know them today, will simply not sustain the worlds' growing population. Imagine a projected population of nine billion individuals. If this future population had mobility patterns like drivers in the United States, there would be a staggering 7.6 billion motor vehicles, using 440 million barrels of oil and producing 62 billion tons of CO2 per year. John Sterman says it is self"evident that our current transportation model simply will not scale. But, since the gross world product (GWP) is growing at 3.2% annually, and doubles every twenty years, our current model of development is an overture for environmental disaster. It is clear to Sterman that we need to think differently about the problem. People need access to goods, services, people, and opportunities. This access is what traditional forms of transportation provide. We also need to see transportation in its complexity, and expect that our planning efforts will have totally unintended, unexpected "rebound" effects. Sterman provides two examples of these rebound effects. The first examines the relationship between reducing traffic congestion and mass transit. Traditionally, the solution to traffic congestion has been one of supply and demand, and new roads are built to accommodate the increase in vehicle traffic. But, notes Sterman, augmenting road capacity just does not work: When new capacity is added, new vehicle trips, or longer ones, are encouraged. These trips quickly fill up the new road capacity, which produces a spiral of more severe traffic congestion. Meanwhile, some portion of these new auto trips come at the expense of public transit, which, upon losing riders, then reacts by either cutting service, or increasing fares. This downward spiral of public transit has a feedback loop which increases the attractiveness of driving. Sterman observes that planning is chaotic if we don't pay attention to these feedback loops and really think through what it is people want to achieve. A different, but equally complex set of feedback loops, has been the undoing of the alternative fuels industry. Over a thirty"year horizon, three countries, namely Brazil, New Zealand, and Argentina each developed a national policy and provided incentives to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, none of their fuel programs grew large enough to achieve sufficient scale economies. Sterman characterizes these new starts as "sizzle and fizzle". He cautions us from repeating their mistakes as a current initiative gets underway to develop a hydrogen vehicle and fueling network in California. Having volume and scale will help us go down the learning curve, and we also need to bring many groups into the problem solving" these include vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, suppliers, and consumers. But, technology alone will not solve the problem. Sterman says we should prepare for the counter"intuitive lessons of transportation, and recognize that we will achieve better results if we make driving less attractive. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

High-Performance Rechargeable Batteries for Sustainable Transportation and Large-scale Storage of Electric Power

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:52:30 GMT

A talk presented by Professor Don Sadoway on January 11, 2010 as part of the MIT Energy Initiative's Energy Futures Week. The road to sustainability is paved with advanced materials. Advances in rechargeable batteries would enable widespread adoption of practical electric vehicles taking us beyond hybrids and obviating the need for fuel-cells. The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions plus the freedom from reliance on overseas sources of petroleum with attendant geopolitical implications give special value to an all-electric fleet. Innovation in stationary electrical energy storage at high amperage would enable us to store off-peak power from the grid for subsequent delivery on demand during high usage periods. Adoption of wind or photovoltaic generation hinges to a large extent on the advent of proper storage technology: renewables are enabled by colossal batteries. Examples of innovation in both portable and stationary energy storage will be presented. Web: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/liquid-battery.html

Lifeline for Renewable Power

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

General Electric's Juan de Bedout demonstrates the company's software system to improve the electric grid.

Ecological Intelligence

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:00:00 GMT

12/03/2009 6:30 PM 4"370Daniel Goleman, Psychologist, writer; Deborah G. Ancona, Seley Distinguished Professor of Management; Faculty Director, MIT Leadership Center; Greg Norris, '85, Founder, SylvaticaDescription: Some people believe the planet would be better off, at least ecologically, if humans had never evolved. These speakers offer grim evidence that human activities threaten to poison much of life on earth, but they also suggest some new methods for treading more lightly, and perhaps reversing some deadly trends. "We are in deep trouble," says Daniel Goleman, and not just around climate change. Other catastrophes are underway, including acidification of the ocean, freshwater depletion, and loss of species; some ecological systems have already passed tipping points. The industrial age, with its refined networks of industry and commerce, has "disconnected the stuff we buy and use to survive" from where and how it is made, leading to vast expanses of human waste, destruction and exhaustion of natural resources. A new discipline, industrial ecology, makes possible a minute study of the connection between the creation of things in human systems, and their impacts-- a life cycle analysis (LCA). Goleman describes what goes into the creation and disposal of a simple glass jar, from the extraction of sand, use of chemicals, melting at high temperatures, and its end in a landfill or recycling center. This new methodology offers "a vast opportunity to rethink everything we do," says Goleman. Thanks to websites and downloadable apps that analyze all the ingredients in food, and the thousands of chemicals in daily use, "it is now possible to know the hidden impacts of what we buy when we go to the store," he says. Consumers can learn instantly whether their product contains properties toxic to health, the environment, and even to social welfare. Empowered buyers can now make choices based not just on value and quality but on their eco and health impacts, collectively swaying companies to do better. Procter and Gamble, performing LCA on their detergents, realized they could wash clothes with cold water, enabling energy savings at home, and this became a marketing point for them. Walmart, says Goleman, is running with the strategic value of sustainability, pushing all its suppliers to report impacts, and sharing this information with shoppers. Gregory Norris is pressing to open up the sustainability efforts of vast numbers of suppliers with Earthster.org. This website aggregates LCA performed by companies, as well as by other organizations attempting to assess impacts, and publishes the results in a way that can be freely used, so entire supply chains emerge around products. Ultimately, as transparency in reporting impacts becomes the norm, companies and their suppliers will no longer conceal such "externalities" as pollution, or even such social impacts as workers harmed by chemicals on the job. Says Goleman, the "new math for assessing impacts of products and processes" will "for the first time" push sustainable products to the forefront in the marketplace, making it truly possible "to do well by doing good." About the Speaker(s): Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist who lectures frequently to professional groups, business audiences, and on college campuses. Working as a science journalist, Goleman reported on the brain and behavioral sciences for The New York Times for many years. His 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books) was on The New York Times bestseller list for a year"and"a"half; with more than 5,000,000 copies in print worldwide in 30 languages, and has been a best seller in many countries. Goleman's latest book is Ecological Intelligence: How Knowing the Hidden Impacts of What We Buy Can Change Everything. The book argues that new information technologies will create "radical transparency," allowing us to know the environmental, health, and social consequences of what we buy. As shoppers use point"of"purchase ecological comparisons to guide their purchases, market share will shift to support steady, incremental upgrades in how products are made _ changing every thing for the better. Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, was published in 2006. Social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence, can now be understood in terms of recent findings from neuroscience. Goleman's book describes the many implications of this new science, including for altruism, parenting, love, health, learning and leadership.Host(s): Dean for Student Life, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values

Session I: Designing for Doubt: Citizen Science and the Challenge of Change

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:35:29 GMT

Eric Paulos (Carnegie Mellon). 10/12/2009

Creating a Game Plan for Transition to a Sustainable Economy

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

11/17/2009 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumJeffrey Hollender, Co"founder & Executive Chair; Seventh Generation Description: The "chief inspired protagonist" of one of the nation's oldest and most successful green manufacturers apologizes for delivering a talk "more depressing than expected." While discussing the challenges facing businesses attempting to transition to a more just and sustainable economy, Jeffrey Hollender enumerates the many reasons he's feeling bleak these days. While some pundits claim the recession is over, Hollender sees continued deep problems, with almost one in five Americans under" or unemployed. The stock market has recovered only because of the "belief that the total financial system won't collapse in the short term," he says. Corporations have learned to improve quarterly earnings by quickly "getting rid of a disposable asset -- their people," and Hollender's worried this behavior "will lead to a downward spiral." But his greater concern involves the underlying structure of our economic system, which makes it especially difficult for people to acknowledge and then work together to address such global problems as climate change. Hollender finds several aspects of our economic system particularly distressing: the negative and disruptive influence money has in politics (he calls out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its opposition to the climate change legislation); the paradox of living in a society "where good things cost more than bad things;" and financial markets where "it's entirely legal to make money without creating value for anybody other than yourself." He also notes that organizations devoted to sustainability, including his own, may have become complacent or settled for too little. "It's important that we not confuse the absence of bad with good," says Hollender. While Hollender thinks nothing less than "revolutionary change" is required to achieve a sustainable society, he does recommend some constructive steps toward that goal, such as reforming a tax structure that's beneficial to the wealthiest people; demanding "radical transparency" from businesses, and salary caps for top executives. He also notes that companies exert "incredible leverage" through their supply chains, and points approvingly at Walmart's moves to reduce packaging waste. Hollender believes corporate pressure in some cases has achieved more than governmental regulation: "These large companies, often the source of evil, can be incredible sources of positive change." His greatest hopes, though, lie with the next generation: children who are educated to "see how everything's connected," and older students like those in his MIT audience, who he hopes will take the lead in generating social and economic change. About the Speaker(s): Jeffrey Hollender is a leader in the socially and environmentally responsible communities. He is a member and former director of the Social Venture Network, a consortium of socially aware business executives. His first ventures involved not"for"profit organizations in adult education. He co"founded and directed Community Capital Bank, which invested in affordable housing and community development in New York. After serving as president of Warner Audio Publishing, Hollender acquired a mail order catalog business selling energy conservation products. This became Seventh Generation, which is now the leading and fastest"growing brand of natural products for the home. Hollender also acted as president of the Rainforest Foundation USA from 1992"1996. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Greenpeace Fund; the Environmental Health Fund; Verite; and the Advisory Board of Healthy Child Healthy World. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Education Across Borders: The India Perspective

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

10/27/2009 3:00 PM 10"250Shri Kapil Sibal, Honourable Minister of Human Resource Development, Government of IndiaDescription: Rickshaw drivers in India are frequent victims of tuberculosis after just a few years inhaling traffic fumes. This near"epidemic went unacknowledged until Kapil Sibal demanded a solution. The fix, now gaining traction across the country, is a solar"powered vehicle that eliminates pedaling. But what began as a project to assist his nation's afflicted rickshaw drivers has broadened into a much grander scheme in Sibal's hands. Project 800 is a government venture to apply science and technology to better the lives of India's 800 million citizens facing a multitude of hardships. Sibal's mission at MIT is not merely to communicate his people's great challenges, but to recruit. He is candid: "MIT should be a partner in Project 800," helping to solve the "ordinary problems of ordinary men with ordinary lives." Sibal wonders how the globalization of trade, manufacturing and services alone will solve the extraordinary problems of India in the 21st century: feeding a growing population with a limited amount of arable land just as the green revolution has gone "gray;" managing the impacts of global warming and greater energy demands; and the spread of health threats that respect no national borders. Solutions to these problems, Sibal believes, depend in large part on the globalization of education -- the dissemination of scientific and technical know"how from places like MIT to India. But this flow of transformative ideas, warns Sibal, requires a "change in the mindset of educational institutions." They must begin to perceive their community as global, and also be willing to move where they are needed. "They are not silos of knowledge living in one part of the world, protecting the national interest, saying as long as we're OK, it doesn't matter what else is happening in the world." Academic institutions must find common cause with other communities, learn that problems thousands of miles away have the power to touch home. "There should be an element of self"interest. It should be win"win," says Sibal. To that end, Sibal invites MIT to partner with India on site in projects "to combat the challenges of tomorrow." He sees natural affiliations that increase the odds for success in these collaborations: "freedom of speech, diversity of culture, the enormous ability to have dialog." MIT also lends such ventures another advantage, says Sibal -- a woman president, "who has the vision to create, nurture and transform." About the Speaker(s): Kapil Sibal received his M.A. in History from St. Stephen`s College, University of Delhi, Delhi and LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Sibal served as the Additional Solicitor General of India from Dec. 1989 to Dec.1990, and was the Secretary of the Congress Parliamentary Party. During 1995"96, 1997"98 and 2001"2002, Sibal held the post of President of the Supreme Court Bar Association. He was Co"Chairman of the Indo"US Parliamentary Forum, 2002. Sibal was chosen as the Member of Rajya Sabha during 1998"2004. Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Global MIT

America's Leadership in Clean Energy

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

10/23/2009 12:00 PM KresgePresident Barack Obama, 44th President of the USDescription: In welcoming President Obama, MIT President Susan Hockfield summarizes the vast array of energy innovation at MIT, including the MIT Energy Initiative and the student"led 1700 member Energy Club, and declares, "We share President Obama's view that clean energy is the defining challenge of this era." In his introduction of President Obama, Professor Ernest Moniz, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discusses global issues on clean energy, science and innovation, and credits Obama for expanding the nation's energy vision. President Obama provides a historical overview of America's spirit of innovation and discovery and calls upon the heirs to innovation to take risks in solving the huge challenges around clean energy and climate change that face our country and the world. In framing the clean energy issue in a global and economic context, Obama declares, "Countries on every corner of this earth are beginning to recognize that energy is growing scarcer. Energy demand is growing larger and rising energy use imperils the planet that we will leave to future generations. That's why the world is now engaged in a peaceful competition to determine the technologies that will power the 21st century. From China to India, from Japan to Germany, nations everywhere are racing to develop new ways to produce and use energy. The nation that wins this competition will be the nation that leads the global economy. I'm convinced of that, and I want America to be that nation." Barack Obama came to MIT not just to praise the school's leading edge energy research but to encourage all of America's "heirs to a legacy of innovation" in their pursuit of discovery. The nation owes much of its prosperity to risk"takers and entrepreneurs, Obama said, and now, given the linked challenges of energy and climate change, we need such pioneers more than ever. After visiting MIT labs working on more efficient solar cells and lighting, batteries "that aren't built, but grown," and offshore wind plants that function even when the air is still, Obama told a large crowd that as the nation inevitably transitions from fossil fuels to renewable energy, we're counting on the kind of "innovative potential on display at MIT." Obama acknowledges the great challenges facing energy researchers and entrepreneurs. As traditional energy supplies become more precious, and energy demands grow, nations are competing to develop new ways to produce and use energy, said Obama, and the winner will lead the global economy. "I want America to be that nation. It's that simple." His administration's response has been to make massive investments in both clean energy and basic science. Obama aims these efforts at both the current recession, and the nation's future economic health. Clean energy jobs today and research "to produce the technologies of tomorrow" will "lay a new foundation for lasting prosperity." He hopes this comprehensive approach will culminate in legislation that will transform America's entire energy system. But Obama is under no delusion that all will embrace his plan. "The closer we get," says Obama, the "more we'll hear from those whose interest or ideology run counter to that much"needed action we're engaged in." What worries the president more, though, is a dangerous pessimism shared by many, "that our politics are too broken and our people too unwilling to make hard choices for us to actually deal with this energy issue." Implicit in this argument, he says, is that America has lost its fighting spirit. Obama rejects this argument "because of what I've seen here at MIT and because of what we know we are capable of achieving when called upon ." The nation that harnessed electricity and the atom is one that has always sought out new frontiers, "and this generation is no different." Obama invokes the achievements of the past as a call to arms "in what is sure to be a difficult fight in the months and years ahead" -- to ensure that "we are the energy leader that we need to be." About the Speaker(s): Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He earned his undergraduate degree from Columbia University, then moved to Chicago to work with church groups assisting communities hit by hard times. After attending Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review, he returned to Chicago to help lead voter registration drives. From 1992 to 2004, Obama served as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. While there, he passed major ethics reform legislation, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. Obama successfully ran for United States Senate in 2004. While a senator, he focused on lobbying reform, setting limits on conventional weapons, and ways to bring transparency to government, such as websites for federal spending. Obama began his run for the presidency in February 2007 and was elected the 44th President of the United States in November 2008. On October 9, 2009, Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, for his efforts to promote a nuclear"weapon free world. Host(s): Office of the President, Office of the President

