Sustainable Cities and Communities

Sustainability facculty members Dr. Susan Clark and Dr. Nicholas Rajkovich will be moderators for two upcoming NYS webinars discussing the social and infrastrucutral impacts of extreme heat.

SUNY Distinguished Professor Andrew Whittaker is part of a cohort led by TerraPraxis, a non-profit focused on action for climate and prosperity, that is developing a digital platform to repower coal plants using advanced nuclear energy. 

Hundreds of unemployed, laid-off and underemployed workers in the region will be able to explore entrepreneurial paths and participate in a robust training initiative offered by UB’s Western New York Incubator Network (WIN) and the School of Management’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL).

A plan to offset carbon emissions by converting brownfields to fields of bamboo. An “ecoscaping” initiative that would encourage even the busiest of people to grow food in their backyard by using ready-to-install garden beds. 

Urban design students have once again shown what UB has to offer to the community. This month, students submitted proposals for transforming vacant spaces on Buffalo’s East Side between Zenner and Kilhoffer Street into areas for urban infrastructure and potential housing.

UB’s GRoW Clean Energy Center is officially open for use as a tour, meeting and event space for small groups.

UB is advancing its climate action efforts by installing 30 new electric vehicle plugs for EV owners on the North and South campuses.

A gym in Boston, Massachusetts, with an inventive vocational path that prepares students to work as personal trainers serves as a telling example for how community-based programs can develop anti-racism practices within organizations that contribute to the cultivation of racial unity, according to a paper published by a UB social work researcher.

UB will work to improve how Black history and race are taught and learned in schools around the world through the new UB Center for K-12 Black History and Racial Literacy Education.

In the years after UB faculty member Noemi Waight moved to Buffalo from Illinois, she got to know her new home by bicycling with community groups. The experience gave her the idea to take graduate pre-service students on cycling explorations to learn more about their community and the science resources that can make classroom lessons more engaging.

Last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported that GenX chemicals were more toxic than the “forever chemicals” they were developed to replace. Now, a new UB-led study examines what happens when GenX — chemicals used in food packaging, nonstick coating and other products — interacts with water.

If you have indigestion, stress, headache or inflammation, you might want to head over to the southwest corner of Cary Hall on the South Campus. There, at a new garden, you can take in the aroma of herbs believed to help with those ailments (respectively, lemon verbena, lavender, mint and tarragon).

Kanazawa Island, a tiny island tucked away in the north bay of Lake LaSalle near the Ellicott Complex, is getting new amenities — including new sidewalks and tree plantings — that will make this secluded islet even more attractive as a peaceful campus escape.

Scientists from the Tonawanda Coke Soil Study hosted a community meeting on Feb. 24 to share the final results of the research with the public.

They’re your neighbors. They’re mostly friendly, but sometimes not, if you agitate them. They’re an integral part of what makes your community unique. And perhaps they’ve even lived there longer than you have. Yet, they’re often ignored simply because they’re not human.

Installed in 2020, UB’s new Print Anywhere kiosks aren’t just more convenient and touch-free—they're helping support UB’s commitment to sustainability.

The author of "After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration,” discusses the milestones in the accelerating pace of global heating.

For decades, companies eager to boost wind energy production have relied upon a simple strategy: make the turbine blades bigger.

From Sept. 20-26, UB students, faculty and staff are encouraged to participate by utilizing green transit options to get to and around the university’s three campuses. People who take part can share details of their commute using the hashtags #UBuffalo and #GTG21 on social media.

UB Sustainability is seeking donations and volunteers for Hired — a clothes closet program that will enable students to “shop” for professional attire at no cost for interviews, career fairs, or any professional experience.

Join the seventh annual Step Challenge to help relieve stress. In fact, science agrees with that suggestion: Studies during and well before the pandemic — including those from UB’s WHI — show that physical activity is “conducive to enhancing happiness and improving mental health.”

Thanks to the entrepreneurial success of the late Carl V. Granger, founder of Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation (UDSmr), a venture he created in partnership with UB and the UB Foundation, the university has received a $10 million gift to its Boldly Buffalo campaign.

In 2020, powerful online movements emerged to celebrate and elevate the voices of Black scientists. Called the #BlackInX movements, these efforts arose during months of protests against police killings and police brutality.

