Overall greenhouse gas emissions in Georgia fell by 5% between 2017 and 2021, mostly due to the increased use of natural gas and solar for electricity generation, according to the research team behind the Drawdown Georgia climate initiative. Emissions from agriculture and the average individual carbon footprint also shrank.

The decline in emissions comes against a 10% expansion in the state’s economy, showing the potential for reducing emissions while pursuing economic growth, according to the team.

However, the team’s data also show a stark increase in transportation-related emissions, which now exceed pre-pandemic levels and has become the state’s largest source of climate pollution, according to Marilyn Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy and the principal investigator on the Drawdown Georgia research team.

“While not all of the numbers are trending in the right direction, these data clearly show significant improvements in many sectors of our economy and also highlight where we have the greatest opportunities, namely transportation,” Brown said.

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The report shows that while emissions from the electricity sector declined more than 15% between 2017 and 2021, transportation sources including cars and trucks put out 4% more climate-warming emissions in 2021 than five years earlier. Emissions from diesel vehicles spiked 16.1%, likely due to increased demand for delivery services driven by online shopping.

Emissions from Georgia’s agricultural and food sector fell by 7.1% during the study period while the average individual carbon footprint of Georgians declined from 22,092 pounds to 20,253 pounds.

“Based on the collaborations we’re a part of, we’re confident this is only the beginning of Georgia’s carbon reduction trend,” John Lanier, executive director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, said in a news release on the findings.

The foundation is a primary funder of Drawdown Georgia.

Brown leads the research team, which spans several Georgia colleges and universities. She is an internationally known climate policy researcher who has dedicated most of her career to helping solve the climate crisis.

The analysis is based on data from the first-of-its-kind Drawdown Georgia Emissions Tracker, which aggregates information from federal Energy Department, Transportation Department, and Environmental Protection Agency reports. The tracker was produced by a team of scientists led by William Drummond in the School of City and Regional Planning.

For a more detailed analysis of the findings, visit the Drawdown Georgia blog.

The Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) at the Georgia Institute of Technology has launched a new science and technology research center called ReWOOD. The ReWOOD launch included a 2-day workshop involving faculty research partners from universities across the Southeast, as well as former Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black.

ReWOOD, abbreviated from “Renewables-based Economy from WOOD” will focus on a burgeoning field of science called Xylochemistry. Xylochemistry makes use of sustainable plant-based raw materials to develop industrial products ranging from jet fuel to industrial solvents to generic pharmaceutical additives and more. Right now, most of the world production of such materials comes from non-renewable fossil resources or petroleum products. Moving to a renewable source will not only aid in reducing the dependence on fossil fuels but will also help with reducing the overall carbon footprint. ReWOOD is sponsored by RBI through its endowment-funded fellowships and is developing a corporate affiliate program.

“The formation of this internal research center will drive regional momentum for producing carbon neutral chemicals and fuels from wood wastes deriving from the abundant and fast-growing wood in the Southeast,” said Carson Meredith, executive director of RBI. “In fact, the Southeast has a larger percentage of sustainably grown working forests than any other area in the U.S., and Georgia is the number one exporter of forest products in the nation.”

Research on chemical renewables via Xylochemistry has been ongoing at Georgia Tech under a consortium called GT-STANCE (Science & Technology for a Neutral Chemical Economy). GT-STANCE’s researchers have developed seed technologies that aid in the production of wood-based chemical intermediates with potential uses in consumer commodities like pharmaceuticals and plastics. In addition, RBI has made a significant investment of nearly $3 million in building research teams in the related area of lignin conversion in the last five years. The formation of a research center that will coalesce regional thought leadership is the logical next step, as a renewables-based economy has become a national priority with the bioeconomy, climate, and clean energy goals set by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.  

Raw materials for Xylochemistry could also be sourced from any kind of non-treated wood. For example, wood from demolished construction sites like old homes and wooden buildings provide an excellent opportunity for a circular economy, since this wooden construction waste ends up in landfills now.

