Director INSIGHTS: A Message from Kate Bartter

Director INSIGHTS: A Message from Kate Bartter

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January 20, 2021

Happy 2021?

I find myself using a question mark instead of an exclamation point with each Happy New Year salutation. While saying goodbye to 2020 felt like an important milestone, we know most of the challenges unique to 2020 remain. Except now, we have added hope. Hope that a vaccine will lead us closer to normalcy sometime in 2021. Hope that we will take the silver linings of lessons learned through 2020 into this new year. The Sustainability Institute is approaching 2021 with a renewed commitment to deliver quality service and programs to the Ohio State community that will enhance sustainability and resilience. We are convinced that part of our recovery from the burdens of 2020 will be a more sustainable approach to life.

We have big plans for this second semester. We will continue our focus on supporting faculty research and creative works, providing new opportunities for students to pursue their interests, helping our campus be a more sustainable place to live and work, and engaging with the broader community and other partners.

We are inspired by the creative sustainability ideas generated by faculty in our call for seed grants and look forward to making new awards early this semester. Next month we will kick off a seminar series to further engage the campus community in our priority research areas of sustainable energy, smart and resilient communities and healthy air, land and water. And we will launch a new program designed to help faculty with novel, but perhaps not yet fully formed, interdisciplinary ideas around sustainability and resilience.

We just kicked off our 2021 Student Sustainability Grant Program. Please encourage your students to apply for funding for research or projects that will help them more fully explore their interests in sustainability. And speaking of lessons learned from 2020, we are leaning more into diversity equity and inclusion by placing a special emphasis for these grants on projects that focus on the equity aspects of sustainability. In addition, there is still time for creative students to receive regional recognition and cash prizes by using art to tell their climate stories in this Midwest Climate Summit competition.

Another silver lining of 2020 is the progress made in reaching our university sustainability goals that focus on campus operations. Our carbon emissions are down because of decreased energy use in our buildings, commuting and air travel. We also saw a major reduction in water use on campus in 2020. Appreciation for nature has grown. As we slowly return to normal, we need to fully explore how some of the lessons learned can lead to more permanent improvements in the sustainability of our operations.

I am hopeful that 2021 will be a year of increased well-being both for Earth’s resources that sustain us and for all people. Let us resolve to do our part.

Author:
Kate Bartter