Transportation Policy: Thinking Globally, Acting Locally and Walking the Talk

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

10/20/2009 4:00 PM 32"124Frederick P. Salvucci, '61, SM '62, Senior Lecturer, Center for Transportation and Logistics, MITDescription: Why do so many sustainable transportation programs turn out, like the Alice in the Wonderland parable to lead us down unexpected paths? Fred Salvucci observes that true sustainable transport requires making more than short"term fixes. A sustainable transportation program is built upon the pyramid of three "E"s: equity, environmental benefit, and economics. Maximizing on just one of these objectives imbalances the others, and leads to unintended and undesirable results. As a case in point, Salvucci notes that improvements in sustainable transportation can be made by either "fixing the automobile", or by "fixing the system." The "fixes" have included the mandate for improvement in CAFE standards, nationwide interest in adopting a California car standard, and the Cash for Clunkers program. These are all short"term responses as car ownership, and vehicle miles traveled continue to grow. Salvucci views public transport as a longer"term solution, and says that the government, universities, and other large employers have an important role in terms of turning the coin and incentivizing preferred modes of transport. He suggests that government policy and tax policies need to be aligned. He notes that transit resources need to be spread out widely and not benefit just a single region or provider. The early building of the National Highway System, a federal program that touched every state, received widespread support. Building a consensus for public transit and sustainable transportation policy is possible, just as it is "possible to sail against the wind". The state of Massachusetts and Boston, in particular, have shown this political leadership as Boston has managed to grow economically despite forgoing new above"ground freeways. A new initiative now exists in Boston, over the next five to 10 years, as all of the major bridges across the Charles River" with the exception of one" must undergo safety repairs. There will be an estimated 20% reduction in vehicle capacity, and together these bridges carry more traffic than the Central Artery. Salvucci urged planners at MIT to think of the Charles River Crossing project as a "pattern break-- an opportunity to demonstrate more sustainable transport modes in the face of the vehicle reduction. Boston and the MIT community have a new opportunity to undo the deeply embedded use of automobiles, provided we really believe, and wish to follow, the objectives of sustainable transportation. Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

MIT and the Energy Challenge

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:09:22 GMT

What is needed to address the global energy challenge? New technologies, new sources of capital, and new ways of thinking. This video shows how MIT is playing a vital role in the search for energy solutions. Produced by MIT Alumni Association and AMPS/MIT Libraries. Featured in the exhibit Power Supply: Energy Resources in the MIT Libraries. Produced by MIT Alumni Association and AMPS/MIT Libraries

Challenges in Nation Building

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

09/29/2009 2:30 PM 10"250President José Ramos"Horta, President, East Timor, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize LaureateDescription: At times humorous and defiant, JoséRamos"Horta describes nurturing the 21st century's first sovereign state through its formative years. The journey of East Timor from brutal Indonesian rule to fragile self"governance has involved Ramos"Horta in conflict and debate from the halls of the U.N. to the smallest villages of this tiny Southeast Asian island. He describes the scene in 2002, after two years of UN"supervised transition, when Indonesia handed off a nation it had governed by force for decades: "A human calamity -- close to 200 thousand people lost their lives." Another 200 thousand were forcibly displaced into West Timor. As it departed "in anger and frustration," Indonesia's military orchestrated the destruction of the nation's cities, roads, schools and clinics. "The economy was at a standstill," says Ramos"Horta. "We received barely a sketch of a state, a skeleton." The challenge of rebuilding East Timor is all the more daunting given "the psychological"emotional trauma of 24 years of violence." There are bitter disputes involving how to conduct a national process of reconciliation. Western ambassadors recently called on Ramos"Horta, "representatives of two countries most notoriousfor providing weapons and the red carpet treatment to the dictatorship of Indonesia." They advocated establishing an international tribunal to pursue crimes against humanity during Indonesian rule. Says Ramos"Horta, "Had I been in a bad mood, I would have said, 'Excuse me, the two of you are lecturing me on human rights and justice?'" Despite warnings from the U.N. that "lack of justice encourages impunity," he believes East Timor must travel its own path toward reconciliation. If East Timor set up such a tribunal, "Who would it start with -- Indonesia or the U.S., which provided weapons to Suharto, or Australia, or all of them at once?" He states, "If you pursue justice at any cost without being sensitive to the challenges and complexities on the ground, you undermine the incipient nation, democracy and justice." Today, when Ramos"Horta travels in the countryside, people don't want to discuss security and unity. Recounts Ramos"Horta, "They joke with me: 'Mr. President, we really like your road to peace, but we prefer a road to our village.'" He's now focused on providing his people with such essentials as clean water and electricity, and shoring up the nation's fragile social and economic institutions. "Let's put all the past behind us. Look after the victims, the wounded, in their minds, bodies and souls, build a country that is deserving of so much sacrifice. Chasing the ghosts of the past leads us nowhere," says Ramos"Horta. About the Speaker(s): José Manuel Ramos"Horta took office as the second President of East Timor (since independence from Indonesia) on May 20, 2007. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 with fellow East Timorese Bishop Ximenes Belo for "sustained efforts to hinder the oppression of a small people. " As a founder and former member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN), Ramos"Horta served as the exiled spokesman for the East Timorese resistance during the years of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975 to 1999). After East Timor achieved independence in 2002, Ramos"Horta was appointed as the country's first Foreign Minister. He served in this position until his resignation on June 25, 2006, amidst political turmoil. In July 2006, he was officially sworn in as the second Prime Minister of East Timor. On February 11, 2008, Ramos"Horta was injured when he was shot during an assassination attempt. Ramos"Horta studied Public International Law at the Hague Academy of International Law (1983) and at Antioch University where he completed an M.A. in Peace Studies (1984). He was trained in Human Rights Law at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg (1983). He attended Post"Graduate courses in American foreign policy at Columbia University(1983). He is a Senior Associate Member of the University of Oxford's St Antony's College (1987). Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship, Government, and Development in Africa

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 04:00:00 GMT

09/21/2009 4:00 PM 34"101President John Kufuor, President of Ghana 2001"2009Description: After centuries of insufferable oppression by colonial powers, bloody independence struggles, and corrupt home"grown regimes, "Africa today is quickly awakening, and determined to mainstream itself in the phenomenon of the globalization process," says John Kufuor, who served as Ghana's president for two terms starting in 2000. Kufuor recounts how Ghana transcended its dark history to attain astonishing political and economic progress, establishing the nation as an exemplar for fellow African states. In a brisk history lesson, Kufuor accounts for the lag between Africa and other continents in socioeconomic development: geography kept Africa outside ancient trading routes, and when "marauding" Europeans eventually encountered Africa, it was "more or less a one"sided, institutional gang rape..." Denied citizenship and rights, for 600 years "the African ego and personality was assailed and trampled upon." Following World War 2, colonial powers relinquished their African holdings, but successor native governments were often little better, says Kufuor, spouting revolutionary rhetoric, and stifling "visionary individualism and creativity." State control meant "private capital formation went underground." African rulers maintained attachments to their "former European overlords," who imported Africa's resources "raw on concessionary terms." Kufuor blames the "stinginess" of foreign entrepreneurs, their unwillingness to "add value" to these products, for African nations' current paucity of medium and large"scale business. But Ghana's trick was to transform this disadvantage -- a large pool of small, agriculturally based businesses -- into the centerpiece of an economic revival. Kufuor cites in particular cocoa farmers, responsible for one of Ghana's principal exports, who own on average no more than three acres. When he arrived in office, Kufuor determined to support the "self"reliant, risk"taking initiative" of such farmers and other small"scale businesses, recognizing that they were key to "unleashing the potential wealth of the nation." His government pursued debt forgiveness by the IMF; separating the central bank from the president's office; and distributing more banking licenses and lowering lending rates. Aid to farmers with trading, modernization, irrigation, and other infrastructure led to unprecedented economic growth: the GDP quadrupled over an eight year period beginning in 2000, with growth at 7.3% last year. Government "had promised to usher the country into a golden age," says Kufuor, and came through not just with economic policies, but with investment in education and a national health insurance plan for all citizens. Two years ago, oil was discovered offshore, and Kufuor, "proud of having laid a solid foundation" for Ghana, prays that this find will prove "a blessing and not a curse, for the good of all our sons and daughters." About the Speaker(s): John Kufuor helped lead Ghana during its first peaceful democratic transition, focusing on modernizing agriculture, improving infrastructure and attracting direct foreign investment. Kufuor championed the nation's entrepreneurs, and promoted transparency in government. He is also a former chairperson of the African Union (2007"2008). In 2008, Kufuor became a partner in the World Food Programme's "Fill the Cup" drive to provide nutritious school meals to millions of hungry children. "Every nation's future rests on nutritious food and education for its children," he said. Kufuor earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Oxford University before becoming a lawyer. But he soon turned to politics, serving as member of parliament, deputy foreign minister and secretary for local government before becoming Ghana's president in 2000.Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

The Clover Philosophy + a note from your producers

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:39:41 GMT

CoLab summer interns Zach Mills and Chris Drakeford made a movie about a new MIT Campus icon: The Clovertruck. Music Tracks: gifaproducer: Crazy Love, The Motorcycle Song oldDog: Shame

The Clover Philosophy

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:05:56 GMT

CoLab summer interns Zach Mills and Chris Drakeford made a movie about a new MIT Campus icon: The Clovertruck. Music Tracks: gifaproducer: Crazy Love, The Motorcycle Song oldDog: Shame

biodiesel@MIT

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:17:40 GMT

How do you get a biodiesel processor in your community or on your campus?

"Greening Your Event" by Lauren Berning & the MIT Working Group on Recycling

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:38:41 GMT

This video excerpt is from the "Greening Your Events" luncheon held on June 19th by the WGR and Events Planners. In addition to this powerpoint shown in the presentation, we met with Bon Appetit to discuss green catering, and had a post and wrap-up discussion regarding composting, worm bins and other green office and event options available to MIT. More information: http://web.mit.edu/workinggreen/volunteer/committee.html

The Next Giant Leaps in Space Exploration

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT

06/11/2009 3:00 PM KresgeDr. Maria T. Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, Head of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT ; ; Dr. Edward F. Crawley, Ford Professor of Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems, MIT; James H. Crocker, Vice President and General Manager, Sensing & Exploration Systems, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co.; Richard Garriott, private astronaut, Vice Chairman of Space Adventures ; Dr. James Garvin, Chief Scientist, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA ; Dr. David W. Thompson, Chairman & CEO of Orbital Sciences Corporation ; Dr. Erika Wagner, Lecturer, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MITDescription: From satellite"enabled radio and TV to climate tracking, space has become a "ubiquitous capability in our lifetime," as Edward Crawley puts it. But he also notes there is uncertainty about the future of U.S. spaceflight, which closely follows the "cadence" of political elections. Symposium panelists both predict and suggest directions the nation's public and private space programs might take. As a child, keynote speaker Maria Zuber "wrote long letters to the Apollo astronauts," and her early enthusiasm never waned. A geophysicist involved in missions investigating distant worlds, Zuber's take on space exploration is both pragmatic and adventurous. She seeks "an achievable future in space," with an exploration program that is "reality based." She advocates a "bold, diverse agenda" that includes extended use of the International Space Station for conducting science on human physiology and behavior; exploring the impact of the sun on Earth climate and space weather; gathering data on the constitution of the universe; detailed characterization of terrestrial planets; a renewed commitment to Earth observation (we have better data on Mars' ice caps than on our own); and seeking extra"terrestrial life. This ambitious portfolio means we may send humans to space for "objectives that are worth the risk." NASA should mix big and small missions, remembering that it's "crucial to inspire and train the next generation." Ultimately, says Zuber, "It's great to be a dreamer, but the only good space mission is one that really works, and is practical and implementable." NASA scientist James Garvin describes his agency's plans to pursue the legacy of Apollo, by developing new capabilities to carry people into space, and supporting significant research, such as tracking carbon in Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Says Garvin, "Somewhere there is a sweet spot between robotic spaceflight that does grand science ... and human spaceflight that enables those" missions. The private space industry will play an increasing role in fulfilling the spaceflight dreams of ordinary people, believes Richard Garriott, one of the few lucky citizens to take the ride (via a Soyuz craft). He cites the surge in space plane companies, which may ultimately make spaceflight routine. While there's "a reasonable probability there will be fatalities," Garriott accepts the risks. "Ultimately only by democratizing access to space, by having multiple vendors competing to keep the price down, and safety up, will we ultimately find the best access to space." To engage American youth in space exploration, Erika Wagner says we "need to take back the storyline and discuss challenging things." 18"24 year olds are not captivated by the Apollo mission to the moon, and to inspire them about the future, they need to understand we "go to space because it's a difficult thing." To get this point across means using social media such as Flickr and YouTube, as well as flying students into space. "It's time for space exploration to become interactive again." Commercial space ventures, built on a series of incremental improvements, have become a phenomenally successful industry in the last 40 years, says David Thompson. Customers spend between $15"25 per month on such products and services as direct broadcast TV and handheld satellite navigators. This dwarfs the per capita expenditure on government space exploration or defense activities. Thompson looks for more of an intersection between the well"financed commercial, and needier public, sectors of space enterprise, with anticipated benefits for both. The problem is not how we build space vehicles, "but how we procure them," states James Crocker. Purchasing and launching such expensive devices one at a time continues to inhibit capability. Crocker's company, Lockheed, is trying to economize through smarter software, weight" and volume"reduction of space"bound technology, and reuse of expensive parts (including some avionics in NASA's new Ares rocket). He hopes that innovative ways to bring down costs "while not as cheap as flying from here to Europe on an airliner," might get to the point where "we can do more with the dollars the public is willing to spend." About the Speaker(s): Edward Crawley is also the director of the Bernard M. Gordon _ MIT Engineering Leadership Program. His research focuses on the domain of architecture, design, and decision support in complex technical systems. He is currently engaged with NASA on the design of its lunar and Earth observing systems, and with BP on oil exploration system designs. Crawley is a former head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and was a finalist in the NASA astronaut selection in 1980. He received an S.B. (1976) and an S.M. (1978) in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and an Sc.D. (1981) in Aerospace Structures from MIT. Crawley is a Fellow of the AIAA and the Royal Aeronautical Society (UK), and is a member of three national academies of engineering: the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science, the (UK) Royal Academy of Engineering, and the US National Academy of Engineering. He was awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa by Chalmers University, Sweden in 2006.Host(s): School of Engineering, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The Energy Problem and the Interplay Between Basic and Applied Research

