MT 25
Sustainability 2022-2023
Meet the TEAM!
Hi, my name is Mackie McCartney and I am the Mission Team Leader for Mission Team 25 Sustainability! I am a Fashion Business Management major here at ASU on the Downtown Campus. I am originally from Indiana and love spending time with my family and friends! I am passionate about sustainability because it has become a huge problem in my future career industry and something that really needs to improve for the betterment of our health and communities!
not pictured: Dania, Cece, Jacob, Emily, Claire
Hello, my name is Ryan Aridi and I am a freshman on Mission Team 25, Sustainability! I am a Mechanical Engineering major here at ASU at the Tempe campus. I am from Gilbert, Arizona and I enjoy taking hikes with friends and playing soccer. I chose the Sustainability mission team because my focus in engineering is Energy and Environment and I love to see in what ways the environment may be improved and more sustainable forms of energy can be used. I hope to continue learning about our environment and ways in which we can help it flourish.
Hey guys my name is Alejandro! I am a biomedical engineer major here at ASU. I'm originally from Chicago but have lived in Arizona for long time now. I'm super passionate about photography It allows me to test a different aspect of myself outside of all the books and all the reading that I have to do. The reason why I picked sustainability was because I wanted to see if is possible not only to help people medically or in that field but also try to see what ways we can cut back and be a sustainable while still helping these individuals.
Hi, my name is William Reinhart and I am a freshman on Mission Team 25 Sustainability! I am an electrical engineering major here at ASU Tempe campus. I am from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and enjoy playing sports with my friends and hanging out with my family. I am passionate about sustainability because I believe as an electrical engineer, I may be able to make a difference in power consumption and distribution for electric vehicles in the future. I also believe that more I can understand about sustainability now, the better I can apply it to my career and home for years to come.
Hi, my name is Claire Glennon, I am a sophomore at Arizona State University on Mission Team 25! My major is Speech and Hearing Sciences currently. I live off campus, and am from Mesa, Arizona, I have lived here my whole life. In my free time I enjoy drawing, hanging out with my friends, and being outdoors exercising. I also have a passion for first responding and have worked in fire/ems previously. I may go back to doing fire/ems after I finish college. I believe I will be able to make a sustainability contribution to society by modifying my lifestyle choices to be more environmentally friendly such as carpooling, doing online classes instead of commuting, and helping reduce the amount of disposable products and waste I put back into the environment. Though my major does not directly relate to sustainability it is still something that I believe is important, and I am determined to do what I can to make a difference and take care of this planet we all call home.
What is sustainability? "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" - United Nations
Our Mission Find and promote sustainable solutions in our communities through education, advocation, and actionable projects.
Goals 1.
Educate!
2.
Implement!
Community Partners
3.
Advocate!
Learning Carbon Footprint Quiz First semester, our mission team took the Carbon Footprint Quiz. This quiz shows your own personal carbon footprint based on a variety of criteria. It also shows you how you can improve your footprint. For this learning activity we each took the quiz and then discussed one things we hoped to improve on moving forward!
Tiger Mountain Foundation First semester, our mission team collaborated with MT 27 to attend a Tiger Mountain Foundation to learn about sustainable gardening. Here we learned about ways to plant and how to get the most out of your plants and the growing season.
Sustainable Design Workshop The sustainable design workshop was part of "Sustainability Week" within NGSC. During this week we put on multiple sustainability events and partnered with different organizations and groups. For this workshop we partnered with ASU Fashion Collective. We learned about different ways to upcycle clothing to keep our closets sustainable!
Arizona Water Facts Second semester, our mission team did a learning activity through Arizona Water Facts. This is an interactive website that teaches you all about interesting water facts going on in Arizona including sustainable solutions to the water shortage in Arizona!
Networking Collaboration with United Nations One really cool thing we got to do during sustainability week was collaborate with the United Nations! Here we met in the MU and participated in an activity surrounding the 11 sustainable development goals. We were able to make good connections and learn a lot about sustainable action through the government.
ASU Fashion Collective We networked with the ASU Fashion Collective during sustainability week as well. Here we learned about how to upcycle clothing and partcipated in a group discussion about sustainable shopping. We were also able to collaborate with MT 27!
Mission Team 27: Energy & Climate Sustainability
Our mission team was able to collaborate with MT 27 multiple times throughout the year which was super fun! We collaborated a lot during sustainability week and during cleanups at Tiger Mountain Foundation and Keep Tempe Beautiful!
Service Tiger Mountain Foundation Cleanup & Planting Our service activity with Tiger Mountain Foundation was one of our favorite things we did all year! Here we learned a lot about planting and growing a sustainable garden. We also got to serve by picking up trash around the area and then planting some things ourselves!
Keep Tempe Beautiful Park Cleanup Our mission team loved collaborating with Keep Tempe Beautiful. Shown in the picture on the bottom left is a group of us at the park cleanup. Here we pick up trash around different parks in Tempe. We really enjoyed partnering and collaborating with Keep Tempe Beautiful!
