Sustainability@MIT – MIT’s student group for sustainability – held their 2nd annual MIT Sustainability Summit on 23 April at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center. There were over 200 students and sustainability professionals in attendance. The event was entirely student run and organized and supported through sponsorship contributions from The Alliance for Global Sustainability.

2010 Sustainability Summit

Keynotes were given by Peter Senge – a senior lecturer at MIT and founder of the Society for Organizational Learning; Kook-Hyun Moon -President of the New Paradigm Institute and former CEO of Yuhan-Kimberly; and Anne Kelly – Director of Governance Programs at Ceres. Then attendees selected from 15 different interactive panels and exercises structured around the Summit’s theme of Collaboration and Communication. These included an introduction to systems thinking, a mock climate change negotiation, and a panel discussion on ESG investing. This year’s Summit left organizers and attendees energized for the 2011 MIT Sustainability Summit. We hope to see you there!

Pictures and proceedings can be found at: http://sustainabilitysummit.mit.edu

The Sloan School of Management at MIT offers a course that specifically addresses how organizations of all kinds – including traditional manufacturing firms, those that extract resources, a huge variety of new start-ups, non-profits, and governmental organizations of all types – are tackling the massive challenges of sustainability. The course includes the S-Lab, where teams of students focus on “live” projects with an organization that has requested help in thinking through a challenge or opportunity related to sustainability. The goal of S-Lab is to provide students with an opportunity to apply the concepts, theories and tools through working with host organizations on their actual sustainability projects. Each team professionally and effectively delivers analysis, advice and recommendations that are immediately useful to the host organization and advance the field of sustainability as a whole. The teams make a formal presentation to the host organization at the end of the project and provide them with a final report, including supporting written analysis and data as appropriate, and present a project poster for the MIT and wider community.

Students at S-La

The host organizations often incorporate the S-Lab team results into their policies and procedures, reflecting the real-time value of the topic for their organization. Host organizations have also followed up on the S-Lab results through additional collaboration with MIT faculty and staff, including subsequent course-based projects, internships, and research programs.

MIT S-Lab website

A group of MIT faculty members from across the institute met to discuss the multi-disciplinary research projects on regional sustainability being developed at MIT. The objective was twofold:

1. To develop a broader understanding of the regional sustainability projects at MIT
2. To see if there is a synergy among the different projects that can be further explored or harnessed for the development of new initiatives

Contact person: Mr. Steven Connors

The AGS Energy Flagship team at MIT released a synthesis report of research on future vehicles and fuels. “On the road in 2035: reducing transportation’s petroleum consumption and GHG emissions” first assesses the performance, cost, and life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of individual new vehicle and fuel technologies. The authors then evaluate the total impact of on-the-road fleets, and compare the potential of these technologies.

The report concludes that a 30-50% reduction in fuel consumption is feasible over the next 30 years through a combination of improved gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions, gasoline hybrids, and reductions in vehicle weight and drag – with costs in the range of US$1 500-4 500 per vehicle. Over the long term, plug-in hybrids and later still, hydrogen fuel cells may enter the fleet in numbers sufficient to have a significant impact on fuel use and emissions. In contrast, alternative fuels that could replace petroleum fuels in the near-term (such as current biofuels) are unlikely to change GHG emissions significantly.

Progress must therefore come from a comprehensive, coordinated effort to develop and market more efficient vehicles and benign fuels, and to find more sustainable ways to satisfy transportation demands.

Abstract and link to download the report