Tue, 12 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT

05/12/2009 4:00 PM 10"250Steven Chu, Secretary of EnergyDescription: The situation facing our planet could hardly be more dire: There's increasingly dangerous competition among nations for ever scarce energy resources, and climate change is racing ahead of predictions. Although Steven Chu believes "We are getting close to where it's very nervous time," he also sees "reason for hope." Just as science in the 1970s produced a "green revolution" in agricultural productivity, preventing mass starvation in a swelling global population, Chu is counting on transformative scientific and engineering ideas to achieve sustainable energy and cap climate change. As chief architect of new policy, and with tens of billions of dollars to pump into his vision, Chu is targeting key areas. Number one on his list: energy efficiency and conservation. Since buildings use 40% of the nation's total energy, designing more efficient homes and offices will make a big difference. There are "tune ups" possible for existing buildings, and software that can direct lighting, heating and cooling where it's needed that can achieve 50% plus energy savings, and won't break the bank. Says Chu, "This is truly low"hanging fruit, but we have to build the tools that allow architects and structural engineers to get on with it." On the supply side, Chu has his heart set on transformative technologies such as nanotech breakthroughs in solar power. He's looking for ways to scale up biomass fuel production, now that synthetic biology can make microbes manufacture gas"like fuels. Noting in particular the work of MIT's Dan Nocera, Chu says he "wants to use nature as an inspiration, but go beyond nature," performing artificial photosynthesis to create new hydrocarbons. And as the U.S. and China continue dependence on coal, figuring out how to capture and sequester carbon from these plants figures "high on the list of things we must do." He's again hoping researchers will find some analog to nature's ability to grab and neutralize CO2. The ideal environment for jumpstarting such urgent scientific efforts, believes Chu, is something like Bell Labs, where Chu himself worked. The Labs performed "mission"driven research" around communications and for U.S. war efforts, but along the way also developed the transistor, information theory, radio astronomy, and lasers, among many examples. These scientist"led labs emphasized exchange of ideas and rapid infusion of research funds to the most promising work. This led to inventions that in turn transformed the U.S. economy. Chu envisions energy lab equivalents that "deliver the goods" along with fundamental science, "so you can have the Nobel Prize and save the world at the same time." About the Speaker(s): Steven Chu was sworn into office on January 21, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he was a professor of Physics and of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Chu joined the Physics Department faculty at U.C. Berkeley in 2004. He had served earlier as professor of Physics at Stanford University. Before 1987, he was at Bell Laboratories where he conducted the research that led to his 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, which he shared with Claude Cohen"Tannoudji and William D. Phillips, for methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light. Chu is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica, and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Korean Academy of Science and Engineering. He serves on the Boards of the Hewlett Foundation, the University of Rochester, and NVIDIA. He served on the Augustine Committee that produced the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in 2006. Chu received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976 and was a post"doctoral fellow there until 1978. He got his B.S. in 1970 from the University of Rochester. Host(s): Office of the President, Office of the President

Energy Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Opportunities

Thu, 07 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT

05/07/2009 4:30 PM Sheraton BostonWilliam Aulet, SM '94, Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management; Jacques Beaudry"Losique, SM '92, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Energy; U.S. Department of Energy; ; Christina Lampe"Onnerud, Founder and CEO, Boston"Power; ; Robert Metcalfe, '68, General Partner, Polaris Venture Partners; Founder, 3Com Corporation; Matthew Nordan, President and Co"Founder; Lux Research Inc.; Description: There are ample opportunities for new energy entrepreneurs, these panelists agree, but motivation and certain kinds of know"how play key roles in bringing new ventures to fruition. Idealism led Christina Lampe"Onnerud to "go into the energy space" at 23, but "inertia" surrounding the energy business may intimidate today's entrepreneurs. Her Boston"Power company, which makes "green" lithium"ion batteries, has forged good relations with policymakers, and now hopes that these politicians will be "brave enough" to "put frameworks out 20 years." In addition to long"term policy changes, Lampe"Onnerud is counting on a continuous influx of good scientists and engineers to drive her company forward. She encourages everyone with new ideas or the capacity to provide leadership to respond "to the biggest opportunity and threat we have." Jacques Beaudry"Losique warns would"be energy entrepreneurs they're up against a highly regulated environment. An offshore wind turbine might require 39 different permits, and it can take as long as 14 years to get approval for a transmission line. Beaudry"Losique promises that government is now working "to better align interests so we can move faster bringing these solutions to the table." Energy entrepreneurs should arm themselves with experienced staff who can navigate regulatory channels. They should also build consortia and partnerships with foundations, government and university labs, other manufacturers and buyers. The administration "is making a huge commitment to energy efficiency and smart buildings" and views wind, solar, geothermal, biofuels, as "all hot." Compared to entrepreneurial ventures in IT and life sciences, clean energy startups demand "more money, more time and more late stage risk," says Matthew Nordan. Biomass or coal gasification technologies might require a billion dollars for a pilot plant, which "is a level of risk so high that investors won't sign that check." Many technologies intended to solve one problem end up creating another, or encounter bottlenecks as they scale up, such as the limited supply of precious metals required for the magnets of wind turbines. Some entrepreneurs find success in unique niches, though, such as those seeking to recover waste metal byproducts of tar sand operations. But Nordan warns of a big shake up, as the recent discovery of a massive pocket of natural gas in the U.S. will make competition even steeper for new energy contenders like solar and wind. Robert Metcalfe finds a lack of "human capital" in current energy ventures. The talented CEOs "who have started five companies" are in short supply in energy, which also haven't widely adopted partnering as a useful model. To Metcalfe, the energy problem "looks more and more like a networking problem," which demands a smart grid with lots of storage. This should present entrepreneurs with novel areas to explore. Large utilities may prove obstructive: "We must find ways to get around them, either recruit them or destroy them." He's optimistic there will be breakthroughs in such technologies as fuel cells, and that "when we solve energy, it will be cheap and abundant, and we will use much more of it." About the Speaker(s): William Auletis also Entrepreneur in Residence at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. He has 25 years of experience in technology business operations and financing. He started his career at IBM and then ran two private companies, Cambridge Decision Dynamics and SensAble Technologies. Aulet now works with students and start"up companies to build strategies and operating plans that will create sustainable value. He currently has a specific interest in energy where he conceived, developed and teaches a new graduate class at MIT called "Energy Ventures," writes on the topic for Xconomy.com, and consults for large and small companies in the field. Aulet also conceived, created and serves as the Chairman of the MIT Clean Energy Prize. He has given workshops to many corporate and government entities on innovation, entrepreneurship and corporate venture capital including the US Department of Energy where he has served on their Review Board for Entrepreneurship Grants. In Janaury 2008, Aulet was a featured speaker at the seminal first World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. He has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a graduate degree from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he was a Sloan Fellow.Host(s): Alumni Association, MIT Enterprise Forum

Bicyle Workshop: MIT Earth Day 2009

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:00:57 GMT

Climate Change in a Changing World: Meeting the Needs of Humanity and the Planet

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

04/22/2009 7:00 PM Simmons HallSteven Hamburg, Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense FundDescription: The "dominant story of the next century" will be one of either gloom or redemption, says Steven Hamburg, depending on how humanity chooses to address climate change. To date, Earth's inhabitants have not meaningfully acknowledged this choice. Yet Hamburg retains a streak of optimism, based on his belief that bringing the impact of climate change home to individuals may stimulate a constructive response. First Hamburg sketches the dire facts: the planet is headed toward at least a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperature in coming decades, with consequences likely to include shifts in crop production, coral reef decline, and rising sea levels that threaten delta populations with devastating storm surges. From Hamburg's perspective, there's no serious argument that humans are major drivers of this rapid change, which is already negatively affecting many regions of the world. While affluent societies may discuss adaptation, it's already clear that "the losers are those people living on a dollar a day, with no capital." So "the question for each of us is how much change is too much change? How much can we tolerate?" Hamburg's first climate change paper in 1988, which focused on a subject he knows intimately, the ecology of New Hampshire's White Mountains, was met with "total silence." He worries that scientists are still conducting climate change research in a kind of void, with most people relatively oblivious to an unfolding cataclysm. "It's that dissonance that's a challenge for us as a society," he says. As a result, he's working with groups that attempt to communicate how climate change affects the "places we live in and care about." For instance, in Hamburg's White Mountain territory, climate change has led to a much shorter winter, and a pattern of winter warming and cooling that has decimated the once dominant red spruce forests, leaving maples to thrive (for the moment). People everywhere must be persuaded to become "agents of change." Hamburg recounts how the CEO of Walmart enlisted him to help the corporation become more sustainable, which led to the sale of millions of compact fluorescent bulbs (replacing incandescents), major profits, and massive savings in carbon emissions. Corporations are getting it, believes Hamburg (even Rupert Murdoch's chains are going green), seeing that "doing the right thing for society" can save money. But these moves must be accompanied by government regulations, in both developed and developing countries, which will require a "conversationto link impacts in our own worlds and lives, with actions we can take." About the Speaker(s): Steven P. Hamburg is an ecosystem ecologist specializing in the impacts of disturbance on forest structure and function. He came to Brown in 1995 after nine years at the University of Kansas, where he directed the Environmental Studies Program and served as Environmental Ombudsman. Today, Hamburg collaborates with 70 science institutions to create hands"on learning opportunities and exhibits for the public. He has published widely including in Nature and Science and has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Hamburg received his M.F.S. and Ph.D. (in Forest Ecology) from Yale University. He held a post"doctoral position at Stanford University and was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. At Brown he is the concentration advisor for the environmental science concentration and serves as Research Director of the Global Environment Program at the Watson Institute in International Studies.Host(s): Dean for Student Life, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values

Green Wheel - Smart Mobility & Ubiquitous Computing

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:55:43 GMT

Mobile Experience Lab and Smart Cities Group worked together to envision future scenarios describing design opportunities related to topics that deal with social navigation, distributed data sensing, healthcare, bike sharing racks optimization, peer-to-peer freight, urban races and civic engagement. The final outcome consists in a 7 minutes video containing 10 scenarios that proposes our vision on Smart Mobility & Ubiquitous Computing.

More info:
mobile.mit.edu/greenwheel/
cities.media.mit.edu

Principal Investigators: Federico Casalegno, William J.Mitchell

Project Leaders: David Boardman, Ryan Chin, Michael Lin, Steve Pomeroy

Leading an Environmentally Sustainable Enterprise

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT

04/09/2009 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumMartin D. Madaus, Chairman, President & CEO, Millipore CorporationDescription: Climate change poses perhaps the premiere threat to coming generations, says Martin Madaus, but to avoid its worst impacts, we must confront the issue now. To that end, Madaus exhorts business leaders to focus immediately on building environmental sustainability into their operations, as he has begun to do at Millipore. The challenge is figuring out how to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels while expanding economies worldwide. In practice, reconciling these objectives involves squeezing more productivity out of each ton of carbon by a factor of 10. "The good news," says Madaus, is that "this is actually doable." Reaching this level of "carbon productivity" entails major public/private spending, but, says Madaus, "This is certainly a good investment, particularly when you consider the mitigation cost of climate catastrophe, which would be unbelievably expensive for all of us." While government must play a role in establishing regulations and incentives -- especially by imposing an unpopular but essential higher carbon tax -- industries of all kinds must integrate sustainability as a business practice. Madaus offers Millipore as an example of how "being at the cutting edge of environmentalism is a good business idea." His company has focused on changes in products and packaging, and reducing waste in energy, water and waste. In its biotech tool research and production facilities, Millipore figured out how to upgrade boilers, generators, lighting systems, compressed air piping, and use wind energy to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 15% since 2006. "The amazing part of this, it was so doable, because there was so much inefficiency and waste of energy." Millipore's return on new infrastructure investment came in less than two years. Millipore also developed compostable bio"plastic lab devices, recycling programs for customers, and paradoxically, a disposable product (replacing a large, stainless steel vessel), which ends up saving energy and water throughout its lifecycle. Beyond innovations in product lines and operational efficiency, Madaus says he wants "to make an impact on people's lives so their habits change." Millipore offers incentives for employee to use hybrid vehicles and to make their homes energy efficient, and encourages staff to come forward with ideas for sustainable living. "I wish we could make energy saving and eco"efficiency really cool and interesting; today it's still viewed as a tool, a behavior change." These small steps are just the start, and Madaus sees a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases as entirely feasible -- and not just at Millipore. "If anyone tells you it can't be done because they're growing their company, they're full of it." About the Speaker(s): Martin D. Madaus joined Millipore Corporation in January 2005 as President and Chief Executive Officer and became Chairman of the Board in March 2005. Millipore Corporation, with revenues of approximately $1.5 billion, focuses on two business segments: biopharmaceutical manufacturing and life science research and analytical laboratories. Madaus came to Millipore from Roche Diagnostics Corporation where, as President and Chief Executive Officer (2000"2004), he was responsible for the North American Operations. Prior to that (1999), he was Vice President of Business Development for Roche Molecular Diagnostics. Madaus joined Roche in 1998 when he was general manager of Boehringer Mannheim Canada in Montreal, Quebec. Madaus is a director of Predictive Biosciences, the Massachusetts High Technology Council, the New England Healthcare Institute, the Massachusetts Workforce Development Investment Board, and the YMCA of Greater Boston. Madaus is a native of Hamburg, Germany (naturalized American citizen), and holds a D.V.M. and Ph.D. in veterinary medicine.Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting: Sustainable Transportation - Keynote

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:20:30 GMT

The National Academy of Engineering Regional Meeting talks about Sustainable Transportation with a keynote presentation on "Driving Toward Sustainability" given by Daniel Sperling -- Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, where he is also Acting Director of the Energy Efficiency Center, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Professor of Environmental Science and Policy.