Currently ReWOOD has 11 university affiliates that are joining Georgia Tech. In January 2023, faculty from Georgia Tech, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, and Alabama A&M University convened to discuss the plans for a research center on a renewables-based economy from wood to develop renewable biofuels, industrial solvents, pharmaceutical additives, and many other products that culminated in the formation of ReWOOD. Since then, the center has gained the interest of multiple other researchers from the University of Florida, Kennesaw State University, and Clark Atlanta University. In addition, the Mississippi State and Forestry Office and Sandia National Laboratory have become key collaborators within ReWOOD. This collection of expertise includes chemists, engineers, economists, and forest experts, covering a broad range of activities that will include technology, economic, and workforce development, as well as lifecycle and socio-economic analysis. This partnership list will continue to evolve and grow as ReWOOD focuses on specific target research areas and proposals for funding to develop technology and processes in the business sector.

About the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech
Georgia Tech’s Renewable Bioproducts Institute is one of ten campus interdisciplinary research institutes. RBI champions innovation in converting biomass into value-added products, developing advanced chemical and bio-based refining technologies, and advancing excellence in manufacturing processes. Our three strategic thrusts are circular materials, bio industrial manufacturing, and paper, packaging, and tissue.

RBI serves as a campus conduit for industry-university partnerships and provides a portal to Georgia Tech core laboratories, faculty and students whose work and expertise is focused on biomass and bioproducts.

The 2022-23 Micro-Grants Community-Based Research awardees presented their findings at the second annual symposium, held on April 18, 2023, in the auditorium of the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, which is the region’s first Living Building. Ten teams presented to faculty, staff, students, and student family members. The topics were wide ranging, and dealt with both practical and theoretical issues. The work surpassed all expectations for quality and quantity.

Devised by the Kendeda Building Advisory Board and sponsored by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems and the Kendeda Building, the Micro-Grants Research Program solicits proposals for very small scale ($50 to $500), short term, sustainability related, research studies to be conducted by members of the Georgia Tech community. Community investigators are encouraged to explore ways in which the Georgia Tech campus can continue to innovate, demonstrate, prove, and promote the adoption of best and next practices in regenerative design and operations. Researchers were also encouraged to use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for research design. All members of the Georgia Tech community were encouraged to apply. The program especially sought proposals from students and staff that had little or no prior research experience.

The program has four objectives:

1. to expand scientific thinking and the understanding of the research process amongst those not (yet) directly involved in scientific research;
2. to bolster the use of the campus as a living laboratory;
3. to give voice to people and communities outside of research that have culturally novel perspectives on problems and their possible solutions, and to create new pathways for partnering with them; and
4. to seed novel ideas and nurture nascent investigators.

The 2022-23 awardees and the titles of their projects are:

• Alex Lomis, Devi Patel, and Dr. Jung-Ho Lewe, "Design and Development of a Low-Cost and Highly-Scaleable Occupancy Counter to Optimize the Utilization of HVAC Resources"
• Kaitlyn Tran, Shivani Potdar, and Amanda Janusz, "Bird Safe Campus"
• Ricardo Martinez, "Chiropterans at Georgia Tech"
• Elizabeth Umanah, "Reimagining Eco-Friendly Parking Lot Design Through Simulations"
• Lujain Diab, Ally Kimpling, Jenna Sitta, Marcus Morris, Skylar Ryan, Dr. Jennifer Leavey, and Steve Place, "A Greener Grey: “Ironing” Out Issues in Greywater Systems"
• Jun Wang and Yilun Zha, "Kendeda’s Educational Role in Waste Management and Recycling"
• Siddharth Sivakumarun, "Investigating Capacity for Regenerative Energy through Foot Traffic"
• Alexandra Rodriguez Dalmau and John Fortner, "Recognition of Insect Species in the Georgia Tech campus with Machine Learning"
• Gray Simmons, Kevin Leach, and Dr. Jung-Ho Lewe, "IOT Climate Sensor Development for HVAC Efficiency Analysis"
• Kaylin Cross, Pranav Jothi, Maanas Kumar, Brian Wu, Savannah Howard, and Sheng Dai, "Prototyping Bio-inspired Geothermal Energy Recovery for Space Heating and Cooling"

More details and links to all the presentations are available at this web page.

Georgia Tech will be a key partner for the New York Climate Exchange (The Exchange), a first-of-its-kind international center for developing and deploying dynamic solutions to the global climate crisis. In addition to convening the world's leaders and climate experts, The Exchange will address the social and practical challenges created by climate change — including commercially viable research and ideas that lead to immediate action on local and global levels.

