STORIES

FREE Green Office Certification Workshop!

ATTENTION ALL OSU EMPLOYEES: The OSU Sustainability Office is hosting a FREE workshop offering hands-on help to employees who want to start their Certification survey. Join us at noon on September 5th, lunch provided! There is no better time or place to get started! Multiple staff will be available for one-on-one assistance, so completing the […]

OSU Ranked #15 on Sierra Cool Schools!

OSU Ranked #15 on Sierra Cool Schools! Yesterday the Sierra Club released the 2018 Sierra Cool Schools ranking, which is their list of the most sustainable universities and colleges in the United States and Canada. OSU ranked number 15, a considerable improvement from our number 20 ranking last year and something to be incredibly proud […]

Affordable Clean Energy Rule

The Environmental Protection Agency has issued a proposal called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule in order to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan and fulfill the Trump administration’s goals concerning climate policy and the coal industry. The Clean Power Plan was a moderate attempt at slowing anthropogenic climate change, that climate scientists, policy makers, […]

Communities, Food, Resilience

Communities, Food, Resilience is a seminar hosted by OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences, the OSU Extension Service, and OSU150 to converse about and reflect on local food systems, community food resilience, and the role of land grant universities. The event will consist of keynote presentations, followed by examples and discussion of systems-level work on community […]

OSU Faculty Members are Lead Authors of new IPCC (Climate Change) Report

What is the IPCC? The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), created by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1988, is the “international body for assessing the science related to climate change.” Its purpose is to provide policymakers with assessments of the scientific literature on climate change, the impacts […]

US-Mexico Border Wall Threatens Biodiversity and Contributes to Extinction

What is Biodiversity? Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth. A single species is insignificant in the sense that it is one of billions, but it is actually of supreme importance, due to the interdependence of all life. We call this interdependence of life and its physical environment an ecosystem. An ecosystem can range […]

Ecological Engineering in Action!

A simplified diagram of one specific ecosystem. Since Oregon State University is often associated with both natural resource management and engineering, it should be no surprise that we have a very active Ecological Engineering program. To understand what ecological engineering is, it helps to be acquainted with the concept of an ecosystem, and the study […]

Voices of a Warming Planet: Brandon Trelstad, OSU Sustainability Officer

The Oral History Program at the OSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives Research Center presents Voices of a Warming Planet, an oral history series about climate change. Voices of a Warming Planet is a website containing contextualized interviews with twelve OSU faculty members, staff, and students, including the Sustainability Office’s own Sustainability Officer, Brandon Trelstad! […]

The Washington & Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference (WOHESC)

The second annual Washington & Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference is February 25th through February 27th at the University of Washington! Last year was the first year that the Oregon Higher Education Sustainability Conference and the Washington Higher Education Sustainability Conference merged, forming WOHESC. The first WOHESC (2018) was a huge success, with over 600 […]

Clean and Sustainable Water Technology Initiative Workshop

Water is a prerequisite for life, but currently over 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Water crises affect 2.8 billion people around the world at least one month out of each year. Scarcity is usually caused by climate change, increased pollution, and increased human demand for fresh water. Water scarcity is a […]