Braden Allenby
President's Professor and Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics, School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University
BIO
Dr. Allenby's principal areas of teaching and research are design for environment; earth systems engineering and management; industrial ecology; technological evolution; and the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information and communication technology, and cognitive sciences. Dr. Allenby entered academia after a 20-year career as senior environmental counsel, research vice president for technology and environment, and environment, health and safety vice president for AT&T. He teaches courses in engineering and ethics, earth systems engineering and management, industrial ecology, and design for sustainability. His current research investigates ethical and social dimensions of emerging technologies; earth systems engineering and management, especially in regard to information and communication technologies; transhumanism; and development of sustainable engineering theory and curricular materials.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Over thirty years ago, industrial ecology and later sustainable engineering were developed as new paradigms that over time shifted environmental and then social issues from overhead problems to core strategic considerations for firms and society. Today, much of these domains have become what Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions called “normal science,” that is, the routine work of scientists and engineers theorizing, observing, and experimenting within a settled paradigm or explanatory framework. Over the intervening decades, however, accelerating change across the entire technological frontier and the segue into the Anthropocene have exploded many older paradigms, including those deeply embedded in the practice of sustainability in all its dimensions. This talk will celebrate a successful past, while arguing that a more activist and expansionist reconceptualization of sustainable science and technology is necessary, one that creates new paths and frameworks capable of supporting rational and ethical responses to an unpredictable, deeply challenging future where paradigm shifts are not periodic, but rather continuous.
Lisa Schulte Moore
Professor, Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Iowa State University
Principal Investigator, Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Management Lab
Co-Director, Bioeconomy Institute
Director, C-CHANGE
BIO
Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore is a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and co-director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State University. Her research seeks to improve relationships between people and nature to meet societal goals for healthy soil and food, clean energy and water, abundant wildlife, and inspiring recreational opportunities. She develops the capacity of diverse groups of people to work more effectively together. She is a fellow of the Leopold Leadership Program, Ecological Society of America, and the MacArthur Foundation.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
The world currently faces a suite of urgent challenges connected to food and energy, including persistent poverty, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Building smarter connections between natural, agricultural, and energy systems is crucial to alleviating these challenges. Dr. Schulte Moore will present key processes and pathways to focus conversations, enhance collaboration, and facilitate action toward rapidly building and deploying better systems.
Shelie Miller
Professor, Jonathan W. Bulkley Collegiate Professor of Sustainable Systems; U-M Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan
BIO
Dr. Miller is the Jonathan W. Bulkley Collegiate Professor in Sustainable Systems at the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. Miller’s research uses life cycle assessment (LCA) and scenario modeling tools to identify potential unintended environmental consequences of emerging technologies and find design or policy interventions that may lead to sustainable outcomes. She is particularly interested in understanding how consumer behavior patterns can influence the environmental outcomes of products.
Dr. Miller has been awarded a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE) by President Obama and served as a Jefferson Science Fellow focusing on science policy issues through the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her research and commentary have been featured by various media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, CNN, TIME, the BBC, Forbes, Consumer Reports, and The Guardian.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Media stories that feature life cycle thinking are becoming increasingly frequent as more consumers and policy makers are trying to determine how to make decisions and choices that are better for the environment. As an LCA community, we are being given an opportunity to help influence how the public understands the true environmental impact of our products; however, the complexities and nuances of a well-conducted LCA rarely align with the catchy headlines and sound bite narratives that are prevalent in today’s media landscape. This presentation seeks to spark conversations about what we can do as a community to develop best practices to broadly communicate LCA insights.
LCA often focuses on the relative environmental impacts of two or more alternatives. This comparative perspective is useful to help inform design decisions about a specific product; however, when evaluating only relative impacts, it may be easy to overlook the bigger picture and what those differences might mean at the scale of an overall industry. LCA information that indicates that a preferred alternative can be potentially misleading or misinterpreted by policy-makers or the general public, since an alternative that is “better” does not actually mean that it is “good”, nor does it mean that it would actually make a difference if broadly implemented at scale.
