Office of Sustainability

Director's Corner SDG11 SDG3 SDG9 Updates

Director’s corner: Green Certified Buildings Are Good For You!

“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Winston Churchill The M. Miller Gorrie Center received LEED certification in 2008. Photo credit: Jen Morse. Modern humans in modern surroundings spend almost all of their time indoors. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), North Americans, on average, spend…

Mike KenslerApril 3, 2023

Director's Corner SDG13 SDG4 Updates

Director’s Corner: Warriors for the Human Spirit

“A Warrior for the Human Spirit is a decent human being who aspires to be of service in an indecent, inhumane time.” Margaret Wheatley, Who Do We Choose to Be? Effective individuals, leaders, teams, organizations, and societies practice a common discipline: the willingness and courage to, in the words of…

Mike KenslerJanuary 31, 2023

Director's Corner SDG13 SDG15

Director’s Corner: What we can learn from “Earthrise”

The Gift of Perspective Created on December 24, 1968 “To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.” Archibald MacLeish,…

Mike KenslerDecember 2, 2022

Director's Corner SDG13 Updates

Director’s Corner: What should college graduates know about sustainability?

“…a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” Albert Einstein First off, there is no consensus on an answer to the question posed in the title of this column. I sure don’t pretend to have a complete answer, but I do…

Mike KenslerNovember 7, 2022

Director's Corner SDG12 Updates

Director’s Corner: Less Bad Isn’t Good Enough

“This is the ultimate failure of the ‘be less bad’ approach: a failure of the imagination.” - McDonough and Braungart, Cradle to Cradle I recently gave a presentation about mental models, which are unexamined and systemically flawed assumptions that blind us and limit us to familiar ways of thinking and…

Mike KenslerOctober 4, 2022

Director's Corner SDG11 SDG3 SDG9 Updates

Director’s Corner: A Bicycle Friendly University

“Young adults want to ride more and drive less, and with defined borders and high-density environments, university campuses are ideal settings to cultivate a culture of biking.” ~The League of American Bicyclists  Bicycle Friendly University Silver Designation The League of American Bicyclists has certified the Auburn University campus as…

Mike KenslerSeptember 6, 2022

Director's Corner SDG3

Sustainability & the Goal of Human Wellbeing

“The foremost concern is the wellbeing of humanity and the planet we inhabit.” ~ The Dalai Lama Sustainability means so many different things to different people. Definitions and descriptions are all over the place. In my humble opinion, some of them are much better than others. That’s why here…

Mike KenslerAugust 12, 2022

Director's Corner

Earth Day and the Overview Effect

“When we look down at the Earth from space we see this amazing, indescribably beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But it also at the same time looks extremely fragile.” Space Shuttle and International Space Station astronaut Ron Garan, Jr. Photo Credit: NASA Perspective. Our…

Mike KenslerApril 18, 2022

Director's Corner SDG15

A Land Ethic, an Ecological Conscience, & Biophilia

“In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.” Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold, a forester and ecologist, published a collection of essays in A Sand County Almanac in 1949. It is recognized…

Mike KenslerApril 4, 2022

Director's Corner SDG11 SDG13 SDG7

Regeneration: Reversing Global Degeneration

“If putting the future of life at the heart of everything we do is not central to our purpose and destiny, why are we here?” Paul Hawken In a 1946 New York Times article, the eminently quotable Albert Einstein said, “a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is…

Mike KenslerMarch 2, 2022

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