Values"Based Leadership

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 05:00:00 GMT

03/03/2009 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumRobert McDonald, COO, Procter & GambleDescription: A West Point start, army career, and a disciplined approach to distilling key life experiences has guided Robert McDonald through his 20 years at Procter & Gamble. McDonald recommends a deliberate system of self"examination that results in an articulation of beliefs, which he sees as essential to strong leadership. McDonald describes an ongoing process of "getting in touch with my culture, experiences, education, family" to discover his values, which he writes down, and revises over time. He believes that "people in an organization like to work for a leader who's predictable," and whose expectations they understand. Some of McDonald's key beliefs, drawn from such early experiences as the Boy Scouts, and the military academy, continue to hold true to this day. He feels that "leading a life driven by purpose leads to a more meaningful and rewarding life than meandering without direction." This has meshed nicely, he says, with P&G's statement of purpose: to improve the lives of the world's consumers. Says McDonald, "I think my purpose in life is to help other people." Some other key beliefs: "Everybody wants to succeed, and success is contagious." Nobody wants to fail, and a good leader puts people in the right jobs, doing work they are good at. This also means that leaders "take responsibility for things even when they're beyond our control," when plans go awry or collapse. McDonald also believes that "organizations have to renew themselves," which means leaders must provide development opportunities, and recognize that success comes not just from being strong but being adaptable, prepared for change. The final belief he offers is that a true test of a leader's character "isn't what happens in an organization when you're there, but when you're not there." Good leaders build sufficient capability around them, so the organization "can withstand your leaving." Charismatic is fine, but "we don't like heroic leaders." For those searching for purpose, McDonald recommends this practical written exercise: list organizations to which you belong, and their dominant values; note lessons learned from your family, memorable life and educational experiences; then turn this into a set of beliefs. About the Speaker(s): Robert A. McDonald oversees all global operations and corporate functions of Procter & Gamble's $76.5"billion business, which maintains on"the"ground operations in more than 80 countries. In 1975, McDonald graduated from West Point with a ranking of 13 out of 875 students and a B.S. in Engineering. He then served as a Captain in the U.S. Army for 5 years, primarily in the 82nd Airborne Division. While still serving in the Army, McDonald received an M.B.A. from the University of Utah in 1978. He graduated with honors from Beta Gamma Sigma. McDonald joined Procter & Gamble in 1980 in the U.S. marketing division. He transferred to Toronto in 1989 to lead P&G's Canadian Laundry business, and then to the Philippines in 1991 as General Manager. In 1995 he became Vice President and General Manager, Laundry & Cleaning Products"Asia, and relocated to Japan. After several other promotions, he was appointed Vice Chairman, Global Operations, in 2004, returning to the U.S. after 14 years abroad. McDonald assumed his current role as Chief Operating Officer in July 2007. In 2007, McDonald received the inaugural Leadership Excellence Award from the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy and Harvard Business Review. The award recognizes top executives of U.S."based companies who consistently exemplify a commitment to personal integrity, business success and fellow employees. McDonald serves on the Xerox Board of Directors and is Chairman of the Board for GS1, an international supply chain standards organization. He is also a member of the U.S. Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations(ACTPN). Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

China's Development and China"US Relations

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

02/10/2009 3:30 PM 10"250His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of ChinaDescription: MIT President Susan Hockfield hails a new era of collaboration between the Institute and China, and Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China, discusses the larger relationship between his country and the U.S., particularly in light of the economic crisis enveloping the world. Chinese students have been matriculating at MIT, says Susan Hockfield, since 1876 -- almost as long as the university has been around. But the 1990s saw the start of a broader and deeper institutional commitment, with Mandarin courses at MIT, and a program to send MIT students to intern with Chinese companies. Now, the relationship is deepening, with an MIT"China initiative to spark research ideas and collaborations, particularly around energy and sustainable development, robotics, and healthcare; and a China Forum Lecture series. Hockfield believes partnerships between MIT and the People's Republic of China "are virtually unlimited." In the 30 years since China began economic reforms, Zhou Wenzhong recounts, its domestic economy has grown roughly twice as fast as the world economy. Its GDP has expanded from the equivalent of $216.5 billion to $3.28 trillion. The ambassador reminds his audience that in spite of such gains, China remains a developing country, with an enormous population whose per capita GDP is less than 1/17th of that of U.S. citizens'. It is "a long way from basic modernization and prosperity for all." Much of China's growth stems from a quadrupling of international trade. But intense globalization, an "irresistible reality" for all nations, poses major challenges, especially now with the rapid onset of profound economic malaise. China is moving to respond to this crisis, and looking beyond it, to help "establish a new international financial order that is fair, just, inclusive and orderly, fostering an institutional environment conducive to sound global economic development." The government has set out a comprehensive package of reforms to keep the country's economy running in hard times. The remedy, loaded as it is with tax cuts, social investments, restructuring of major industries, and energy conservation measures, may ring a bell for the U.S. public. China also looks to its global neighbors in facing the immediate economic challenge, says Zhou Wenzhong, and in responding to such other pressures as terrorism, proliferation of WMD, climate change, epidemic diseases and national disasters. He hopes for a strengthening of U.S."China relations, predicated on an approach steeped in the "long"term and strategic perspective." The U.S. and China should "shoulder greater shared responsibilities," promote common interests in trade, counterterrorism, law enforcement, science, technology and young people. China asks that the U.S. treat it as an equal, and respect such core interests "as the Taiwan question and Tibet relation matters." With mutual trust and dialog, he concludes, "A new era offers unprecedented opportunitiesto build a better future." About the Speaker(s): Zhou Wenzhong was born in Jiangsu Province, China in August 1945. He attended Bath University and the London School of Economics. Soon after, he served as a staff member of the Beijing Service Bureau for Diplomatic Missions and staff member of the Department of Translation and Interpretation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Then he served as Attach_ and then Third Secretary of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States, then Second Secretary, Deputy Division Director and then Division Director of the Department of Translation and Interpretation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1994, he moved on to Consul General (Ambassadorial Rank) of the People's Republic of China in Los Angeles, then Minister and DCM of the Embassy of China in the United States. In 1998, became the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to the Commonwealth of Australia. In 2001"2003, he served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs. After this he became the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs until he took his current position.Host(s): Office of the President, Global MIT

Come Walk the Talk

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:08:12 GMT

A community rally to support campus energy efficiency and conservation featuring: Theresa Stone, Executive Vice President, MIT Robert Armstrong, Deputy Director, MITEI Steven Lanou, Deputy Director, Environmental Sustainability, MIT Jason Jay, Organization Studies Group, Sloan School and the Campus Energy Task Force Tim the Beaver, MIT Mascot This rally took place on January 12th, 2009 as part of Energy Futures Week.

Sustainable Tim

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:02:02 GMT

See how even MIT's mascot Tim the Beaver gets into the swing of things and stays sustainable with good eco-friendly practices on campus. You could learn a thing or two.

George Crabtree - The Sustainable Energy Challenge

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:55:46 GMT

George Crabtree - The Sustainable Energy Challenge ShareThis Embed Playlist Report This seminar was given on December 2, 2008 as part of the MITEI Seminar Series Abstract: The global dependence on fossil fuel is among the greatest challenges facing our economic, social and political future. The uncertainty of imported oil threatens global energy security, the pollution of fossil combustion threatens human health, and the emission of greenhouse gases threatens global climate. Meeting the demand for double the current global energy use in the next 50 years without damaging security, environment or climate requires finding alternative sources of energy that are clean, abundant, accessible and sustainable. Electricity and hydrogen, once produced, meet these criteria and are among the most versatile of energy carriers. Research challenges that would enable the production, storage, and use of electricity and hydrogen as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel will be presented. About the Speaker: George Crabtree holds the dual rank of Argonne Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He has won numerous awards for his research, most recently the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize in 2003 for his work on the physics of vortices in high temperature superconductors. This prestigious prize is awarded once every three years; Dr. Crabtree is its second recipient. He has won the University of Chicago Award for Distinguished Performance at Argonne twice, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics four times, a notable accomplishment. He has an R&D 100 Award for his pioneering development of Magnetic Flux Imaging Systems. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a charter member of ISI's Highly Cited Researchers in Physics, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. The MITEI Seminar Series is proudly sponsored by CERA.

Sustainability at MIT: Greening MIT's Campus and Beyond

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:23:21 GMT

The concept is getting a hands-on workout at MIT through projects that use the campus as a test lab.

Leon Glicksman on Sustainability

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:17:33 GMT

Sustainability@MIT Co-President and Sloan student Adam Siegel interviews Leon Glicksman '59, PhD '64, Co-Chair of the MIT Campus Energy Task Force and gains his input on campus sustainability.

Sarah Slaughter on Sustainability

Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:16:20 GMT

Sustainability@MIT Co-President and Sloan student Adam Siegel interviews Sarah Slaughter '82, SM '87, PhD '91, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School as she shares her thoughts on campus sustainability.

George Crabtree - The Sustainable Energy Challenge

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:36:34 GMT

This seminar was given on December 2, 2008 as part of the MITEI Seminar Series Abstract: The global dependence on fossil fuel is among the greatest challenges facing our economic, social and political future. The uncertainty of imported oil threatens global energy security, the pollution of fossil combustion threatens human health, and the emission of greenhouse gases threatens global climate. Meeting the demand for double the current global energy use in the next 50 years without damaging security, environment or climate requires finding alternative sources of energy that are clean, abundant, accessible and sustainable. Electricity and hydrogen, once produced, meet these criteria and are among the most versatile of energy carriers. Research challenges that would enable the production, storage, and use of electricity and hydrogen as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel will be presented. About the Speaker: George Crabtree holds the dual rank of Argonne Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Materials Science Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He has won numerous awards for his research, most recently the Kammerlingh Onnes Prize in 2003 for his work on the physics of vortices in high temperature superconductors. This prestigious prize is awarded once every three years; Dr. Crabtree is its second recipient. He has won the University of Chicago Award for Distinguished Performance at Argonne twice, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Award for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Solid State Physics four times, a notable accomplishment. He has an R&D 100 Award for his pioneering development of Magnetic Flux Imaging Systems. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a charter member of ISI's Highly Cited Researchers in Physics, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

From IT to Cleantech: New Sources of Innovation

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

12/04/2008 3:45 PM Wong AuditoriumShai Agassi, Founder & CEO, Better PlaceDescription: Imagine a response to oil dependence and climate change that offers people around the world a new and improved version of the car, premised on redesigning infrastructure top to bottom with green technology in a way that recharges ailing national economies. Applying both an entrepreneurial spirit and a systems engineering approach, Shai Agassi has devised just such a visionary plan for cracking these vexing global challenges. A recent World Economic Forum asked participants how to make the world a better place by 2020. Agassi felt an engineer's compulsion to respond. He describes a process "like a fractal problemopening up a cascade of questions." First came the notion of running a country without oil. He seized on, then dismissed, the idea of bio" and hydrogen"based fuels. He then experienced the seminal insight that "you need to go down from molecules to electrons if you want to change the world." This realization meant addressing both economic and engineering problems. He'd need to offer consumers not a vehicle limited to two seats, three wheels and 28 mph speeds -- but one that could go faster than gas cars, with all the requisite bells and whistles. To move his plan along, he also determined to use available electric car battery engineering. This raised significant issues of convenience: where to recharge and how frequently. Agassi envisioned charging docks in parking lots and home garages. He devised a simple battery replacement method. Then came the issue of affordability, which Agassi solved by applying a familiar business model, though not one associated with cars: cell phone minutes. Sell consumers an electric car with a subscription for miles: the longer the subscription, the greater the discount (or rebate check). In Europe, Agassi notes, where gas costs $7 to $8 a gallon, a five"year subscription pretty much gets you "a free electric car." The model's complexity and infrastructure requirements imply government backing, which Agassi has already secured. In Denmark there's a 180% tax on gasoline, and gas"powered sedans costs 60 thousand euros while electrics go for 20 thousand. North Sea windmills will provide clean electricity for charge stations. Israel's building a desert solar field to "drive every car," and a smart grid to monitor battery charging. The U.S. is hosting pilot programs in Hawaii and the Bay Area. His is not a plan to phase in gradually: The time is now, he says. "We must do the right, moral thing," to contend with climate change and brutal oil regimes, and "to create the biggest expansion in U.S. history." About the Speaker(s): Shai Agassi launched Better Place, a company dedicated to solving the problem of sustainable mobility, to help bring about an end to oil dependence. He works directly with government leaders, auto manufacturers, energy companies and others to make his vision of zero"emission electric vehicles powered by renewable energy a reality in countries around the world. In 2008, Israel became the first country to embrace the Better Place model of building an open network to enable mass adoption of electric vehicles and delivering transportation as a sustainable service. Today, Agassi and Better Place are in discussions with more than 25 countries, major auto manufacturers and other potential partners around the globe. TIME Magazine recently named Agassi one of its "Heroes of the Environment 2008." Before founding Better Place, Agassi was president of the Products and Technology Group at SAP AG and a member of the software company's executive board. Agassi is also an active member of the Forum of Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum, where he focuses on climate change and transportation issues. Host(s): School of Engineering, Engineering Systems Division

Connected Home - Connected Urban Development

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:46:16 GMT

The Connected Home of the future will incorporate an integrated approach to buildings and their interaction with occupants, the local community, and beyond. This demonstration of the Connected Home of the future incorporates smart energy solutions, automated services and efficiency measures to aid citizens lead more sustainable lives.

Technologies such as a Personal Travel Assistant, energy monitoring tools, TelePresence and social networking interactions, and energy grids for micro generation of energy across the urban community illustrate how citizens can play a positive and sustainable role in their urban landscape.

Connected Urban Development
The following proof of concept studies are intended as future visions of the utilization of CUD pilot programs in urban environments. These visions of connected and sustainable urban development were created by MIT Mobile Experience Lab in collaboration with Cisco Systems - Internet Business Solutions Group.

Team
MIT Mobile Experience Lab
Federico Casalegno, Dave Chiu, David Boardman, Sergio Araya.
Special thanks to William J.Mitchell for advice and guidance.

Cisco Systems Inc.
Tony Kim, Shane Mitchell, J.D. Stanley, Nicola Villa.

