Working for a Sustainable Future

We find ourselves at a critical time in earth's history. The health of our oceans, forests, and freshwater resources has declined precipitously. Human activities threaten the atmosphere and climate. And nearly a billion people go to sleep hungry many nights.

Providing food, energy, water, and other essentials for this and future generations is a huge challenge in itself. But doing so also exacts an enormous cost on the life-support systems of the planet.

Environmental researchers and scholars at Stanford are asking the key question: Can we adequately meet human needs while keeping the world habitable? Stanford believes the answer is yes, and we have put forth a vision for a sustainable world in which:

• Everyone has access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Communities use inexpensive systems to filter water and treat waste, and millions of children no longer die of waterborne diseases. Agriculture and industry use water efficiently, with new technologies and management approaches that conserve water and protect its purity. Our lakes and rivers provide a healthy environment for plants and animals.
• Agriculture provides sufficient food to feed the world's entire population without harming the planet. Societies use land effectively for agriculture, shelter, and recreation, while preserving biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. Landowners find it profitable to adopt conservation measures, and economic benefits that result from healthy ecosystems, such as the flood control wetlands provide, encourage people to protect them.
• Energy is readily available and consumed cleanly, wisely, and efficiently. Society invests in renewable energy technologies to supplement, and eventually replace, some traditional fossil-fuel resources. Global warming slows as greenhouse emissions fall. Local air quality and human health improve as fossil-fuel consumption drops.
• Oceans and estuaries are healthy. They teem with food and contribute to a stable atmosphere. Ocean temperatures stabilize, and coral reefs thrive. Innovative management of fisheries allows fish populations to recover, providing important protein sources to humans and ocean animals. Sea life flourishes along our coasts, and beach closures and algae blooms are rare.
• Cities and other built environments support the well-being of people and the planet. Design and construction are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable. People enjoy better health from walkable neighborhoods, clean air, and nontoxic materials and products. At the end of their useful life, building materials biodegrade quickly, generating energy or forming the building blocks for new materials. Policies encourage and reward energy efficiency and conservation, green technologies, and renewable sources of energy.

Building such a world will be an enormous challenge. It will take ingenuity, passion, and determination. It will take unprecedented collaboration among experts in many fields. And it will take a concerted effort to communicate research findings to those who make business and policy decisions that affect the environment.

We at Stanford are tackling this challenge; further, we believe that, as a member of the global community, the university has a responsibility to do so. That is why we have embarked on the Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability, a campus-wide effort to mobilize the university's far-ranging expertise to solve the most pressing environmental problems of our age.

The initiative's central goal is to promote environmental sustainability—to help societies learn to meet their resource demands without undermining the ability of our planet to provide for the generations yet to come. We are focusing our efforts in five areas where our established strengths give us the greatest potential for success: freshwater, land use and conservation, climate and energy, oceans and estuaries, and sustainable built environment. The initiative draws on the expertise of all seven schools—business, earth sciences, education, engineering, humanities and sciences, law, and medicine—as well as other centers and institutes.

The Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Institute for the Environment coordinates the initiative, spearheading new research collaborations, making new interdisciplinary faculty appointments, and hosting problem-solving workshops. It is training scientists nationwide to be effective public leaders and planning courses that will offer all Stanford students a fundamental understanding of their environment. The institute also is building ties to organizations that will implement the solutions Stanford helps discover.

Through The Stanford Challenge, we can make a difference in the earth's future. We seek to work with individual benefactors, foundations, and corporations who share our sense of purpose. Through ambitious, boundary-crossing research, teaching, and outreach, together we can do much to create a better world for our children and grandchildren.

	Jeffrey Koseff The Perry L. McCarty Director of the Woods Institute for the Environment The William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering The Michael Forman University Fellow   in Undergraduate Education
	Pamela Matson The Chester Naramore Dean   of the School of Earth Sciences The Richard and Rhoda Goldman   Professor of Environmental Studies
	Barton H. "Buzz" Thompson, Jr. The Perry L. McCarty Director of the Woods Institute for the Environment The Robert E. Paradise Professor of   Natural Resources Law

Discover more about the environmental initiative in action on the Stanford StoryBank.

Stanford on iTunes U offers a wide range of Stanford Challenge–related digital audio, including programs about The Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability. Requires iTunes. More >>