The Division of Student Engagement and Well-Being is excited to welcome a new hybrid Stinger bus to campus. The EZ Rider II was unveiled this week and added to the Gold Route as Georgia Tech Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) takes another step toward decreasing its carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

According to senior director of PTS, Sherry Davidson, “Our transportation team took a hard look at how we could build the future that we all wanted to see. The result was changing the way in which we operate. Moving to hybrid improves sustainability while maintaining fiscal responsibility.”

PTS is continually looking for ways to reduce its environmental impact, and this new bus is a significant step in that direction. One of the key advantages is its zero-emission electric mode, which allows the bus to operate fully electric for about 20% of the route. This not only helps to improve air quality but also reduces noise pollution.

“Hybrid” means that this new bus can switch between electric and gasoline power as needed, reducing emissions and increasing fuel efficiency. It also features advanced technologies such as regenerative braking, which captures energy normally lost during braking and uses it to recharge the bus's batteries. This not only improves fuel economy but also extends the life of the bus's braking system.

This new bus will also allow PTS to improve the customer experience and the efficiency of the overall transportation system. It also features automated passenger counters, automated stop announcements, and bike racks, and its low floor ramp will improve accessibility and ease of boarding for passengers. 

This new addition to the Gold Route is the first of nine hybrid buses to come to the Georgia Tech campus. The remaining fleet will arrive in April. 

Inclusivity and understanding past policies and their effects on underserved and marginalized communities must be part of urban planning, design, and public policy efforts for cities.

An international coalition of researchers — led by Georgia Tech — have determined that advancements and innovations in urban research and design must incorporate serious analysis and collaborations with scientists, public policy experts, local leaders, and citizens. To address environmental issues and infrastructure challenges cities face, the coalition identified three core focus areas with research priorities for long-term urban sustainability and viability. Those focus areas should be components of any urban planning, design, and sustainability initiative.

The researchers found that the core focus areas included social justice and equity, circularity, and a concept called “digital twins.” The team — which consists of 13 co-authors and scholars based in the U.S., Asia, and Europe — also provided guidance and future research directions for how to address these focus areas. They detailed their findings in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, published in January 2023.

“Climate change has certainly increased the amount and intensity of extreme weather events and because of that, it makes our decision making today critical to the manner in which our economy and our day to day lives can operate,” said Joe F. Bozeman III, the lead author and an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is also the director of Tech’s Social Equity & Environmental Engineering Lab. “Our quality of life can be negatively affected if we don't make good decisions today.”

Three core areas of focus to achieve urban sustainability

The researchers’ first core focus area, justice and equity, addresses innovations and trends that disproportionately benefit middle and high-income communities. Trends like IoT, “smart cities,” and the urban “green movement” are part of a broader push by cities to become more sustainable and resilient. But communities of color and low-income neighborhoods — the same areas often home to environmental contaminations, infrastructure challenges, and other hazards — have often been overlooked.

The researchers’ findings showed a consistent trend with marginalized communities across several countries, including Canada, the Netherlands, India, and South Africa. They call for mandatory equity analyses which incorporate the experiences and perspectives of these marginalized communities, and, more importantly, ensure members of those communities are actively engaged in decision-making processes.

“Planning, professional, and community stakeholders,” the researchers write in the paper, “should recognize that working together gets cities closer to harmonizing the technological and social dimensions of sustainability.”

The second focus area, circularity, addresses resource consumption of staple commodities including food, water, and energy; the waste and emissions they generate; and the opportunities to increase conservation of those resources by boosting efficiencies.

“What we mean by circularity is basic reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling efforts across the entire urban system — which not only includes cities and under resourced areas within those cities — but also rural communities that supply and take resources from those city hubs,” Bozeman said. The idea is aligned with the circular economy concept which addresses the need to move away from the resource-wasteful and unsustainable cycle of taking, making, and throwing away.

Instead, the researchers argue, cities should look for ways to improve efficiency and maximize local resource use. That has potential benefits not only for urban areas, but rural communities, too. One example, Bozeman said, is the Lifecycle Building Center in Atlanta. It takes old building supplies and sells them locally for reuse.

“By doing that, they’re at the beginning stages of creating an economic system, a regional engine where we share resources between cities and rural areas,” he said. “We can start creating an economic framework, not only where both sides can make money and get what they need, but something that can actually turn into a sustainable economic engine without having to rely on another state or another country's import or export economic pressures.”

To strengthen circularity and make it more robust, the researchers call for more expansive metrics beyond measuring recycling rates and zero waste efforts, to include other parts of the supply chain that may yield new ideas and solutions.