3D Renderings / Video
Creator.LT

More info:
mobile.mit.edu/connected-urban-development/
connectedurbandevelopment.org

Ride.Link - Making of

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:22:12 GMT

The MIT Mobile Experience Laboratory, in partnership with the Provincia di Brescia - Italy - is developing a sustainable ride-sharing system for youth that utilizes wearable media.

The system, with its main components of social networking, reputation management, referrals and geopositioning makes it possible to coordinate the matching of drivers and passengers with preferences entered online in user profiles.

The system can detect successful ride-shares and will reward participants accordingly, thereby providing an incentive to continue using the system. In addition to promoting social sustainability, the system also serves to prevent driving under the influence of alcohol.

The system is designed as open platform and promote social connection and trust, and wish to strenght the communication among communities and with institutions.

ridelink.ws
mobile.mit.edu

Team
Federico Casalegno, Orkan Telhan, Guz Gutmann, Steve Pomeroy, Brian McMurray, Roberto Aimi, Sajid Sadi, David Boardman, Agnes Chang, Daniel Cardoso, Leonardo Benuzzi.

Photography & Video editing
David Boardman

Soundtrack
"Demon Seed" by Nine Inch Nails (http://dl.nin.com/theslip/)
Released under CC, BY-NC-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/)

Achieving US Energy Security Through Energy Diversity

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:00:00 GMT

10/28/2008 12:00 PM Wong AuditoriumBob Malone, SF '89, Chairman & President, BP AmericaDescription: "We've been spoiled as a nation," says Bob Malone. For decades, energy was inexpensive and abundant, and most Americans took it for granted. Recently "we've seen the world change around us." Successive presidential administrations have failed to free the nation of dependence on foreign oil, and to advance alternatives to fossil fuels. We must now, once and for all, shape a comprehensive national energy policy, Malone maintains. With the dive in financial markets and general economic gloom, Malone worries that the public can't focus clearly on energy. He reminds us that the fate of the U.S. economy is intricately bound up with energy costs, and that this year alone, "we'll pay more than $400 billion for imported oil," and that the U.S. has paid out $8 trillion for foreign oil since 1973. High energy costs today are choking the airline, trucking, and manufacturing industries, not to mention straining the public sector, as families spend much more to drive, and to heat, cool and light their homes. While Malone's BP is eagerly exploring new energy ventures, he notes that a grab"bag of well"meaning programs introduced by industry and state governments cannot produce the change required to transform our energy infrastructure. Malone advocates a deliberate, federally directed enterprise aimed at providing long"term energy security. Some steps he recommends: energy conservation, in the form of mass transportation, higher mileage cars and green buildings; exploration and recovery of offshore oil in areas currently off"limits; continued exploitation of coal (the U.S. has a 100"year supply, says Malone), on the assumption we'll find some way to make it clean; and large"scale investment in wind, solar, and nuclear and next"generation biofuels. To kickstart alternative energy, though, the U.S. needs a financial regulatory and physical infrastructure. For instance, BP owns and operates the largest North American solar panel facility, but can send what it produces only to Maryland and California, which provide subsidies. There's no way industry can overcome technological hurdles and price constraints without government incentives in place. Pricing carbon appropriately will make energy conservation more attractive, and generate investment in renewables, he says. While the higher cost of carbon "will eventually find its way to the pump, monthly utility bills and to the grocery store, the revenue we'll get from carbon taxes or sale of carbon credits will be used to soften the impact on society from those higher prices, and we can use some of that money to reinvest in alternative forms of energy." About the Speaker(s): Robert A. Malone was named Chairman and President of BP America Inc. effective July 1, 2006. He is BP's chief representative in the United States. He is based in Houston, Texas where BP business units are involved in oil and natural gas exploration and production, refining, chemicals, supply and trading, pipeline operations, shipping and alternative energy. In the US, BP owns over $40 billion in fixed assets and employs some 37,000 people. The company is the nation's largest producer of oil and natural gas and the second largest gasoline retailer. Malone has served on the California Climate Action Registry Board of Directors, the Board of the National Petroleum Council, and was a member of the Board of Regents for the University of Alaska system. He is on the Board for the Alliance to Save Energy, the Executive Committee for the American Petroleum Institute and is a member of the Business Roundtable Organization. Malone holds a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso, and was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow at MIT where he received a Master of Science in Management. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, WELCOME ADDRESS

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:19:28 GMT

Dave Schmittlein

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, OVERVIEW

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:17:38 GMT

Richard M. Locke

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, SESSION 1

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:14:27 GMT

Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Business and Society John Sterman, Vladimir Bulovic, Kevin Moss

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier: GARY COWGER

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:09:30 GMT

Sustainability: What Does it Mean to GM? Gary Cowger

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, SESSION 2

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:05:49 GMT

Opportunities in Building More Sustainable Supply Chains Richard M. Locke, Fernando Paiz, Bonnie Nixon-Gardiner

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, SESSION 3

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:01:11 GMT

Getting Unstuck: How to Promote More Sustainable Practices in Our Organizations Rebecca Henderson

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, SESSION 4

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:56:50 GMT

Opportunities in Infrastructure and Built Environment Sarah Slaughter, Judith Layzer, Milton Bevington, Bill Sisson

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier, SESSION 5

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:51:55 GMT

Walking the Talk John Sterman, Theresa Stone, Jason Jay, Anna Jaffe, Adam Siegel

A View From Industry

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 10:40 AM KresgeGary Cowger, SF '78, Group Vice President of Global Manufacturing and Labor Relations, General Motors CorpDescription: GM knows you'll be skeptical, says Gary Cowger, but this icon of American business has committed to transforming itself via a comprehensive regime of environmental sustainability. Cowger offers proof of the corporate giant's efforts to date and even more ambitious plans for the future. From its headquarters in Detroit, to 185 manufacturing sites around the world, to the cars and trucks people drive out of a dealership, GM sees "environmental sustainability more and more ingrained in our operating culture every day." Cowger says employees in every plant, in every language around the world must embrace environmental metrics along with safety and quality. This means, for instance, that GM is installing giant solar panels at sites in Europe and the U.S., in some cases, sending electricity back to the grid. It's harnessing the energy of landfill gases to fire boilers and generate electricity. There are water reduction and reuse initiatives in thirsty spots like Mexico, and habitat enhancement and restoration projects in North America and Brazil. What's more, GM has pledged to eliminate all waste at its operations worldwide; to date, 43 facilities are landfill free (your bag of trash accounts for more waste than all these plants put together, says Cowger.) He projects that renewable initiatives will amount to savings in excess of $75 million within a few years. GM is pursuing a comparably diverse strategy with its cars and trucks, providing consumers with options to increase fuel economy, reduce emissions and "displace petrol." In the next few years, expect more than 20 diesel engine variants,and biofuel"driven cars feeding on switchgrass, forest and farm residues and trash -- "the landfills we used to hate are becoming gems," notes Cowger. GM is producing 20 versions of cars than can run on such flexfuels. The company is also developing a variety of hybrids, rear and front"wheel drive. The piece de resistance, what Cowger calls "the gamechanger," will be the GM Volt. This is GM's version "of how the auto will be reinvented," a car that uses only electricity to power the wheels. If you don't drive more than 40 miles per day, "you'll never need to buy gasoline again," says Cowger, because this car plugs in each night to recharge its lithium ion battery. Transforming the industry, he concludes, is good for business and "it's the right thing to do." About the Speaker(s): Gary Cowger is responsible for directing all of GM's manufacturing and labor relations activities worldwide. Prior to his current position, Cowger served as president of General Motors North America. Cowger began his GM career in 1965 at the company's Kansas City assembly plant as a co"op student for General Motors Institute. He worked his way up through the ranks to become superintendent of the plant, taking a brief break in 1978 to attend MIT as a GM Sloan Fellow. After going back to GM in 1979, Cowger continued to rise through various plant management positions, and was appointed manufacturing manager of GM's Cadillac division in 1987. He became president and managing director of GM de M_xico in 1994 and was elected a GM vice president in October 1994. Cowger was named manufacturing vice president for GM Europe in 1998 and placed in charge of the overall coordination of Opel/Vauxhall operations for 14 plants in ten countries. He was then appointed chairman and managing director of Adam Opel in Germany. Later that same year, Cowger became group vice president of labor relations for GM North America and then group vice president of manufacturing and labor relations in 2001. Cowger earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) and a master of science degree in management from MIT. In 2006, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In 2004, he was named Automotive Industries' Executive of the Year; and the prior year, he received the Society of Automotive Engineers' Manufacturing Leadership Award. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Business and Society

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 9:00 AM KresgeDavid Schmittlein, John C Head III, Dean, MIT Sloan School of Managment; Richard M. Locke, PhD '89, Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science; John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT ; Vladimir Bulovic, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science ; Kevin Moss, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, BT AmericasDescription: If "organizations are the way that ideas change the world," as MIT Sloan Dean Dave Schmittlein puts it, then look to institutions like MIT, which has wrapped its arms around the issues of energy and climate change, to help make sustainability real and attainable. The Dean describes some showcase work launched at MIT, including a long"lasting battery for electric cars, and MIT's own green campus efforts. For MIT Sloan, explains Richard Locke, sustainability is not an "in vogue concept" that is about environment or climate change. Rather, it is "an incredible opportunity for new business, and for existing enterprise to reinvent their practices." He invites panelists and audience at Convocation sessions to engage in dialog about moving beyond theory to meet the challenges of sustainability. Forget the notion that the climate challenge is primarily a technical one, and can be solved with the help of 21st century know"how, says John Sterman. A more useful response would combine the distributed leadership of a civil rights movement with the technological daring of a Manhattan project. There are huge obstacles to overcome: According to Sterman, while a vast majority of people have heard of global warming, believe it poses a threat and believe in reducing greenhouse emissions, a majority also oppose any changes that would "put the true costs of energy in front of you at the pump and in your electric bill." There's widespread belief that we can "wait and see" whether climate change is really that bad. Sterman is working on providing policy makers and the public with interactive models that demonstrate just how immediate the climate threat is and how a slack response will only make things worse. He wants people to perceive that they must reduce greenhouse gases dramatically, but he also wants to destroy the myth that doing so will "kill the economy." Sterman says "addressing this issue will pay dividends-that if we can cut the use of fossil fuels, it puts money in our pockets." Vladimir Bulovic wants to make the climate issue personal and immediate: the arboreal forests of the world produce 2/3rds of the planet's oxygen, and due to warming (and the diseases that accompany it), trees are dying off. This image of our world choking on its own waste is motivating MIT scientists to find alternatives to polluting energy sources. He cites in particular efforts to harness the sun's energy, including improving silicon technology, engineering photons to make electricity, and advancing ways of concentrating and storing solar power. British telecom BT has managed to reduce its carbon footprint by 58% since 1996. Imagine what would happen if other global corporations followed suit, queries Kevin Moss. He challenges his commercial peers to scour their business processes to reduce real estate and transportation usage, improve energy efficiency (e.g., by raising operating temperatures at data centers), and to purchase renewable energy. BT's next goal: an 80% reduction of carbon emissions, and to secure 25% of its energy needs by wind energy by 2016. About the Speaker(s): John D. Sterman's research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award"winning textbook Business Dynamics. Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems. Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics. He won a 2005 IBM Faculty Award, and the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in the California Management Review (with Nelson Repenning). He has five times won awards for teaching excellence from the students of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was named one of the Sloan School's "Outstanding Faculty" by the 2001 Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Getting Unstuck: How to Promote More Sustainable Practices in Our Organizations

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 1:45 PM KresgeRebecca M. Henderson, '81, Eastman Kodak LFM Professor of ManagementDescription: All that's required to achieve sustainability, says Rebecca Henderson, is to clean up your current operations and/or rethink the business. "That's easy," she says -- with a smile. Henderson has spent much of her career trying to help firms embrace and survive such transformations. She and her colleagues have analyzed why businesses get stuck in their ways, and how they can break free to act boldly around the challenge and opportunity of sustainability. Overload proves the single greatest obstacle for many organizations, Henderson says. Too many projects and too little time result in "toxic effects, including making it difficult to undertake creative thinking and purposeful redirection" that responding to sustainability requires. Single"minded focus on short term financials can put unbearable pressure on individuals, who then can't focus successfully, leading to failures in their projects. In an ugly loop, employees receive blame for poor performance, leading to greater pressure, and more degradation. Henderson sees a "fundamental tradeoff between working smarter and working harder." There's no magic bullet for getting unstuck, and warns Henderson, whatever you do, don't rely on vision models or simple blueprints for change. Rather, businesses must undergo a painful process of behavior change, "building muscle memory." Henderson offers some tips for organizations to break out of ruts successfully. CEOs need to get a real fix on capacity (so they don't throw one initiative after another at employees), and track performance historically. They must understand that significant change will be costly, and likely mean cutting out other projects _ so perhaps "pick low"hanging fruit," biting off "little chunks, addressing areas that make a big difference." Managers must clearly state strategy and values, then live by them, and respond to problems as systems dynamics issues -- "don't beat up employees." Henderson acknowledges these strategies are "easy to put on a slide, but hard to do." Yet she feels that if organizations develop the ability to have real conversations, put aside an exclusive focus on the current quarter in favor of the long"term health of the company, a focus on sustainability "gives us the emotional power and moral juice to do these things." About the Speaker(s): Rebecca Henderson specializes in technology strategy. Her current research focuses upon the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. She received an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1981 and a doctorate in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1988. She spent 1981"1983 working for the London office of McKinsey and Company. Her publications include "Underinvestment and Incompetence as Responses to Radical Innovation: Evidence from the Photolithographic Industry" in the Rand Journal of Economics, and "Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms" with Kim Clark, in Administrative Science Quarterly. Henderson sits on the Board of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and on the Board of the Linbeck Corporation. She was recently retained by the Department of Justice as an Expert Witness in connection with the Remedies phase of the Microsoft case, and in 2001 was voted "Teacher of the Year" at MIT Sloan School of Management.Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Opportunities in Building More Sustainable Supply Chains