“Today's climate issues are urgent, and environmental justice and ecological sustainability necessitate action from leaders across the world,” said Chaouki Abdallah, executive vice president for research at Georgia Tech. “As a core partner of The Exchange, Georgia Tech will provide research expertise in the areas of energy, urban planning, bi­­ological ecosystems, public policy, and more, and we look forward to playing an instrumental role in bringing its mission to fruition.”

Georgia Tech researchers are studying glacial melt, coral growth, sea level rise, and other climate concerns in the state of Georgia and around the world and will share their data and research results with partners at The Exchange. Likewise, research at The Exchange will be applicable for towns and cities across Georgia, allowing state leaders to take advantage of economic opportunities that arise when climate change is addressed head on.  

In addition to contributing critical research across the many areas of climate change, Georgia Tech leads major initiatives that are focused on solving the crises laid out in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Generation 2 Reinvented Toilet (G2RT) — a solution to the world's water and sanitation problem — is led by Shannon Yee, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. This cost-effective, globally scalable reinvented toilet with built-in human waste treatment will ensure that drinking water stays clean and will improve public health around the world. 

Georgia Tech is also a leading partner in Ocean Visions, UN Decade Collaborative Center for Ocean-Climate Solutions, an international center headquartered at the Georgia Aquarium that aims to co-design, develop, test, fund, and deliver scalable and equitable ocean-based solutions to reduce the effects of climate change and build climate-resilient marine ecosystems and coastal communities.  Championed at Georgia Tech by Susan Lozier, dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair in the College of Sciences, the program also supports tremendous opportunities to accelerate carbon cleanup and advance sustainable ocean economies.

“We are looking forward to contributing and demonstrating some of the engineering sustainability solutions that have been developed at Georgia Tech with New York City and the world,” said Yee. “Many of the technical and economic solutions that serve the state of Georgia, the coastal city of Savannah, and the urban center of Atlanta can also serve the urban harbor of New York City. Similarly, the innovations and economic opportunities that address climate change can be shared with and benefit Georgia. This collaboration embodies the concept of an exchange where we share with one another.”

As The Exchange's anchor institution, Stony Brook University will build and operate the center which will be located on Governors Island in New York City. The center is slated to open in 2028.

“It is becoming clear year after year in New York, and around the world, that the impacts of climate change are real and are here,” said Kevin Reed, associate dean for Research and associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook. “By partnering with communities, industries, governments, and universities, The Exchange will help to accelerate the implementation of urban solutions to these climate impacts through an interactive research ecosystem where community engagement is paramount. As a climate scientist, I recognize that New Yorkers need solutions to the climate crisis now, and The Exchange will help to make that a reality.”

Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy, has been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Brown, an internationally noted scholar in climate and energy policy, is among 269 eminent experts from academia, the arts, and private industry chosen by the organization this year and one of just two from Georgia Tech. Rafael Bras, professor in the College of Engineering and Georgia Tech’s former provost, also will join the academy — which in addition to being an honorary society seeks the counsel of its members to help solve significant global challenges via a range of cross-disciplinary research programs. 

“I’m grateful and honored to be elected to the company of such esteemed experts,” said Brown. “I look forward to working with them to foster smart and achievable policy solutions to help advance moves towards a new green economy and more sustainable tomorrow.” 

She joins 11 other Georgia Tech faculty members in the organization, including Kaye Husbands Fealing, dean and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. 

“In its earliest days, the Academy sought members who would help address issues and opportunities confronting a young nation,” Nancy C. Andrews, chair of the academy’s Board of Directors, said in a release announcing the new members. “We feel a similar urgency and have elected a class that brings diverse expertise to meet the pressing challenges and possibilities that America and the world face today.” 

Brown already was a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of just six living Georgia Tech faculty elected to the NAS and 36 who are members of the NAE. 

An international leader in clean energy policy, Brown is known for her pioneering work developing economic-engineering models incorporating behavioral and social science principles into policy analysis of energy systems. Her influential research quantified the “energy-efficiency gap,” which highlights the importance of promoting cost-effective energy conservation improvements as a tool to improve energy security and reduce the impact of climate change. 

In 2000, she led the Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future project, which at the time was the most detailed carbon-reduction analysis funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  

Later, she contributed to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group that was a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. 

More recently, she has been the principal investigator leading the science team behind Drawdown Georgia, a multi-institution effort funded by the Ray C. Anderson Foundation to identify the most promising solutions to slash Georgia’s carbon emissions by 2030.