The Pitt Sustainability Institute’s four key drivers and recommendations are:
| Recommendation One | Recommendation Two | Recommendation Three | Recommendation Four |
|---|---|---|---|
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| Break down silos, share capacity, elevate existing nodes of activity, and provide places for collaboration and innovation. | Expand impact in priority research areas and their intersections; environmental and climate justice are a thread woven throughout. | Create a front door for sustainability at Pitt, welcoming external partners, establishing service opportunities, and advancing global impact. | Expand education and interfacing opportunities for faculty and students, including using campus as a living laboratory. |
Vision
The Pitt Sustainability Institute's vision is to co-create research, education, and engagement opportunities by shattering silos and fostering critical connections to solve the complex sustainability challenges facing our planet while co-creating more just, equitable, and sustainable communities at the University, within the region, and around the world.
Mission
The Pitt Sustainability Institute is the collaborative, interdisciplinary hub of sustainability at the University of Pittsburgh, focused on making positive impacts that address our grand sustainability challenges. The Institute connects, strengthens, and complements existing, emerging, and exploratory sustainability nodes at Pitt.
Our recommendation is for the university to create and fund the Pitt Sustainability Institute through leadership’s visible prioritization, organizational infrastructure, and financial investment. This will occur in two parts:
Build Research Capacity within four core areas with environmental and climate justice at its core:
- Regenerative Solutions Respecting Planetary Boundaries: Water Equity, Circular Economy and Sustainable Materials, Complex Sustainable Systems, and Just Energy Transition
- Thriving Futures in the Face of Regional Change: Climate and Health, Sustainable Healthcare, Urban Food, Community Resilience, and Equitable Built Environments
- Resilient Ecological Systems: Water, Ecosystems, Biodiversity, Ecological Justice, and Natural Resources
- Reclaiming Environmental Discourse: De/Growth, Preserving Our Past to Understand Our Future, Climate Anxiety, and Environmental Justice, Film Studies, and Media Disinformation
Strengthen Education and Engagement Core to harness the momentum from the rapid growth in enrollment in sustainability education programs through:
- Co-creating Educational Offerings: Improving accessibility to our programs by co-creating sustainability course offerings across departments and schools in ways that align with and elevate each discipline.
- Experiential Learning: Creating interdisciplinary and experiential learning courses and degree programs that align with external partner needs in industry, government, and non-profit sectors.
- Community Impact: Enhancing our community impact by expanding the geographic reach of our partnerships at the local, regional, national, and international level.
Access text version of Pitt Sustainability Institute thrust areas graphic
Recommended Actions
Recommendation One: Constellate Sustainability Efforts at Pitt
- Enhance staff resources to strengthen engagement, break down silos, and enhance internal networks and external partnerships through shared functions.
- Build shared knowledge of existing efforts and increased organizational capacity.
Recommendation Two: Accelerate Sustainability Research
- Elevate and expand our research centers in key sustainability focus areas.
- Grow core research areas through strategic and diverse faculty hiring.
Recommendation Three: Welcome and Connect our Community
- Expand external, alumni, and community partnerships.
- Expand global impact and programs.
- Elevate Pitt's sustainability service mission to our community.
Recommendation Four: Foster Knowledgeable and Innovative Sustainability Journeys
- Provide undergraduates with understanding of, insights into, and first-hand experience with our grand sustainability challenges.
- Elevate our graduate students' research and educational offerings, especially for those with interdisciplinary focuses.
- Support faculty to increase sustainability in the curriculum.
- More closely integrate academics, research, and operations via Campus as a Living Lab program.