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 11:20 AM KresgeRichard M. Locke, PhD '89, Alvin J. Siteman Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Science; Fernando Paiz, SF '89, Vice President, Wal"Mart Central America; Bonnie Nixon"Gardiner, Director, Hewlett Packard Ethical SourcingDescription: When a global corporation implements sustainability standards, it pays to work closely with supply chains, as these panelists attest. From his research, Richard M. Locke knows that the traditional methods of achieving decent labor conditions don't work well. When Locke examined years of records gathered by Nike and other companies concerned with employee treatment in overseas factories, he found the conventional compliance route -- auditing, policing and enforcement -- just hadn't brought about consistent improvements in child labor, or excess hours. What does work, Locke discovered, are collaborative approaches -- when the corporate buyer offers to show the way, sharing know"how and resources with its suppliers. For instance, when one of Nike's Vietnamese apparel factories -- an under"performer in productivity and labor standards -- inquired about adopting Lean manufacturing, Nike helped retrain its workforce. After a few months, says Locke, the plant's quality and output improved, and it boosted workers' wages, lowering the turnover rate. Says Locke, "Good things can go together." When Wal"mart acquired a majority share in his family's Central American business, Fernando Paiz admits he worried about Wal"Mart's reputation in the U.S. Instead, he was delighted when Wal"mart actually raised the bar on environmental and labor standards. Says Paiz, "Wal"mart has pushed us beyond expectations of what compliance really means." Paiz describes how the corporation is pressing vendors and customers to reduce waste (the CEO wants noneproduced by 2011) and to become energy efficient. Among the innovations: Big box stores capture the frozen slush from thousands of refrigerator units to cool store interiors during the day; solar panels on Wal"mart rooftops produce electricity not just for stores but for neighbors. Wal"mart has challenged suppliers to come up with the least bulky products and sleekest packaging possible for everything from detergent to electronics. Consumers go for these big"time, says Paiz. The question is, "How can we do the same with other industries?" Hewlett"Packard recently doubled in size with a major acquisition, adding 175 thousand more employees, which makes Bonnie Nixon"Gardiner'sjob even more challenging. She's now charged with establishing "global citizenship" standards within a sprawling network of staff and suppliers spanning nearly every continent. This means communicating H"P's way of handling ethics, environmental sustainability, human rights and labor, privacy and social investment to managers and partners in nations not known for a keen concern in these areas. In Mexico, a CEO of a factory told her that he doesn't hire homosexuals, people with tattoos, pregnant women, people with lawyers in their families or people associated with unions. Says Nixon"Gardiner, "I said we need a conversation on hiring practicesWe're your partner; this is a risk for us." Enforcing codes of conduct makes perfect business sense, she says. "Having been a manufacturer so long, it's obvious to us, we treat people as our greatest asset. It's just a matter of helping partners in developing nations to understand" About the Speaker(s): Richard M. Locke teaches in both MIT's Sloan School of Management and the MIT Department of Political Science in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Locke's research focuses on economic adjustment and development, comparative labor relations and political economy. Locke is Faculty Director of the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, a mid"career executive education program at the Sloan School of Management He holds a B.A. from Wesleyan University, an M.A in Education from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT._Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Opportunities in Infrastructure and Built Environment

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 04:00:00 GMT

09/19/2008 2:45 PM KresgeSarah Slaughter, 82, SM'87, PhD 91, Associate Director for Buildings & Infrastructure, MIT Energy Initiative; Judith Layzer, PhD '99, Linde Career Development Associate Professor of Environmental Policy; Milton Bevington, Domain Director, Building Retrofit Program, Clinton Climate Initiative, Clinton Foundation; Bill Sisson, SF '99, Director of Sustainability United Technologies CorporationDescription: Half the world's population currently lives in cities, and that number is spiraling upward, as urban settlements gobble up most of the world's natural resources and emit the most pollutants. No wonder that these panelists perceive the challenge (and opportunity) of sustainability as much bigger than getting people to switch from incandescent light bulbs to fluorescents. The "latest craze in city governance," says Judith Layer is making your city as sustainable as possible. New York for instance, has vowed to plant one million trees, and convert its entire taxi fleet to hybrids. Chicago is covering its rooftops in green; Toronto composts. Layzer believes there are "good reasons to worry we'll see symbolic commitments with not much done." Cities struggle to undertake systemic change, partly because they don't control the supply and demand mechanism for energy resources such as oil, which helps drive commuting and mass transit behaviors. Cities have also historically supported unfettered growth to keep their tax base high, and when confronted with a sensible, pollution saving plan such as switching traffic lights to LED lightbulbs, cringe at the high upfront costs. Layzer thinks successful urban sustainability initiatives will depend on national governments pricing natural resources appropriately (e.g., eliminating subsidies on fossil fuels); effective local leadership that makes the case for often unpopular schemes like parking fees and congestion pricing; and major coalition building. No amount of green construction will help with reducing greenhouse gases to desirable levels if today's buildings aren't altered to reduce their CO2 emissions, says Milton Bevington. His brief with the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) in 40 cities worldwide is to provide market"based solutions, not handouts or tax rebates, to get efficient heat and power into millions of residential and commercial buildings. A large part of Bevington's job is educating landlords and others about new financing approaches for retrofitting old buildings. One example: a Chicago bank designed a loan enabling the owners of the city's 550 thousand multifamily housing units to use an "energy performance guarantee" as collateral. Borrowed funds go into reducing water and energy use, and "every single dollar required to pay back the bank" comes from a reduction in energy use. Bevington would like to see more investor"driven financing for energy efficient projects, which he believes could spread swiftly in both rich and poor countries "to change a large sector of the built environment." There's a dilemma brewing for most of the world's big businesses, saysBill Sisson, who is United Technologies' point man in a business consortium effort on energy efficient buildings. While firms recognize the importance of energy efficiency, only 13% are rising to the challenge. Sisson's group seeks to create a roadmap for zero net energy use in buildings, involving technology, improved financial mechanisms, and behavior change. Says Sisson, this is "really about managing risk and directing the future of business in the right way; we see this aspect of buildings as critical for our growth and presence in the market." About the Speaker(s): Sarah Slaughter focuses on issues of sustainability and disaster resiliency in infrastructure and the built environment. She currently coordinates the Sustainable Business Laboratory (S"Lab) and the Sloan Sustainability Initiative. She was CEO of MOCA Systems, Inc., a company she founded based on research she conducted as a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT. She was previously a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University, and worked with the Center for Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS). Slaughter is currently on the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment in the National Research Council, National Academies of Science, and Vice Chair of the Committee on Sustainable Infrastructure. Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

Forging Fellowship: Pascal Marmier, SF 2008

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 18:00:41 GMT

As Sr. Advisor of Swissnex Boston, Pascal Marmier, focuses on the high-tech collaboration among Swiss and U.S. scientists, entrepreneurs, and innovators in hopes of achieving climate change. In his time with the MIT Sloan Fellows program, Marmier, SF 2008, advanced his knowledge of sustainability through access to faculty leaders and in his role as co-founder of the MIT Sloan Fellows Social Impact Group. The group -- representing more than 25 countries -- believes that giving back to society is not about self-sacrifice, it's about commitment.

Martin Fisher, 2008 winner of the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:09:09 GMT

Martin Fisher is co-founder of the non-profit social enterprise KickStart. To date, Fisher's low-cost irrigation pumps and innovative business model have helped to lift nearly 80 percent of his customers - poor African farmers - out of poverty.

Biography | Press Release

Sustainability: The Next Management Frontier

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:15:16 GMT

Find out from MIT Sloan Faculty what Sustainability means for the future of your business.

Forging a Clean Energy Future

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

04/25/2008 3:30 PM 32"123Senator Jeff Bingaman, U.S. Senator, (D) New MexicoDescription: For those seeking reassurance that American politicians take climate change and clean energy seriously, look no further: Jeff Bingaman wraps his arms around this enormous issue, and sets forth an ambitious national agenda to address the challenge. Bingaman sees a new attitude emerging in Washington. Politicians have begun to grasp that reduced dependence on foreign oil is not enough, and that today's energy challenge requires an overhaul in the way the entire world produces, stores, distributes, and uses energy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This means moving entire economies from fossil fuels, says Bingaman, to non"emitting energy sources. This urgent, immense challenge is happening "in a world of growing demand for energy as billions of people are rising out of poverty," he says. The U.S. can hardly tell India not to bring its new gigantic coal"burning power plants online, which will emit more than 23 million tons of CO2 a year, "when most of us here have never known a life without electricity." Solutions must come from new technologies, which are more likely to emerge with appropriate incentives such as the cap"and"grade regulations Bingaman and his Senate colleagues are designing that recognize the actual costs of continued greenhouse emissions. But more should be done to encourage the development of these technologies, especially, as Bingaman notes, given inadequate political action in the past decades to promote, prioritize, and sustain science and technology enterprise in a way that could create a new, clean energy economy. Bingaman describes how, for example, successive administrations pursue their own new vehicle technologies, rather than sticking with a single strategy. Tax incentives for wind turbines and solar energy development ebb and flow, resulting in a "boom and bust cycle that sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs," says Bingaman. Bingaman lays out five steps for the U.S. to establish leadership in the clean energy field: strengthening science and technology responsibility at the highest levels of government, including giving high level budget responsibility to the President's Science Advisor; prioritizing critical, enabling energy technology areas, with the help of the Science Advisor and National Academies; developing roadmaps and assigning responsibility for pursuing each technology area, with the involvement of academic, government and industry representatives; ensuring sustained focus and adequate funding by requiring the President to submit a separate budget document to Congress each year detailing requests for each technology area; and finally, reviewing and updating energy technology priorities every five years. About the Speaker(s): Jeff Bingaman is Chairman of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves as well on the Finance Committee; on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; and on the Joint Economic Committee. Bingaman grew up in Silver City, New Mexico. He graduated from Harvard University and earned a law degree at Stanford. Bingaman was elected New Mexico Attorney General in 1978. In 1982, he won election to the United States Senate, and in 2006, was re"elected to serve a fifth term. Host(s): Office of the President, Office of the President

Day 2 PCL2008 Closing Panel - Sustainability and Scalability

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:17:47 GMT

Day 2 PCL 2008 Workshop

Closing Panel: Sustainability and Scalability

Moderator - Michael Gregory, University of Cambridge, UK;
Tom Jacobius, Illinois Institute of Technology;
William Oakes, Purdue University;
Lydia Kavanagh, University of Queensland, AU;
Tom Molyneaux, RMIT University, AU;
Richard Vaz, Wocester Polytechnic Institute

TDP and the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST)

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:46:54 GMT

MIT's Technology and Development Program (TDP) is participating in a new program to assist the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) to establish a graduate science and engineering program in Abu Dhabi, UAE, focused on renewable energy and sustainable technology. This video shows the plans for the green city which would house the MIST campus.

BUILDING TECHNOLOGY, TALENT AND POLICY BRIDGES TO A LOW"CARBON FUTURE

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

04/12/2008 12:15 PM James Rogers, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Duke EnergyDescription: After 20"plus years in the utility industry, James Rogers is emphatic that we must "build a bridge to a low carbon world." He confesses to a missionary zeal around clean energy, and to the fact that he must reinvent his business, Duke Energy. Rogers invokes 3, 12 and 41 as the key numbers defining his challenge: Duke, with four million customers in five states, is the third largest emitter of CO2 among U.S. companies, the 12th largest corporate emitter in the world, and, 41st among nations if the firm were a country. Rogers conceives of the challenge in terms he calls "cathedral thinking." Just as it took three generations to design and build Notre Dame, so will it take decades to resolve the carbon issue. "It took us 100 years to get here, and will take a while to get out of this. We need a sense of urgency, but not a sense of panica sense of hope, not a sense of fear. " He names "two aspirations for the company." The first involves modernizing and de"carbonizing the power supply, which he thinks can be accomplished if carbon capture and the next generation of nuclear technology prove themselves. The second aspiration is to maximize energy efficiency, even as demand for electricity rises. Reducing greenhouse emissions will mean getting politicians to back an economy wide cap and trade on CO2, with "allowances to help make the transition for those dependent on coal." 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from coal, Rogers reminds us. A consumer revolt might prevent meaningful laws from passing. While pursuing mitigation, we must also struggle with adaptation. Rogers detects great difficulty getting our politicians to aid places like Bangladesh that will most suffer from warming. Above all, the U.S. must start funding technology R&D. Rogers despairs of politicians responsibly dispersing R&D dollars, so he recommends a national trust fund to focus such spending. As a firm believer in incentives, Rogers would like to reward utilities for saving watts. He says "energy efficiency is one of the five ways you generate electricity -- it should be treated as a production option." Duke Energy is attempting to achieve efficiencies by modernizing coal plants, and hopes to find software to optimize and streamline its operations as well. While customers and investors routinely evaluate Rogers' performance, he most cares about his family's judgment in the future. "At the end of the day, I want my grandchildren to say my granddaddy made the right decision when faced with 3, 12, 41." About the Speaker(s): James Rogers has nearly 20 years of experience as a chief executive officer in the electric utility industry. He was named president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy following the merger of Duke Energy and Cinergy in April 2006. Rogers has served as deputy general counsel for litigation and enforcement for the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC); executive vice president of interstate pipelines for the Enron Gas Pipeline Group; and as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Prior to those appointments, he served as assistant to the chief trial counsel at FERC; as a law clerk for the Supreme Court of Kentucky; and as assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where he acted as intervener on behalf of state consumers in gas, electric and telephone rate cases. He was also a reporter for the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald"Leader. Rogers attended Emory University and earned a bachelor of business administration and a J.D. from the University of Kentucky.Host(s): Dean for Student Life, The MIT Energy Conference

Speed and Scale

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

04/12/2008 8:00 AM John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersDescription: In turn pragmatic and visionary, John Doerr describes his venture capital firm's response to the climate change/clean energy challenge, while answering a range of questions from an entrepreneurial and academic audience. Doerr says that "it's a flat, crowded, hot world, and getting hotter." Science informs us that we dare not exceed a 2oC rise in global temperatures, lest the planet suffer irreversible, catastrophic climate change. This means we must "stop dumping 70 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day as if it were a free open sewer." Such a task involves reducing greenhouse emissions across the globe by more than 50% by 2030, and the developed world must reduce its emissions by 90% in the same timeframe. While there's no single silver bullet to achieve such a vast turnaround at speed and at scale, there are some "big bullets" in our arsenal, says Doerr. Kleiner Perkins looks to "disruptive" R&D that can make a serious dent in the CO2/clean energy problem. Doerr describes ventures involving the first volume, plug"in hybrid automobile; diesel fuel synthesized from sugar; alternatives to coal"fired electricity, including new, promising solar cell technology; and a large"scale conservation enterprise that relies on RFID to encourage residents to recycle. But all of these R&D efforts represent a drop in the bucket, notes Doerr _ nowhere near the scale required to attack the problem. "We must find answers that are economic for all people, everywhere. We must use policy to harness innovation, to make sure the right thing to do is the profitable thing to do, so it becomes the probable thing to happen." The U.S. government has invested a measly $1 billion per year in renewable energy R&D, while Exxon, he says, earned more than $1.1 billion per day in revenue. Energy is "the mother of all markets," at $6 trillion a year worldwide. "Going green, solving that problem is going to be the largest transformation we've seen on the planet since we went aerobic, from methane to oxygen." Doerr also backs efforts to change laws to stem emissions, such as California's Global Warming Solutions Act. He hopes the next few years will bring a national cap and trade system on greenhouse gases, and even better, a carbon tax that's revenue neutral to taxpayers. He'd also like to see state utilities' profits decoupled "from the number of electrons they serve." Doerr imagines a "planetary call to action," bigger than the Apollo and Manhattan projects, because "this is nothing less than re"industrializing every city, every town, every country on the planet." About the Speaker(s): John Doerr earned a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard University. He joined Intel Corporation in 1974, and went to Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers in 1980, where he has directed venture capital funding to some of the most successful technology companies in the world, including Compaq, Netscape, Symantec, Amazon.com and Google. Doerr serves on the boards of Intuit, and Sun Microsystems, among others and on the boards of private ventures, Zazzle, Miasole, Purkinje, Spatial Photonics, and Good Technology.Host(s): Office of the President, The MIT Energy Conference