Although emphasis on technologies and behavior changes that can actually make a difference has increased, some of the most popular media stories are about personal consumption choices that represent relatively minor contributors to an individual’s overall environmental footprint: shopping bags, coffee pods, cleaning products, etc. This talk will propose that we need to do a better job communicating the aggregated impacts of a decision, in addition to the traditional LCA comparisons created on a functional unit basis. This involves understanding and communicating the overall size of a product’s market and the aggregate scale of environmental impact that could be achieved with broad scale adoption. A variety of examples will be used as the basis of discussion to highlight the importance representing aggregate impact alongside traditional LCA comparisons on a functional unit basis, including e-commerce, single-use plastics, and the food system.
Nathan Ayer
Director of Analytical Services at EarthShift Global
Dr. Nathan Ayer brings an interdisciplinary approach to his work, along with a strong background as a professional consultant, academic researcher, and instructor. He is an ACLCA-accredited Life Cycle Assessment Certified Professional, and has been working as a senior LCA analyst for Canadian and U.S. clients since 2009. He leads EarthShift Global’s consulting services by conducting LCAs, chairing ISO critical reviews, developing and delivering LCA training courses, and contributing to software development. Dr. Ayer also has experience with other environmental management tools such as Environmental Impact Assessment and has previously worked for government environment departments in Canada. He graduated from Dalhousie University’s Interdisciplinary Ph.D. program. His research includes the use and refinement of LCA to assess emerging wood-based bioenergy systems as substitutes for conventional fossil fuels, and a critical analysis of the potential for these types of alternative technologies to contribute to global sustainability. In a related role, Dr. Ayer has also worked as a sessional instructor for a range of undergraduate and graduate university courses in sustainability, industrial ecology, and LCA. Dr. Ayer is recognized for his excellent teaching and communication skills and is frequently invited to deliver guest lectures and has presented his work at several industry conferences.
Mike Badzmierowski
Soil Health Specialist, Oregon Department of Agriculture
Dr. Badzmierowski completed his undergraduate studies in Environmental Science and Management with a minor in Plant Science at the University of Rhode Island Honors Program and a Ph.D. in the Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He has spent years researching the stabilization/destabilization of carbon and the role of nitrogen and iron in this process. His work has been recognized and awarded by prestigious institutions like the USDA NIFA AFRI Predoctoral Fellowship Program. Dr. Badzmierowski is nearing completion of his postdoctoral research investigating biosolids land application's effect on soil organic carbon stocks using systematic review methodology. In his current role as the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Soil Health Specialist, Dr. Badzmierowski continues to use his expertise in soil carbon and greenhouse gas emissions being a technical lead for the Natural and Working Lands project ongoing in the state of Oregon.
William Salas
Chief Strategy Officer at Regrow Ag
Dr. William (Bill) Salas has 30+ years of experience in environmental science and business leadership at NASA JPL, the University of New Hampshire and AGS. He is Chief Strategy Officer at Regrow, an organization uses scientifically vetted crop and soil models, farm management platforms, and satellite imagery to support equitable ecosystem markets and programs to build the business case for sustainable agriculture. He is highly regarded throughout the industry for his expertise in remote sensing and biogeochemical modeling. Prior to forming AGS in 2000, Dr. Salas worked for 5 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and for 10 years at Complex Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Dr. Salas received his B.S. in Mathematics and Physics at University of Vermont and M.S. and Ph.D. in Natural Resources at UNH. His expertise and interests include the use of remote sensing tools to model land use and land cover change, soil biogeochemical modeling, and GIS tools for environmental applications. Dr. Salas is an active member of many panels, including the Scientific Advisory Panel for the ALOS Kyoto and Carbon initiative under the auspices of the Japanese Space Agency NASDA. He has also served on the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) High Resolution Design Team and co-authored the final design document on the role of high-resolution optical and radar systems for operational monitoring of global forests.