A commitment to sustainability results in many benefits, including stronger stakeholder relations, better product innovation, greater operating efficiency, lower risks to health and safety, and enhanced reputation and brand identification. Many companies set ambitious sustainability and resilience goals, but the path forward is rarely clear. Partnering with Ohio State can be a game changer.
At the Sustainability Institute, we start by learning about the sustainability and resilience goals of a business and the impediments to progress. We then match a company’s needs with expertise from the hundreds of Ohio State faculty and researchers affiliated with the Sustainability Institute. Because sustainability is a interdisciplinary field, we often engage researchers from more than one discipline to tackle complex challenges.
More and more companies also desire graduates who understand how to apply sustainability and resilience principles across an enterprise, for instance, in design, materials, data analytics, logistics, environmental sciences and finance. The Sustainability Institute helps companies engage students through meaningful research projects or internships that provide insights into a future hire’s technical proficiency, problem-solving skills and ability to work on a team.
Ohio State also excels at using its campus as a living laboratory to develop applied solutions to sustainability challenges. The Sustainability Institute matches companies with campus projects to test innovations. It even maintains a database of sustainability projects that offer students with hands-on learning experiences. As a “city within a city,” the Columbus campus provides countless opportunities to pilot concepts in a controlled learning environment.
View our business partnership fact sheet
CONTACT:
Josh Knights
Director of Partnerships
knights.16@osu.edu
614-688-0707 Office
614-214-6260 Mobile
Case Study: ENGIE
ENGIE North America, which manages energy businesses in the U.S. and Canada, formed a joint venture, Ohio State Energy Partners (OSEP), with Axium Infrastructure in 2017 to improve and modernize Ohio State’s Columbus campus energy system. The university’s $1.165 billion contract with OSEP also creates substantial academic benefits and establishes a $50 million Energy Advancement and Innovation Center. ENGIE works with the university to provide internships, project funding and campus-as-a-lab opportunities for faculty and students, many of which are facilitated by the Sustainability Institute.