Building Responsive Cities: Technology, Design, and Development

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

04/04/2008 1:30 PM Broad InstituteDennis Frenchman, MCP '76, MAA '76, Leventhal Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Director, City Design and Development, MIT; Antonio di Mambro, '71, MAA '77, MCP '77, Principal, Antonio di Mambro+ Associates; Martha Lampkine Welborne, MCP '81, MAA '81, Managing Director, Grand Avenue Committee, Los Angeles; Tom Campanella, PhD '99, Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina, Chapel HillDescription: Even as new supercities pop up around the world, with populations in the tens of millions, urban planning remains stuck in an older time. As Dennis Frenchmansays, "Amazingly very little progress has been made ... We're using basically the models and methods of the 1920s." Frenchman says we need to confront the immense challenges of rapid urbanization, universal mobility sustainability and basic livability. Some emerging concepts include new century cities, where single "messy" mixed"use zones will house shopping, living, and commerce. He describes technology networks built into urban environments, producing streams of data that not only reveal how a city works, but allow better real"time management of systems. Cities will sense traffic flows and change street signage and lane markings accordingly. Smart cars will guide users to available parking. Public buildings will have changing faces. This "agile infrastructure has the potential to make day to day interactions more efficient and productive, but also more personal, because systems can interact with you and adjust to your desires," says Frenchman. Boston invests big"time in infrastructure, says Antonio di Mambro, but its transportation system is very "Boston"centric." He believes it's time to convert this system into a regional one, "tied to a new image of the city." Di Mambro is developing a new transportation network based on the area's "educational necklace," developing a West Station hub that connects universities to each other, and to the rest of the world. Di Mambro also describes how coastal cities should plan for global warming impacts. He describes Venice's strategic plan to defend itself from rising water, which includes massive mobile flood barriers, environmental restoration, economic development of neglected areas and green infrastructure. In the 1990s, Martha Lampkin Welborne became convinced that Curitiba, Brazil's public transit system would be perfect for LA. In this system, buses operate in dedicated lanes, with costs far less than those required for subway or even light rail. A nonprofit team "created the vision and sold it to everyone -- the MTA and the city." After this accomplishment, LA's mayor drafted her to create an economic center in a desolate city stretch. In re"imagining Grand Avenue, says Welborne, she has been transforming a physical vision into a reality, starting with a precise economic analysis, politicking with city and county officials and collaborating with Frank Gehry. "Without being hyperbolic, it's the greatest building boom in human history," says Tom Campanella of China's construction frenzy. Campanella marshals many astonishing facts to back up the statement: In Shanghai, more than 900 million square feet of commercial office space were added to the city between 1990 and 2004, roughly equivalent to 335 Empire State Buildings. Between 1985"1995 Shanghai's footprint and suburbs jumped from 90 to 790 square miles. China will end up with more than 1 billion people in its cities. We Americans must "learn humility," he says, in imagining urban planning for this scale of building boom, or establishing what constitutes good versus bad urbanism. About the Speaker(s): Lawerence Vale is the author or editor of six books examining urban design and housing. Architecture, Power, and National Identity (1992), a book about capital city design on six continents, received the 1994 Spiro Kostof Book Award for Architecture and Urbanism from the Society of Architectural Historians. Vale is also Co"Editor, with Sam Bass Warner, Jr., of Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions (Center for Urban Policy Research Press, 2001), and co"editor, with Thomas J. Campanella, of The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster (Oxford University Press, 2005), which was recognized as one of the "Ten Best Books for 2005" by Planetizen, the Planning and Development network. He attended Amherst College, and received the S.M.Arch.S. degree from MIT and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of the 1997 Chester Rapkin Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He has taught at the MIT since 1988.Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Sustaining Cities: Environment, Economic Development, and Empowerment

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:00:00 GMT

04/04/2008 10:30 AM Broad InstituteJudith Layzer, PhD '99, Linde Career Development Associate Professor of Environmental Policy; Jason Corburn, MCP '96, PhD '02, Assistant Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley; J. Phillip Thompson, Associate Professor of Urban Politics, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT; Chris Zegras, Ford Career Development Assistant Professor of Transportation and Urban Planning, MIT; Adil Najam, CE '96, PhD '01, Fredrick Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy, Boston University; Lawrence Vale, SM '88, Professor and Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT School of Architecture and PlanningDescription: These five speakers grapple with shifting notions of sustainability. Judith Layzer advocates "strong sustainability" in lieu of the conventional approach, which imagines human"made capital and technology can always substitute for the wealth of resources drawn from the natural world. Development and affluence have instead degraded ecosystems. Strong sustainability "entails living within the productive capacity of naturemeeting the needs of the current generation as opposed to their demands." Wealthy societies must adopt laws to contain population growth and curb consumption, and develop regional cooperation and fair trade policies. Jason Corburn describes an environmental justice framework that connects ecological, economic and social justice issues, especially in urban settings. Corburn asks about the distribution of environmental goods and evils (such as parks and pollution); who participates in rule"making and enforcement; and how environmental justice evolves institutionally, and is enforced. The key lesson of the past is that voluntary enforcement of environmental justice guidelines don't work, and we must "find a legal or regulatory stick to implement" its goals. "Where I'm from, I see this green thing as a rich people's movement," says Phillip Thompson, who was a housing manager in New York. Environmentalists pushed clean air laws that ended the incineration of garbage -- but left housing projects with an unfunded mandate to bag their own waste. Thompson acknowledges the energy crisis is an emergency for many lower"income city dwellers hit with high heating costs: "We can't do affordable housing if it isn't green." But transforming cities into affordable and green places means systemic change. Who, for example, will pay for outfitting buildings in poorer neighborhoods with energy conserving technology, and who will train and educate the workforce required for this transformation? "What are we trying to sustain?" asks Chris Zegras. He believes the answer is access to opportunities that enable development. How do societies expand accessibility without depriving future generations of the ability to do so? Zegras says it's hard to argue the importance of climate change to someone "who travels 3 _ hours a day on a bus to get to a job, and half the salary is eaten up by the bus ride." First, we must alleviate fundamental issues of accessibility for the poor: their lack of affordable transportation and proximity to schools and jobs. Zegras recommends addressing the worldwide crisis in transportation, in part through such innovations as bike and car sharing. Looking down on Earth as if it were one country, says Adil Najam, you'd have to conclude it is poor, extremely divided, degraded, poorly governed and unsafe _ a Third"world country. Addressing the environment turns on development, since "the poor are hit first and hit most." The climate question has moved from discussion of molecules to adaptation, but we remain largely ignorant about how to mitigate and adapt, Najam says. Worse, nations are off on the wrong foot, measuring the problem in terms of only "emissions and dollars." When a Bangladeshi fisherman loses his work to rising waters, what is the cost? "We need to add the currency of livelihood," concludes Najam. About the Speaker(s): Lawerence Vale is the author or editor of six books examining urban design and housing. Architecture, Power, and National Identity (1992), a book about capital city design on six continents, received the 1994 Spiro Kostof Book Award for Architecture and Urbanism from the Society of Architectural Historians. Vale is also Co"Editor, with Sam Bass Warner, Jr., of Imaging the City: Continuing Struggles and New Directions (Center for Urban Policy Research Press, 2001), and co"editor, with Thomas J. Campanella, of The Resilient City: How Modern Cities Recover From Disaster (Oxford University Press, 2005), which was recognized as one of the "Ten Best Books for 2005" by Planetizen, the Planning and Development network. He attended Amherst College, and received the S.M.Arch.S. degree from MIT and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He has been a Rhodes Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as the recipient of the 1997 Chester Rapkin Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He has taught at the MIT since 1988.Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Manufacturing Seminar, 3/06/08, Erin MacDonald

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:01:30 GMT

The Construction of Preference in Engineering Design and Implications for Green Products

MIT SEMINAR SERIES IN MANUFACTURING AND PRODUCTIVITY
Place: Given Lounge, Room 35-520 Time: 12:00 P.M. Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Dr. Erin MacDonald
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

[PDF FILE]

Abstract available after the jump.

Engineering design methods implicitly assume that customer preferences or needs exist a priori, waiting to be "found." I relax this assumption using a behavioral psychology theory called the construction of preference, which asserts that individuals construct preferences on a case-by-case basis when called to make a decision. I will discuss the three central themes of my research: using construction of preference to experimentally identify product heuristics; incorporating construction of preference into existing engineering design methods; and providing interdisciplinary perspective on decision-making in product design. I will review findings from my dissertation research, including that customers' evaluations of products are influenced by relationships they believe to exist between product attributes, and that actively controlling construction of preference can lead to products that are more successful in the market. The findings have an accompanying case study in green design, in which product decisions are intertwined with abstract, psychologically-important concepts that influence preference construction. I will conclude my talk with a general discussion of my future research directions.

Part 1: MIT Innovations in Management: Strategies for Sustainable Business Practice

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:38:11 GMT

Dec. 5-6, 2007 Part 1 Sustainability is no longer relegated to offices that handle isolated issues like waste management or corporate charitable giving. Innovative leaders from a wide range of industries and functional areas are recognizing they can improve their business by embracing sustainable business practices. How are they doing it? How can eco-friendly, socially responsible business practices translate to your bottom line? Where are the most promising areas of business opportunity today? Are there frameworks that can help you identify sustainable strategies that fit your corporate footprint?

Agents of Change: Model Partnerships with Academia

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

01/30/2008 9:45 AM 32"123Joanne Kauffman, PhD '97, Advisor and former Executive Director, Alliance for Global Sustainability; Lennart Billfalk, Senior Advisor, Vattenfall AB; Theodore Smith, Executive Director, Henry P. Kendall Foundation; Elizabeth Kolbert, Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Ernest Moniz, Director, MIT Energy InitiativeDescription: This panel offers some evidence that sustained alliances between academia and other organizations may help us more effectively address climate change issues. In Sweden, Lennart Billfalk says, universities have historically cooperated with industry. In the 1980s, when interest in electrical engineering was waning, Billfalk's Vattenfall power company financed new labs and committed to extra teaching resources, spawning a whole new generation of electrical engineers attuned to key energy issues. In the 90s, the government and industry financed joint research centers, which are helping Sweden fulfill its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions 50% by 2030, and 80% by 2050. R&D from these collaborations has led to carbon capture and storage projects, and several CO2 free pilot power plants in Europe. Ernest Moniz pegs several factors integral to the success of academic"industrial collaborations, including a long"term commitment from both sides --"think about programs, not projects"; the alignment of these programs with the corporation's strategic plan; and a joint steering mechanism. MIT tries to apply these principles to its Energy Initiative, bringing multidisciplinary teams from across campus to focus on research, education, campus energy management and public outreach (as an "honest broker" on climate change and energy issues). Moniz describes some flagship programs around coal conversion and carbon capture with MIT's key industry research partners, as well as a seed grant program funding bold ideas from across the campus; and fellowships encouraging students to direct their talent toward the energy innovation field. The world's best endowed foundations are "missing from important fields" such as physics and the biosciences, and few have turned their attention to climate change, says Theodore Smith. And while academia has focused on the science and technology of climate change, it has not cultivated "a civic voice" to speak on these issues in the broader public discourse. Smith regrets this neglect, because there's a "yearning from those of us outside the academy to hear voices speaking in clear English." Smith's Henry Kendall Foundation seeks to promote greater communication between academia and the world at large. It also hopes to spark transformative change in Cambridge, by supporting a massive reduction in energy consumption that requires Harvard and MIT to play central roles. Elizabeth Kolbert acknowledges "the pretty colossal failure over the last decade of communication on the issues of climate change and sustainability," and says there's plenty of blame to go around. Journalists hate complicated issues, and sustained the climate change "debate" long after it ceased to be a scientific argument. Scientists generated long, technical reports while maintaining neutrality and avoiding a policy agenda. The level of ignorance in Washington is staggering, says Kolbert, and the public simply tunes out when the story is climate change. Kolbert insists "we must challenge ourselves" as academicians and journalists. She suggests that MIT put a lot of effort into making its own campus a model for sustainability, a "bold step" that might garner public interest. About the Speaker(s): Joanne Kauffman is an advisor to the Alliance for Global Sustainability and to other academic initiatives that support scientific research on sustainability, including the IR3S Program of the University of Tokyo and ETHSustainability at ETH"Zurich, Switzerland. A political scientist, Kauffman has taught international environmental politics and policy at MIT and lectured widely in North America, Europe and Asia on issues in sustainability. She has written many articles and papers on policies to promote sustainable development and is the author of two related books: Managing Chemicals in the Environment (Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1984) and (with Hideo Yoshikawa) Science Has No National Borders,, a study of the reconstruction of science in post"WWII Japan (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994). She serves on the Board of Directors of The Energy Research Institute"North America (TERI"NA) and is the series editor for the Springer Publications series, Science and Technology: Tools for Sustainable Development. Kauffman is currently working with Boston"based artist and photographer Julie Graham on a visual and analytical examination of the linkages between landscape, memory, and culture. She lives in a small rural village in southern France Host(s): Office of the President, MIT Energy Initiative

Why Bad Things Happen to Good Technologies

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

01/30/2008 9:00 AM 32"123John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT Description: John Sterman pokes holes through some popular proposals for addressing climate change, with sobering case studies that demonstrate why "technological solutions are not enough to address the problem of creating a sustainable world." We are staking too much hope for a climate change fix on "the better mousetrap theory of innovation," says Sterman. It goes like this: New technology from places like MIT will drive down the cost of renewable energy, increase demand for carbon"free renewables and displace fossil fuels. New energy markets emerge, after a regulatory nudge or two from the government, or some incentives and emissions fees. To demonstrate how completely wrong this theory is, Sterman first discusses great products never adopted by consumers, such as the Sony Betamax video recorder. More to the point, he notes current opportunities that would significantly reduce our carbon footprint yet have been ignored by society at large, such as improving fuel efficiency, and insulating buildings. Our rejection of these opportunities suggests we can't comprehend "the complexity of systems in which we are embedded and into which we deploy technologies," particularly the concept of feedback. Sterman runs through a 'thought experiment' involving the introduction of a hydrogen"based, zero tailpipe emission alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) into California _ a conceivable leap toward creating an ecologically and economically sustainable transportation system. The government kick"starts the AFV market, rolling out fuel stations in urban centers, and essentially subsidizing the transition for a decade. You'd expect this AFV eventually to command at least 50% of the market share. But when Sterman runs his simulations, the AFV stagnates at around 25%. It turns out that if fuel stations are not distributed through even the remotest parts of the state, people worry about where they'll find fuel, leading to weak demand for AFVs. This is "only one of the many reinforcing feedbacks which create strong barriers to the entry of technologies which are as good or better than incumbent technologies," says Sterman. Even an AFV with higher fuel efficiency can't win market share, Sterman's California simulations show. The models offer some faint promise. When Sterman puts more fuel stations in rural areas, the AFV market succeeds -- after an extraordinarily long time. Sterman believes there's a tipping point in the adoption of new technologies. Dethroning gasoline will be difficult, he says, so we need to create multiple reinforcing feedbacks to change the behaviors of all the players. "We must push that ball, which represents where the market is, up a steep mountain, and only after crossing the peak will the market become self"sustaining." About the Speaker(s): John D. Sterman's research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award"winning textbook, Business Dynamics. Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems. Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics. He won a 2005 IBM Faculty Award, and the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in the California Management Review (with Nelson Repenning). He has five times won awards for teaching excellence from the students of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was named one of the Sloan School's "Outstanding Faculty" by the 2001 Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools. Host(s): Office of the President, MIT Energy Initiative

How Would Climate Change Influence Society in the 21st Century?