This Black Lives Matter Poster Project exhibit in Silverman Library aims to expand understanding of what it means to be Black in America. Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki.

Diversity has always been an issue in STEM. Although a 2018 Pew report found that women make up half of the U.S. workforce in STEM occupations, it also found that their presence varies widely across occupational clusters and education levels.

More and more organizations are adopting a new approach: that of servant leadership, in which leaders prioritize multiple stakeholders and improve society, while prospering financially.

Anticipated to begin operation in early 2022, UB's second mobile dental clinic is expected to expand the dental school’s outreach by more than 1,000 patients annually.

Jeffrey and Irene Jacobson have endowed the Irene and Jeffrey Jacobson Fellowship for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the School of Management. The two-year fellowship will fund a first- and second-year MBA student every year.

Picture this: World leaders have just unleashed utter chaos, launching nuclear missiles in a global war. The world as we know it is now a nuclear wasteland.

In December, we asked the readers of our newsletter Climate Fwd: and our Twitter followers what they were planning on doing differently in 2021. We got some amazing responses. If you’re thinking of making a “green” New Year’s resolution, here are a few ideas, collected from those replies.

Rayshard Brooks. George Floyd. Daniel Prude. Breonna Taylor. These are the now-familiar names of just a few of the many Black people killed by police in 2020.

Carbon offsets are a key component of UB's 10 in 10, the university's climate action plan.

New York residents and businesses generate up to 20 million waste tires each year. Tire dumps are breeding grounds for mosquitos and pollute the air and water when they burn.

UB researchers were the driving force behind the publication last week of a major report that details strategies local governments in low- and middle-income countries can use to create more innovative and equitable community food systems.

Recently, researchers have been exploring how to turbo charge a passive cooling technique — known as radiative or sky cooling — with sun-blocking nanomaterials that emit heat away from building rooftops. While progress has been made, this eco-friendly technology isn’t commonplace because researchers have struggled to maximize its cooling capabilities.

In a burst of climate orders, the president also ordered federal agencies to begin the process of reinstating environmental regulations reversed under the Trump administration.

The array of directives — touching on international relations, drilling policy, employment and national security, among other things — elevate climate change across every level of the federal government.

At the Biden/Harris inauguration on Wednesday, poet Amanda Gorman, dressed in the yellow of the Sun, realigned the planets with her recitation of a poem called The Hill We Climb.

Without minimum requirements, costly and land-consuming off-street parking becomes an option instead of a mandate, paid for by those who use it. Rethinking car-centric urban planning allows for more green space, transit-oriented development and active living.

“How can we save the climate?” “What about ending fossil fuels?” “But what about lowering emissions?” “How does that affect biodiversity?” These are dire questions the world is facing, but you’d be surprised by who is asking them and feeling the urgency to act. 

First-year UB students were given the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica and expand their knowledge of sustainability and environmental awareness through the Study Abroad Office's new First-Year Global Experience program.

On a hot July afternoon, with silver clouds hanging in the sky and mud underfoot, a group of high school science teachers perched at the edge of Bizer Creek on the UB North Campus. Check out the new education program with the EarthEd Initiative. 

Larry Asp grew up playing shinny outside in this tiny rural town he calls home again after 40 years away. Since returning, he also holds the keys to the outdoor “Rink of Dreams” that gives the 90 local residents the chance to skate outside during the keen Canadian winters.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The University at Buffalo has been named to The Princeton Review’s 2022 Green College Honor Roll for earning the highest possible score in the publication’s Green Rating.

Students in Nicholas Rajkovich’s Sustainability 601 course gave their presentations, shared their final reports and received their final grades for the spring semester seminar. Now, the real fun begins as the students’ work will be folded into UB’s climate action planning efforts.

About 20 students joined David Hoekstra, clinical assistant professor and UB Bees director, for a honey-jarring event on Sept. 30 in the Student Union. The honey comes from UB’s own backyard, from hives located between Crofts Hall and Bizer Creek on the North Campus. 

UB's sustainable initatives have earned the institution accreditation and a Gold rating by AASHE, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, further elevating its reputation as a place for innovative green social engineering!

Jacobs School of Medicine is hosting its fist ever community engagement fair on Thursday, March 23rd. This event is open to the public and will welcome over 20 local organizations focusing on increasing community awareness of the public benefit services offered to the greater Buffalo-Niagara region.