Advocacy How sustainable is ASU really? In a variety of ways, Arizona State University (ASU) is moving in the direction of sustainability. While there is still space for improvement, ASU is working to cut down on food waste and educate the public on the best ways to use compost bins. Yet, a lot of food that could be donated or used again ends up being wasted. ASU offers shuttles, light railways, and electric golf carts as sustainable modes of transportation. The institution is making adjustments to older buildings' lighting and temperature to reduce electricity consumption as well as attempting to cut water usage and install solar panels in newer facilities. Generally, ASU is working to be more sustainable by putting various eco-friendly practices in place. Yet there is still a lot more to be done.
A good deal of ASU's transportation is now primarily accomplished through the usage of larger buses. These buses transport individuals to neighboring campuses of ASU. Allowing the student not only to save money but also cut down on the carbon footprint that would be left behind by ASU students attempting to commute from campus.ASU does also take plenty of advantage of the electric light rails that run between Tempe and the City of Phoenix and the City of Tempe's light rail system as well. These allow for students to move freely on and off campus and explore different parts of ASU while being energy efficient and allowing for the carbon footprint of the overall students and ASU as a whole to be greatly reduced as far as transportation is concerned. ASU is a prominent user of the usage of solar power energy you can see on many of the tops of the parking garages. Rather than constructing a concrete shade, they have used the wiring and the overall Sun panels that collect the solar energy as a form of shade for the tops of the garages to keep cars from getting hot not only being spacially aware but energy efficient as well because these are seen on the tops of most ASU affiliated garages here on the Tempe campus. The other way that ASU is Sustainable is through the basic usage of their trash cans, It's a very basic idea but the fact that the trash cans on campus throughout all contain a recycling and a trash section in every area ensures that a good quantity and a good amount of students recycle and At the trash makes it into the trash, therefore, ensuring less littering on the planet and the fact that a lot of things that most people assume that they can recycle with photos in front just in case people aren't sure is a great way to lower the carbon footprint and create a more sustainable campus.
Ranking each category Food
Water
The sustainability when it comes to food is decent, but there is definitely room for improvement. There are very few composting bins, and even with the ones there are, many people do not know how to use them. Whenever I eat at the dining halls as well, I notice a mass amount of food that goes to waste. A lot of the leftover food could be donated and reused in some way. Other than composting, which rarely happens, there are few sustainable things ASU does in the food category.
6
7
I think the transportation that ASU provides is quite sustainable. The shuttles across campuses may spread some CO2, but they carry a lot of students. There is also the light rail that students can take which is more sustainable. Other than that, there are electric golf carts that are driven around campus to take students to class, or dorms quicker and safer.
Transportation
Electricity
8
8
I think the transportation that ASU provides is quite sustainable. The shuttles across campuses may spread some CO2, but they carry a lot of students. There is also the light rail that students can take which is more sustainable. Other than that, there are electric golf carts that are driven around campus to take students to class, or dorms quicker and safer.
ASU is doing a decent job with water as well. They understand that they use a lot of water, and are trying different ways to reduce said water usage. A lot of the ‘wasted’ water is not actually gone to waste, but reused in its own way. The electricity at ASU is used heavily, and that is very hard to change. With that, there are solar panels that are being implemented in some of the newer buildings, and changes are being made to the older ones. Changes such as lighting, temperature, and other building improvements are being enforced every day.
In what ways can ASU improve? ASU can improve Sustainability within campus by educating students, composting, and being energy transparent. ASU can teach approachable sustainability practices, and make it more accessible for everyone through their classes. The university can also compost correctly, and not send the composting away to be composted at a facility. Instead ASU should compost on site, and use the compost in their gardens and landscaping. ASU can also be energy transparent. They currently just say that they are 100 percent run on renewable energy, but they dont openly tell us how. They need to tell us how they are obtaining their renewable energy. For example, only 11 percent of the energy is being produced on campus and locally in Tempe. The rest in importorted. In order to have only renewable energy, but obtainted sustainably, the energy need to be produced locally.
Takeaway After our thorough analysis of ASU’s sustainability, we have come to the conclusion that ASU is very sustainable, deserving of its high rank given by the UN in sustainability goals. Through ASU’s food distribution, transportation options, water conservation, and energy consumption, Arizona State University has alot to boast and be proud, but there is still room for growth. While ASU does push composting, they could use more ways to educate people on how to compost, and fix portion sizes in the dining halls so less food goes to waste. ASU’s transportation is very sustainable, though, because of the many ways of transportation for mass amounts of students, leading to much more ride sharing and therefore less CO2 being produced in our atmosphere. Arizona States water and power consumption are extremely hard to complain about because how amazing Arizona State’s ability to recycle water and the energy-efficient buildings and practices are. The only thing we hope to see ASU do more in the future is be more transparent about their sustainability practices so they can be easier critiqued by professionals and more open to see by public eye, but also boast on how great they are at sustainability so they can set a standard that could be followed by other universities across the country to help our world. The more sustainable we can make the education system, the more likely sustainable practices are to be brought outside of education locations and into more personal areas around the globe.