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

01/29/2008 9:00 AM 32"123Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate; Change and Director"General, The Energy and Resources Institute; Dr. Susan Hockfield, President, MITDescription: The rising public awareness of climate change, says MIT President Susan Hockfield, comes with a price. "The public dialogue has evolved from nothing is wrong, so we need to do nothing, to everything is so wrong, that there's nothing we can do." Citizens are "starving for a sense of focus, clarity and direction," and with that in mind, MIT and other organizations "need to speak louder," declares Hockfield, by elevating the public debate, telling the truth about the power and limitations of technology, and focusing on the harsh reality that the scale of a proposed solution can "doom a clever idea to nothing more than a dilettante's distraction." Here's Rajendra K. Pachauri's panic"inducing assertion: We have a window of seven years to stabilize CO2 at today's levels if we are to limit our global mean temperature increase to around 2.40C. A world this hot would be a very unpleasant place to be. Pachauri lays out unequivocal" evidence of climate change, and describes how extreme precipitation events, heat waves and other natural catastrophes will become more frequent, endangering vast swaths of humanity. We stand to lose 20"30% of species if warming exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 0C. Pachauri also notes this "scary prospect": the rapid loss of ice sheets on polar land, leading to sea level rises of several meters, and the flight of large populations in response. br> Pachauri describes the kinds of adaptations humanity must make to the changes already underway, including protection from flooding; preventing water scarcity; and retooling agriculture. Developed nations have a head start in these, and must help out developing nations, or risk global conflicts. Yet adaptation alone "cannot cope with all the projected impacts of climate change," says Pachauri, so greenhouse gas mitigation efforts are urgent. In the midst of this desperate panorama, Pachauri holds out some hope: "Anyone who says, what's the point, why take action-if we start today, we can really make a difference in the next two to three decades." What's more, we have at hand a portfolio of technologies that are currently or soon to be available that could achieve significant mitigation, he says. If we invest in public transport and efficient vehicles, the right kinds of R&D, technology transfers and incentives, we could achieve our goals. And he notes, the cost of taking such actions "are not high at all." To stabilize CO2 at around 500 PPM, the costs in 2030 would be less than 3% global GDP, which amounts to a minuscule .12% annually. About the Speaker(s): Rajendra Pachauri was elected Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2002. He has been involved in the work of the IPCC since its Second Assessment Report in 1995, as a Lead Author. He was then Vice"President of the IPCC during the Third Assessment Report. Pachauri has been the head of TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, since its establishment 25 years ago. TERI focuses on scientific and technological research and strategic thinking in the fields of energy, environment, forestry, biotechnology, conservation of natural resources and sustainable development. Pachauri was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in January 2001, one of India's highest civilian awards. He was also awarded the "Officier De La L_gion D'Honneur" by the Government of France in 2006. Pachauri was a Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC in 1990. He also served as adviser to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the fields of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from 1994 till 1999. At the international level, he has been President of the Asian Energy Institute since 1992. Pachauri earned an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University. Host(s): Office of the President, MIT Energy Initiative

How Would Climate Change Influence Society in the 21st Century? (Panel)

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 05:00:00 GMT

01/29/2008 9:45 AM 32"123Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate; Change and Director"General, The Energy and Resources Institute; John Reilly, MIT Sloan School of Management; William Moomaw, PhD '65, Director of the Center for International; Environment and Resource Policy, Tufts University; Adil Najam, CE '96, PhD '01, Fredrick Pardee Professor of Global Public Policy, Boston University; Akimasa Sumi, Integrated Research System for Sustainability; Science, The University of Tokyo; Andreas Fischlin, Head, Terrestrial System Ecology Group,; Institute of Integrative Biology, ETHZ; Michael Golay, Professor, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT; Howard Herzog, '74, SM '75, CHE '80, MIT Energy InitiativeDescription: Rajendra K. Pachauri leads fellow members of the Nobel Prize"winning IPCC in a remarkable public session of soul"searching. Now that the IPCC has helped make climate change a signal issue of our times, what next? John Reilly wonders whether the IPCC should be celebrating any success, given that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in spite of all the comprehensive study. Given the "dismal outcome so far," it's important that the IPCC "avoid the complacency that comes with big awards," and that "much, all of the work is still there to be done.". "It's probably time for sunset, Michael Golay suggests." Now that the IPCC has succeeded in establishing climate change as "a reality among at least the chattering classes," the next step is actually a social question, one that is much more difficult than coming up with new technologies. "We're really talking about interfering with markets, and doing this in a way that doesn't become simply another vehicle for creating profits for special interests." William Moomaw believes IPCC reports have made possible policy and corporate innovations that would have been unthinkable only a decade ago, and the IPCC should continue to serve in an advisory capacity to the world, laying out the technological and economic possibilities. Says Moomaw, "We got off to a bad start. We talked about global warming as being an environmental issue when in fact global warming is a symptom of maldevelopment. The IPCC "should continue as the voice of science and help a well"informed society make tough decisions," declares Andreas Fischlin . This will mean "facing the issue of sustainability in the context of climate change to an extent many of us won't like." Research challenges in developing nations may impede efforts to "optimize the IPCC's work and help in the whole issue of moving toward a more sustainable world." Akimasa Sumi believes IPCC should continue to have a powerful role in the future, because the "climate change issue is driven by science." He proposes refining climate models in the hope of reducing uncertainty around such matters as the role of aerosols and clouds. He says the focus must now be on adaptation and mitigation, particularly over a 30"year time scale. The IPCC established its relevance because it drew a line between being policy relevant and policy prescriptive, says Adil Najam. Now, "we need to claim victory on understanding the mechanics of the science and stop debating." The next step must mean "focusing not on the scope of the problem, but on potential for solutions." . Should the IPCC attempt to become more prescriptive, believes Howard Herzog, "it would lose respect." In his years with the organization, "anytime we got into policy prescriptive areas, when we got close to the line, tensions rose, arguments intensified, we lost consensus." He thinks it's important to continue the IPCC's work, because the science will change, and we need a "broker out there to summarize where science is on critical issues." About the Speaker(s): Rajendra Pachauri was elected Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2002. He has been involved in the work of the IPCC since its Second Assessment Report in 1995, as a Lead Author. He was then Vice"President of the IPCC during the Third Assessment Report. Pachauri has been the head of TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, since its establishment 25 years ago. TERI focuses on scientific and technological research and strategic thinking in the fields of energy, environment, forestry, biotechnology, conservation of natural resources and sustainable development. Pachauri was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in January 2001, one of India's highest civilian awards. He was also awarded the "Officier De La L_gion D'Honneur" by the Government of France in 2006. Pachauri was a Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC in 1990. He also served as adviser to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the fields of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from 1994 till 1999. At the international level, he has been President of the Asian Energy Institute since 1992. Pachauri earned an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University. Host(s): Office of the President, MIT Energy Initiative

Implementing Sustainability Strategies

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT

12/06/2007 10:45 AM Wong AuditoriumPeter Senge, SM '72, PhD '78, Senior Lecturer MIT. Founding Chair of the Society for Organizational Learning; Wayne Balta, SM '84, Vice President, IBM Corporation; Mark Buckley, VP Environmental Affairs, Staples; Kevin Moss, BT Global ServicesDescription: Companies sometimes regard sustainability as "metaphoric low"hanging fruit," says moderator Peter Senge , and reach for a few easy targets to achieve cosmetic improvements. His three panelists describe how their corporations are attempting to embrace sustainability as more than just another high"profile, low"impact initiative that "goes right into an overloaded bucket." IBM wants to be known for its innovation and leadership not just in products and services, but in its relationship with the environment, says Wayne Balta . All aspects of the company's operations, from research and product design, to fulfillment, software and services, must integrate environmentally responsible behaviors in ways that also advance the company's bottom line and satisfy shareholders. "Environment is not a special, short"term project, not a fad or flavor of the month," says Balta. IBM pursues opportunities in and out of the company, including "making brown green:" reducing waste in its business and industrial processes around the world; designing intelligent networks to improve the efficiency of electrical utility operations; developing systems for mitigating traffic congestion in cities; launching a Big Green innovation business unit ; and creating an Eco Patent Commons, enabling users the free and unrestricted use of IBM technologies that help solve environmental challenges. "We're trying to find the sweet spot between social, economic and environmental areas that define sustainability, because at the end of the day if any one of those three legs of the stool aren't available then the model itself falls down." says Mark Buckley. He describes the "Staples Soul," an approach to corporate responsibility that attempts to engage the corporation's 74 thousand associates worldwide, involving business ethics, impact on communities, diversity, and reducing a product's direct and indirect impact on the environment. Staples, says Buckley, "has every opportunity to develop sustainable design platforms in terms of carbon intensity." One example: Staples has developed school notebook filler paper made from sugarcane byproducts that Argentine farmers typically burn in their fields at the end of processing, creating local air pollution. Notes Buckley, "We can do a lot of good from the social perspective but if there's no economic market to drive it, provide long term pressure or opportunity, the model will fall short." British Telecom is tackling three interdependent areas, says Kevin Moss: sustainable economic growth, climate change and creating a more inclusive society. The company engages its 100 thousand plus employees in this mission by, among other methods, aggressively encouraging telecommuting -- nearly 15% of staff stay at home rather than drive to work, leading not only to a reduction in carbon emissions but to a 99% retention of working mothers returning to work after maternity leave. Since 1996, the company has reduced its carbon footprint by 60%. As a telecom, BT pushes digital inclusion by installing computer equipment and training people in India, South Africa and Brazil. The company gambled big when it ventured to bridge the digital divide in the UK by wiring the entire country for broadband. This move, says Moss, "turned out to be a sensible decision commercially." About the Speaker(s): Peter Senge is the author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization(1990), and co"author of The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization(1994) and of a fieldbook, The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations(1999). He received a B.S. in Engineering from Stanford University, an M.S. in Social Systems Modeling and Ph.D. in Management from MIT.Host(s): Vice President Resource Development, Industrial Liaison Program

Stuck: Why It's So Hard to Do New Things in Old Organizations

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:00:00 GMT

12/06/2007 8:30 AM Wong AuditoriumRebecca M. Henderson, '81, Eastman Kodak LFM Professor of ManagementDescription: After 20 years studying large organizations that undertake significant transformations, Rebecca Henderson has of late turned her attention to the issue of sustainability, which may play a crucial role in society's response to climate change. She believes the job of corporations goes beyond "making widgets effectively and making money for shareholders." After all, "doing lunch is to be preferred to being lunch," she says, and there's evidence that reducing waste and energy use, and managing supply chains sustainably can improve profitability. In addition, alternative energy sources offer "major growth opportunities" for firms -- "someone will make a lot of money if all that carbon gets taken out of the atmosphere," she says. And don't forget the positive impacts on a workforce inspired not just to make a profit, but to pursue a mission. But this "emotional juice" is not enough if firms are to implement a strategy around sustainability. Henderson thinks it's possible to help companies embrace sustainability in the same way companies learn to get unstuck when mired in old behaviors. She describes companies overloaded with projects, incapable of making thoughtful decisions, finger pointing when things go wrong. She invokes the "Tiger Woods theory of change," in which the golf pro actively embraced "worse before better." Woods practiced a different stroke on his driver, performing poorly in competitions for two years, until he emerged with new, improved skills. Companies looking to act in fundamentally different ways, says Henderson, must prepare for overload, accepting and managing the fact that the business will be "worse before better." Becoming unstuck, says Henderson, means, measuring capacity, tracking resources, finding time to step back and make decisions, demonstrating a commitment at all levels of the company, and having serious conversations, from the mind and from the heart. In sustainability, concludes Henderson, we "need to break the logjam between overload and strategy," and we "need to be very precise about what we want to do." About the Speaker(s): Rebecca Henderson specializes in technology strategy. Her current research focuses upon the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. She received an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1981 and a doctorate in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1988. She spent 1981"1983 working for the London office of McKinsey and Company. Her publications include "Underinvestment and Incompetence as Responses to Radical Innovation: Evidence from the Photolithographic Industry" in the Rand Journal of Economics, and "Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and The Failure of Established Firms" with Kim Clark, in Administrative Science Quarterly. Henderson sits on the Board of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and on the Board of the Linbeck Corporation. She was recently retained by the Department of Justice as an Expert Witness in connection with the Remedies phase of the Microsoft case, and in 2001 was voted "Teacher of the Year" at the Sloan School. Host(s): Vice President Resource Development, Industrial Liaison Program

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