School of Sustainability Graduate Culminating Experiences
Student capstone and applied projects from ASU's School of Sustainability.
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Description
The Arizona State University (ASU) Masters of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) program connects student teams with real-world clients to solve real-world sustainability problems as a part of the students’ Culminating Experience in the program. This report details the project assigned to our group, the Emissions Data Detectives (EDD), in partnership with our client, Gannett Fleming. This project focuses on calculating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the client’s leased office spaces across the United States and Canada.
In excess, GHGs trap heat in the atmosphere, negatively affecting global air quality and human health. In addition, top companies similar to our client are already disclosing their emissions, new legislation is aiming to require such reporting, and stakeholders are trending to gravitate towards firms measuring and reducing their environmental impact. During the first semester of this project, we noticed that Gannett Fleming lacked data on specific utility usage in their leased office spaces, as not all data is shared, standardized, or robust enough for accurate emissions calculations.
After conducting a landscape analysis where group members interviewed companies facing a similar problem, the team identified best practices for addressing this issue. Such practices included using mixed methods for calculations based on data availability, leveraging organizational connections for efficient communication with landlords, creating custom communication plans, and using concise language with landlords. The team also conducted an sTOWS analysis to understand better how our research could best be applied to Gannett Fleming’s problem. From there, we developed a project plan that included an Invitation to Participate and Data Request to collect the necessary data. Next, the team outlined strategies for emissions calculations, including applying calculations from the GHG Protocol and compiling all calculations in a navigable spreadsheet.
Greenhouse gas calculations were made using a mix of asset-specific data from the Data Request forms and average data from the EPA estimates using equations from Scope 3, Category 8, or Leased Upstream Assets per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Emissions were categorized under Scope 3 since the client has no control over the leased offices, and the control approach was used. Final results showed that the emissions calculated for the 8 offices where asset-specific data was used combined with the 31 offices where average data was used totaled 2,390 metric tonnes of CO2e for FY2022.
In order to ensure that this project can be helpful to Gannet Fleming long-term, we came up with three main deliverables including a GHG spreadsheet including all calculations and findings, a GHG roadmap with simplified step-by-step instructions of our methodology, and a Sustainable Leasing Policy information to ensure the client’s emissions reduction goals are communicated and considered in the decision-making process for future lease agreements.
This version contains results that have been edited to ensure client confidentiality. Offices have been anonymized, and numbers used are not representative of actual emissions findings.
ContributorsGutierrez, Lukas (Author) / Carlson, Chloe (Author) / Davitt, Akilah (Author) / Cobb, James (Author)
Created2023-04-24
ContributorsGutierrez, Lukas (Author) / Carlson, Chloe (Author) / Davitt, Akilah (Author) / Cobb, James (Author)
Created2023-04-24
ContributorsGutierrez, Lukas (Author) / Carlson, Chloe (Author) / Davitt, Akilah (Author) / Cobb, James (Author)
Created2023-04-24
ContributorsGutierrez, Lukas (Author) / Carlson, Chloe (Author) / Davitt, Akilah (Author) / Cobb, James (Author)
Created2023-04-24
Description
Food insecurity among university students in the U.S. is a pressing sustainability problem due to its prevalence, complex socio-economic drivers, and adverse effects. A national survey from the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice found that 45% of university students (n=86,000) had experienced some form of food insecurity in the past 30 days (Goldrick-Rab et al., 2019). Students at Arizona State University (ASU) are similarly impacted by this sustainability problem—a recent study found that approximately 35% of ASU students have experienced food insecurity (Bruening et al., 2016). Food insecurity has a variety of detrimental effects on university students’ physical health, psychological well-being, and academic achievement (El Zien et al., 2019; Payne-Sturges et al., 2018; Meza et al., 2019), and these resulting issues have complex inter-regional, intrageneration, and intergenerational implications.
To mitigate food insecurity among university students, the project proposes the development of a sustainable, student-run food cooperative business at Arizona State University (ASU). Food cooperative businesses have long been utilized by communities to advance food access, economic self-determination, and food justice (DePasquale, Sarang, & Vena, 2017), so the project aims to lay the foundation for the establishment of such an enterprise at ASU. Through the development of an enterprise start-up plan and the execution of preliminary coalition-building efforts, the project seeks to demonstrate the plausibility of this solution while empowering stakeholders with the strategies needed to enact it.
To mitigate food insecurity among university students, the project proposes the development of a sustainable, student-run food cooperative business at Arizona State University (ASU). Food cooperative businesses have long been utilized by communities to advance food access, economic self-determination, and food justice (DePasquale, Sarang, & Vena, 2017), so the project aims to lay the foundation for the establishment of such an enterprise at ASU. Through the development of an enterprise start-up plan and the execution of preliminary coalition-building efforts, the project seeks to demonstrate the plausibility of this solution while empowering stakeholders with the strategies needed to enact it.
Created2021-04-28
Description
COVID-19 brought so much uncertainty into the world and has molded this project into what it is today. The first project journey that was chosen was meant to show the impact of how much plastic waste was being produced at Starbucks. Then due to COVID-19 yet again, it changed into how much paper waste there was within the State of Washington Department of Licensing (DOL) Business and Professions Division (BPD). DOL BPD is a state agency division that licenses over forty plus professional and business licenses to the residents of Washington state. Due to the pandemic, the project transformed into how the three pillars of sustainability impacts remote work within BPD. BPD is in this new and unique paradigm where the deliverable that was brought forth as this project completed are, “The 9 Benefits of Sustainability through Remote Work” (Appendix D) where this specifically showed DOL why remote work is sustainable and how it should be implemented even further throughout the agency. This list was put together with the benefits that best fit DOL BPD.
ContributorsReynolds, Jordan (Writer of accompanying material)
Created2021-02-11
Description
These documents were developed as part of the culminating experience project for the Masters of Sustainability Solutions (MSUS) graduate program.
This report was developed for the ASU Foundation and the Fulton Center by Team Green Impact with the goal of establishing a facility based year for the foundation to meet their 2035 net-zero target. Contents of this report include: Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emission measurements for the Fulton Center, GHG emission reduction recommendations, an infographic for internal stakeholder engagement, and an example net-zero strategy the foundation can utilize in their current and future building. The purpose of the report and the infographic is to inform next steps for reducing GHG emissions and to help the ASU Foundation make progress towards their net-zero target.
ContributorsFowler, Carissa (Author) / Boss, Lauren (Author) / Austin, Lesley (Author)
Created2023-05-01
ContributorsFowler, Carissa (Author) / Boss, Lauren (Author) / Austin, Lesley (Author)
Created2023-05-01
ContributorsFowler, Carissa (Author) / Boss, Lauren (Author) / Austin, Lesley (Author)
Created2023-05-01