Interdependent systems providing water and energy services are necessary for agriculture. Climate change and increased resource demands are expected to cause frequent and severe strains on these systems. Arizona is especially vulnerable to such strains due to its hot and arid climate. However, its climate enables year-round agricultural production, allowing Arizona to supply most of the country's winter lettuce and vegetables. In addition to Phoenix and Tucson, cities including El Paso, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Diego rely on Arizona for several types of agricultural products such as animal feed and livestock, meaning that disruptions to Arizona's agriculture also disrupt food supply chains to at least six major cities.

Arizona's predominately irrigated agriculture relies on water imported through an energy intensive process from water-stressed regions. Most irrigation in Arizona is electricity powered, so failures in energy or water systems can cascade to the food system, creating a food-energy-water (FEW) nexus of vulnerability. We construct a dynamic simulation model of the FEW nexus in Arizona to assess the potential impacts of increasing temperatures and disruptions to energy and water supplies on crop irrigation requirements, on-farm energy use, and yield.

We use this model to identify critical points of intersection between energy, water, and agricultural systems and quantify expected increases in resource use and yield loss. Our model is based on threshold temperatures of crops, USDA and US Geological Survey data, Arizona crop budgets, and region-specific literature. We predict that temperature increase above the baseline could decrease yields by up to 12.2% per 1 °C for major Arizona crops and require increased irrigation of about 2.6% per 1 °C. Response to drought varies widely based on crop and phenophase, so we estimate irrigation interruption effects through scenario analysis. We provide an overview of potential adaptation measures farmers can take, and barriers to implementation.

A typical building construction process runs through three main consecutive phases: design, construction and operation. Currently, architects and engineers both engage in the creation of environmental designs that adequately reflect high performance through sustainability and energy efficiency in new buildings. Occupants of buildings have also recently demonstrated a dramatic increase in awareness regarding building operation, energy usage, and indoor air quality. The process of building construction is chronologically located between both the design and the operation phases. However, this phase has not yet been addressed in either understanding contractor behavior or developing innovative sustainable techniques. These two vital aspects have the potential to levy a dramatic impact on enhancing building performance and operational costs.

Repeatedly causing apprehension to the construction industry is a question that posits, “Why is there a gap/delta/inconsistency between the designed EUI, Energy Use Intensity, and the operational EUI”? Building occupants shall not be the only party that bears blame for the delta in energy. It is true, nonetheless, that occupants are part of the reason, but the contractor – as well as the entire construction phase - also remain prime suspects worth investigating. In the present time, research is predominantly focused on occupants (post-occupancy) and designers to educate and control the gap between designed and operational EUI. This research has succeeded in the identification of the construction phase, in conjunction with contractor behavior, as another main factor for initiating this energy gap. Therefore, not only is the coupling of sustainable strategies to the construction drivers crucial to attaining a sustainable project, but also it is integral to analyzing contractor behavior within each of the construction phases that play a vital role in successfully serving sustainability. Various techniques and approaches will assist contractors in amending their method statements to ensure a sustainable project.

This research correlates an existing project to the two proposed sustainable concepts: 1) Identify cost-saving strategies that may have been implemented or avoided during the construction process, and 2) Evaluate the impacts of implementing these strategies on overall performance. The adopted contexts are to partially foster sustainable architecture concepts to the Contractor process, and then proceed to analyze its cost implication on overall project performance. Results of the validation of this approach verify that when contractors embrace a sustainable construction process the overall project will yield various financial savings. A mixed-use project was utilized to validate these concepts, which indicated three outcomes: firstly, a 25% decrease in manpower for tiling while maintaining the same productivity, thus reflecting a saving of $3,500; next, increasing the productivity of concrete activity, which would shorten the duration of the construction by 45 days and reflect a saving of $1.5 million, and last of all, reducing the overhead costs of labor camps by efficiently orienting temporary shelters, which reveals a reduction in cooling and heating that returned a saving of approximately $10,000. This research develops a comprehensive evidence-based study that addresses the above-mentioned gap in the construction phase, which targets to yield a multi-dimensional tool that will allow: 1) integrating critical thinking and decision-making approaches regarding contractor behavior, and 2) adopting innovative sustainable construction methods that reflect reduction in operating costs.

Meaningful sustainable consumption patterns require informed consumers who understand the actual impact of their actions on a quantitative and tangible basis. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool well suited to achieving this goal, but has only been superficially applied to the analysis of plant-based diets. This analysis looks at a common component of plant-based meat alternatives: a wheat-based protein known as seitan, which is a common substitute for beef. A comparative consequential analysis shows the overall change in environmental impact when 1000 servings of seitan displace 1000 servings of beef. The functional unit for comparison is one serving of seitan or one serving of beef and the system boundaries include production but not distribution, consumption or disposal. Life cycles are created for seitan and beef in the LCA modeling software SimaPro and an analysis is run using the Eco-indicator 99 methodology. The beef life cycle is created using complete existing LCA data, while the seitan life cycle is created using LCA data for constituent materials and processes.

Findings indicate that beef is much more environmentally impactful than seitan, but the largest difference is found in land use change. Significant data quality and uncertainty issues exist due to the data being incomplete or not representative for US processes and the use of proxy processes to estimate industrial processing. This analysis is still useful as a screening tool to show rough differences in impact. It is noted that despite seitan having a lower environmental impact than beef, increasing seitan production will probably have the effect of increasing overall environmental impacts, as beef production is not likely to decrease as a result. Massive changes in consumer purchase patterns are required before reductions in impact can be expected. Recommendations for future work include expanding system boundaries and obtaining industry specific data for seitan production.

While sustainability is increasingly recognized as an important ethical principle, teaching ethical reasoning skills appropriate for sustainability is problematic. Using non-cooperative game theory, we simulate problems of collective action where tension exists between individual interests and group benefit using grade points. Each of our ethics games brings students completely around the Kolb Learning cycle, which includes four stages:
       1. Abstract conceptualization.
       2. Active experimentation.
       3. Concrete experience.
       4. Reflective observation.
Our pedagogy is organized into game modules that start with a review of theory and relevant concepts in the form of assigned readings and lectures.

Global climate models predict increases in precipitation events in the Phoenix-metropolitan area and with the proposition of more flooding new insights are needed for protecting roadways and the services they provide. Students from engineering, sustainability, and planning worked together in ASU’s Urban Infrastructure Anatomy Spring 2016 course to assess:
       1. How historical floods changed roadway designs.
       2. Precipitation forecasts to mid-century.
       3. The vulnerability of roadways to more frequent precipitation.
       4. Adaptation strategies focusing on safe-to-fail thinking.
       5. Strategies for overcoming institutional barriers to enable transitions.
The students designed an EPA Storm Water Management Model for the City of Phoenix and forced it with future precipitation forecasts. Vulnerability indexes were created for infrastructure performance and social outcomes. A multi-criteria decision analysis framework was created to prioritize infrastructure adaptation strategies.