Sustainability Institute seeks public comment on University goal setting process

Via State Penn News

Penn State’s upper administration and the community have looked to the University’s Sustainability Institute as a convener of conversations and engagement processes around various sustainability issues, such as the concept of zero-carbon communities and a stakeholder assessment of the recent natural gas pipeline controversy. To that end, the institute commissioned and is now publicly releasing the results of a recent project that proposes a new community and stakeholder engagement process for setting University-wide goals for sustainability, starting with energy. In order to explore how the process might best be adapted and refined, the institute is seeking public comment on the report until Feb. 18; details on how to access the report and where to submit comments, can be found below.

Penn State’s Sustainability Institute was created to lead Penn State toward the University’s sustainability mission: a comprehensive integration of sustainability (the simultaneous pursuit of human health and happiness, environmental quality, and economic well-being for current and future generations) into the University’s research, teaching, outreach and operations that prepares students, faculty and staff to be sustainability leaders. Over its inaugural two years, the Sustainability Institute has explored new models of stakeholder engagement that affirms the Penn State community’s desire for a new way of doing things and brings us together in pursuit of the large challenges of sustainability.

In July, the Sustainability Institute successfully competed for the opportunity to work with the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP), a renowned organization that stands as the nation’s first legal clinic focusing on dispute systems design and conflict management. Under the supervision of Harvard Law School clinical faculty, HNMCP student teams work on intensive projects for clients, like the Sustainability Institute, operating in a number of fields and industries.

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