Phoenix is the sixth most populated city in the United States and the 12th largest metropolitan area by population, with about 4.4 million people. As the region continues to grow, the demand for housing and jobs within the metropolitan area is projected to rise under uncertain climate conditions.

Undergraduate and graduate students from Engineering, Sustainability, and Urban Planning in ASU’s Urban Infrastructure Anatomy and Sustainable Development course evaluated the water, energy, and infrastructure changes that result from smart growth in Phoenix, Arizona. The Maricopa Association of Government's Sustainable Transportation and Land Use Integration Study identified a market for 485,000 residential dwelling units in the urban core. Household water and energy use changes, changes in infrastructure needs, and financial and economic savings are assessed along with associated energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

The course project has produced data on sustainable development in Phoenix and the findings will be made available through ASU’s Urban Sustainability Lab.

This LCA used data from a previous LCA done by Chester and Horvath (2012) on the proposed California High Speed Rail, and furthered the LCA to look into potential changes that can be made to the proposed CAHSR to be more resilient to climate change. This LCA focused on the energy, cost, and GHG emissions associated with raising the track, adding fly ash to the concrete mixture in place of a percentage of cement, and running the HSR on solar electricity rather than the current electricity mix. Data was collected from a variety of sources including other LCAs, research studies, feasibility studies, and project information from companies, agencies, and researchers in order to determine what the cost, energy requirements, and associated GHG emissions would be for each of these changes. This data was then used to calculate results of cost, energy, and GHG emissions for the three different changes. The results show that the greatest source of cost is the raised track (Design/Construction Phase), and the greatest source of GHG emissions is the concrete (also Design/Construction Phase).

Businesses, as with other sectors in society, are not yet taking sufficient action towards achieving sustainability. The United Nations recently agreed upon a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which if properly harnessed, provide a framework (so far lacking) for businesses to meaningfully drive transformations to sustainability. This paper proposes to operationalize the SDGs for businesses through a progressive framework for action with three discrete levels: communication, tactical, and strategic. Within the tactical and strategic levels, several innovative approaches are discussed and illustrated. The challenges of design and measurement as well as opportunities for accountability and the social side of Sustainability, together call for transdisciplinary, collective action. This paper demonstrates feasible pathways and approaches for businesses to take corporate social responsibility to the next level and utilize the SDG framework informed by sustainability science to support transformations towards the achievement of sustainability.

This report is the consolidated work of an interdisciplinary course project in CEE494/598, CON598, and SOS598, Urban Infrastructure Anatomy and Sustainable Development. In Fall 2012, the course at Arizona State University used sustainability research frameworks and life-cycle assessment methods to evaluate the comprehensive benefits and costs when transit-oriented development is infilled along the proposed light rail transit line expansion. In each case, and in every variation of possible future scenarios, there were distinct life-cycle benefits from both developing in more dense urban structures and reducing automobile travel in the process.

Results from the report are superseded by our publication in Environmental Science and Technology.

The Hawaiian Islands are highly reliant on imported foods for feeding residents and visitors alike. This is in part due to a shortage in food processing infrastructure locally that contributes to Hawaiʻi’s inability to process much of its own food products. This study examines the feasibility of increasing food self-sufficiency in the islands through utilizing legacy industrial fruit processing equipment recently acquired by Olohana Foundation, a small 501(c)3 non-profit in Hawaiʻi. This study asks: How can the Olohana Foundation develop their aseptic juicing line to best support increased food self-sufficiency in the islands? Additionally, how can the juicing line be re-deployed in a manner to provide sustainable economic opportunity to producers and other community members? Through interviews with Hawaiʻi food system experts, fruit grower and fruit product buyer surveys, and a review of selected Unites States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Survey (USDA NASS) crop data for Hawaiʻi, our team evaluated the feasibility for re-establishing the juicing line. Our results found that due to the lack of available locally-produced fruits and high start-up and operational costs, it is unlikely that the juicing line can be re-established as it was previously operating, producing papaya and guava juices and purees. However, there is no shortage in demand for locally grown fruit products in Hawaiʻi and there is high interest from producers in joining a grower-owned cooperative. We conclude with several recommendations for the near, medium and long-term. In the near to medium-term, we recommend that the Foundation pursue alternative configurations of the equipment to produce niche Hawaiʻi products for which there is adequate supply, including fermented fruit products. In the long-term, the Foundation should research the potential for sourcing produce from other Pacific-region islands, as well as work at the policy and community levels to increase production of fruits locally, lower costs of production, and lower barriers to organic certification.