Student Resources

• Companies want to continue operating and staying successful, and this long-term goal requires sustainable practices. If a company made a gadget that they could only make with a certain metal of which they only had 10 pieces, that wouldn’t be sustainable! They would run out of materials after making 10 gadgets and would go out of business.
• On another front, if a company required all their employees to work 24/7, the employees would eventually quit or be unproductive because of their exhaustion, and the company would lose all their talent. This, too, is unsustainable.

Yes. The longer we wait, the harder it will be because there will be more negative impacts to reverse. The change necessary will be bigger, more radical, and disruptive.

Yes! What you are referring to is often called Environmental Justice.  Underserved communities often live near industry and hazardous waste sites, or suffer from a lack of tree canopy, access to fresh food, and safe open spaces. Because of historical biases in our society, these neighborhoods have often struggled to obtain resources that could help mitigate negative impacts. While there are signs that this pattern of disinvestment is starting to change, there is still much to do. Interventions could involve:

• better regulating an industrial site’s emissions;
• making more natural space safely accessible;
• mobilizing a professional hazardous waste site clean-up;
• providing these communities with access to premium medical services to address any health issues that may have developed in those exposed to high levels of particles and/or toxins for an extended period of time.

When a company is large, it can have a lot of influence on smaller companies that want to do business with it. If a large company decides to commit to a sustainable initiative, it can pressure the companies that are part of its supply chain to also be sustainable with regard to products, packaging and logistics.

• As we become aware of the world’s problems and their potential solutions through our learning experiences, we may start to demand change from governments, private entities, institutions, our peers or families, etc. If organized appropriately, these demands can lead to a transition towards more sustainable practices and systems.
• As the sustainability movement grows, it will create more jobs that require expertise and problem-solving skills in various fields. This knowledge and these skills can be acquired through educational experiences, like museums or colleges. If a college refused to offer sustainability-related courses or majors, it would be excluding its students from becoming future employees and leaders in the growing sustainability field. As sustainability has become a greater imperative, colleges and universities have developed courses, institutes and new schools to empower students with this new knowledge.