The third focus area, digital twins, addresses the development of automated technologies in smart buildings and infrastructure, such as traffic lights to respond to weather and other environmental factors.

“Let's say there's a heavy rain event and that the rainwater is being stored into retainment,” said Bozeman. “An automated system can open another valve where we can store that water into a secondary support system, so there's less flooding, and that can happen automatically, if we utilize the concept of digital twins.” 

Creating a new urban planning model

The research came about as part of the mission of the Sustainable Urban Systems Section of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, which aims to be a conduit for scientists, engineers, policymakers, and others who want to marry environmental concerns and economic activity. Bozeman is a board member of the Sustainable Urban Systems Section.

“In that role, part of we do is set a vision and foundation for how other researchers should operate within the city and urban system space,” he said. 

For urban sustainability, engineers and policy makers must come to the table and make collective decisions around social justice and equity, circularity, and the digital twins concepts. 

“I think we're at a really critical decision point when it comes to engineers and others being able to do work that is forward looking and human sensitive,” said Bozeman. “Good decision making involves addressing social justice and equity and understanding its root causes, which will enable cities to create solutions that integrate cultural dynamics.”

CITATION: Joe F. Bozeman III, Shauhrat S. Chopra, Philip James, Sajjad Muhammad, Hua Cai, Kangkang Tong, Maya Carrasquillo, Harold Rickenbacker, Destenie Nock, Weslynne Ashton, Oliver Heidrich, Sybil Derrible, Melissa Bilec. “Three research priorities for just and sustainable urban systems: Now is the time to refocus.” (Journal of Industrial Ecology, January 2023)

Whether they know it or not, most city dwellers have probably been inside a so-called “green” building. Plaques boasting various types of environmental or energy certifications — known as ecolabels — often hang prominently in their lobbies. They’re visible, but how can we know if ecolabels have a real impact or are mostly about showing off?

Daniel Matisoff, professor of public policy at Georgia Tech, illuminates the role and impact of green building ecolabels in his book, Ecolabels, Innovation, and Green Market Transformation: Learning to LEED, which traces the curve of ecolabel adoption in the building market, revealing how ecolabels have transformed the economy and construction industry to achieve green market transformation. Co-authored by Douglas Noonan, professor of public policy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, it is the first book to comprehensively assess the green building movement. The book was published by Cambridge University Press in October 2022.

Green building ecolabels, simply stated, are marks or designations that indicate environmental performance and sustainability certifications. Matisoff and Noonan investigated prominent ecolabels, such as LEED, and examined how they work, exploring the theory and economics behind them. They also studied factors and initiatives that drive the adoption of green building ecolabels, breaking down the green building movement step-by-step.

“A central premise of the book is that early adopters, whether they are creating a demonstration project — such as Georgia Tech’s own Kendeda Building — or adopting an ecolabel early on produce positive information spillovers that help accelerate adoption of green technologies,” Matisoff said.

According to the authors, early adopters do this by moving both supply and demand curves for new energy and environmental technologies. When early adopters employ and experiment with new green building technologies, they help build supply chains, lowering costs for others interested in adopting the technologies. Undertaking green building projects also proves the market performance of new energy and environmental technologies, thereby reducing uncertainty and increasing demand by making them more visible and widely available.

“Early adopters often build pilot and demonstration projects largely for a marketing or reputational benefit, but then that provides positive information spillover to the market,” Matisoff said. “For example, once contractors become familiar with new energy and environmental technologies, they can recommend them to clients for new building projects.”

By looking at data, Matisoff found that there has been a rapid uptake of buildings using the LEED label. But the question that remained was, what does it ultimately accomplish? To answer that question, Matisoff and Noonan looked at several case studies. One such case study is The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design, a certified “Living Building,” at Georgia Tech.

The Kendeda Building: Tossing a Pebble in a Pond

The goal of The Kendeda Building was to create a facility that would transform the building and construction industry in the Southeast. Matisoff considered that a testable hypothesis. The Kendeda building inspired Matisoff and his collaborators to dig into 30 years of LEED data to look at the effect of pilot and demonstration projects. They found that if you have a demonstration project in a particular geographic location, it doubles the probability that another green building is going to be built that has similar technologies.

For example, an electrical contracting company working on Kendeda noted that being forced to work with high density poly-ethylene (HDPE) piping — a sustainable alternative to using PVC piping for electrical conduit — led them to realize that HDPE was cheaper and easier to work with, in addition to being a more ecofriendly alternative. The contractor intends to switch to HDPE piping in future projects.

“We at Georgia Tech, by building the Living Building, are providing all this information to the marketplace,” Matisoff said. “And the hope is that other universities or institutions may see this building and say, ‘Hey, we want one of those.’”

Moving Forward

Lessons in Matisoff’s book include how to harness information spillover in addition to more traditional price tools such as subsidies, taxes, and cap-and-trade emissions policies. The authors highlight the importance of leveraging private actors to provide information to the market and suggest that policymakers think carefully about how to incentivize early adopters into the green building market, beyond just prices.

While recent legislation has created a lot of price incentives, subsidies, and tax breaks designed to encourage people to make greener choices, Matisoff’s work emphasizes that, especially at early stages, prices probably aren't enough.

“It's unlikely that there's enough momentum in the policy space to get to where we need to be to address climate change,” Matisoff said. “We hope the book will help us think more carefully about how we leverage information and learning to accelerate the uptake of advanced energy and environmental technologies to facilitate green market transformation.”

Matisoff also hopes the comprehensive study will show the roughly 100,000 certified green building professionals around the world that their efforts have been worth it. 

“We wanted to tell a story, especially to green building professionals, about what they’ve accomplished over the past few decades, and the impact their work will have for years to come.”

A new eBook, "Climate Change and the Design of the Built Environment" by Michael Gamble, Academic and Research Council Chair at the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design and associate professor in the College of Design at Georgia Tech is now available!

Written as a series of dialogues with leaders from various disciplines, the book positions design as an essential component of entrepreneurial approaches which explore the sociocultural and eco-political dimensions of climate change.  Economist, Architects, Planners, Sociologist, Lawyers, Policy Makers, Landscape Architects, and MBA’s contribute to a spirited discussion around climate change and design.

Global climate change has already resulted in a wide range of impacts across every region of the country. Many sectors of the economy are expected to grow related to climate and health in the coming decades.  The design and retrofit of buildings, infrastructure and cities will be a major part of future efforts.  

All interviews are Kendeda Building based on Georgia Tech’s Atlanta campus with experts participating from around the world.

“Georgia Tech is a beacon of innovation that aims to empower entrepreneurs to create ventures with a positive impact on society and the environment. As a hub of forward-thinking ideas, Georgia Tech is leading Atlanta, Georgia, and the United States into a more sustainable future,” said Andre Calmon, assistant professor of operations management, at the launch event for Sustainable-X. An offshoot of the successful CREATE-X entrepreneurship initiative at Georgia Tech, Sustainable-X gives students, faculty, staff, and community members the tools and confidence to create and grow startups that address social and environmental challenges.

Sustainable-X is supported by Sustainability Next, the implementation roadmap for sustainability goals within Georgia Tech’s Strategic Plan 2020-2030. The new program launches in tandem with a climate action plan, a living learning campus initiative, seed funding for teaching through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and more.

CREATE-X and the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business (“Center”) are partnering on Sustainable-X programming. Organizers include Scheller College of Business faculty and staff: co-directors Andre Calmon and Karthik Ramachandran (Dunn Family Professor), advisor Beril Toktay (Brady Family Chair and Regents’ Professor), and program manager Kjersti Lukens (program support coordinator for the Center).

The program kicked off with the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs Bootcamp, held at the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design from November 5-6, 2022. Twenty participants from Georgia Tech and the community learned how to tackle complex sustainability problems and create startup solutions. The bootcamp was facilitated by Jackie Stenson, an expert in sustainable innovation and co-founder of multiple social enterprises. Participants progressed through problem framing and ideation exercises to design solutions inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

The participants shared their projects in a pitch session, where judges and peers listened to an array of business solutions related to STEM education in under-resourced communities, meal preparation kits to help reduce food waste, water management for golf courses, and infrastructure and innovation to accelerate the transition to renewable energy. First prize was awarded to the group that focused on water management. Team members included Isha Dogra (environmental engineering graduate student at Georgia Tech), Emma Vail (student at University of North Georgia), and Michelle Wong (assistant director of the Petit Institute at Georgia Tech ).

Tanju Özdemir, a first-year materials science and engineering major who is also serving as a 2022-23 Scheller College Undergraduate Sustainability Ambassador, remarked, “I signed up for the bootcamp because it felt relevant to my future career goal of being an entrepreneur in the energy sector. The SDG innovation process was completely new to me and exposed me to how difficult and exciting it is to explore solutions to different problems.” The bootcamp revealed to Özdemir how “even the seemingly chaotic process of creativity can have structure.”

Next Steps and Resources

Participants in the bootcamp will be invited to take part in a series of forthcoming events and opportunities related to mentoring, transitioning from idea to prototype (through CREATE-X programming), and funding. The Sustainable-X 2022-23 program will culminate in a showcase in March in which selected participants, along with their counterparts in CREATE-X, will pitch their startups in hopes of obtaining support from investors.

Reflecting on the weekend launch event, Toktay said, “I enjoyed seeing how teams including students, staff members, and community participants – which we intentionally included in the bootcamp – gelled so well. They helped each other stay grounded in real problems while exploring creative solutions.” She said that she and her fellow organizers look forward to the growth of the program. “We believe that the teams have great potential to make a positive impact.”

“With the new Sustainable-X program, Scheller College is creating a new wave of impact at the intersection of sustainability, entrepreneurship, and innovation,” stated Dean Maryam Alavi. She continued, “This program will empower a new generation of Georgia Tech community members as they address some of the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time. I look forward to seeing what results.”

Co-directors Calmon and Ramachandran have worked with student and faculty entrepreneurs at Georgia Tech, INSEAD, and MIT. They recognize Georgia Tech’s potential to produce the next generation of sustainability and climate-impact startups, and look forward to building the pathway to support these startups through Sustainable-X.

Click here to sign up for updates.

Interested in getting involved? Contact Kjersti Lukens for more information.

Written by Jennifer Holley Lux

Nine new Faculty Fellows were appointed to the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS). In addition to their own work, BBISS Fellows serve as a board of advisors to the BBISS; foster the culture and community of sustainability researchers, educators, and students at Georgia Tech; and communicate broadly the vision, mission, values, and objectives of the BBISS. Fellows will work with the BBISS for three years, with the potential for a renewed term.

The BBISS Faculty Fellows program has been in place since 2014. Fellows will number between 10 and 15, will be drawn from across all 6 colleges and GTRI at Georgia Tech. It is expected that annual allowances provided to each BBISS Fellow will range from $1000 to $1500 depending on number of fellows in the program and availability of funds.

The new BBISS Faculty Fellows are:

• Joe Bozeman – Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Dylan Brewer - Assistant Professor, School of Economics
• Andre Calmon – Assistant Professor, Scheller College of Business
• Brian Gunter - Associate Professor, Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering
• Jenny McGuire – Assistant Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
• Jessica Roberts – Assistant Professor, College of Computing
• Ilan Stern – Senior Research Scientist, Georgia Tech Research Institute
• Anjali Thomas - Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Zhaohui Tong - Associate Professor, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering

These faculty members join the current roster of Faculty Fellows:

• Baabak Ashuri - Associate Professor, School of Building Construction
• Kevin Caravati – Principal Research Scientist, Georgia Tech Research Institute
• Ellen Dunham-Jones – Professor, School of Architecture
• Daniel Matisoff - Associate Professor, School of Public Policy
• Kate Pride Brown - Associate Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Perry Yang – Professor, School of City and Regional Planning

More information can be found on the BBISS website.

Gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel — the most commonly used transportation fuels — are among the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and their use is affecting the climate in significant and long-term ways. A new national report, however, provides a powerful toolkit to help researchers and policymakers better evaluate low-carbon technologies and work toward reducing emissions.

Valerie Thomas, Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, served as chair for the report titled “Current Methods for Life Cycle Analyses of Low-Carbon Transportation Fuels in the United States.” Issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the report presents life-cycle assessment as an essential tool in helping researchers and policymakers evaluate low-carbon fuel standards to reduce emissions. Thomas, whose research focuses on energy, environmental impacts, and technology development and policy, is affiliated with Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute, Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, and Renewable Bioproducts Institute.

Alternative fuel sources such as electricity for electric vehicles, biofuels for aircraft, and hydrogen for fuel-cell trucks do emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, whether by resource extraction, production processes, or other supply-chain and market contributions. When considering low-carbon fuel standards to reduce emissions, policymakers are often met with a range of questions from stakeholders, from potential impacts of a specific policy to total emissions released from the production of a particular fuel.

“If a new transportation fuel is meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need to be confident that emissions are indeed likely to be reduced,” Thomas said. “Determining the total net emissions of alternative fuels requires an understanding of how they are made and how they affect markets.”

Life-cycle assessments are a method used to evaluate environmental impacts of fuels and technologies throughout their production and use, but according to Thomas, more research is needed to strengthen their reliability. The 16-member committee led by Thomas evaluated current methods for life-cycle analyses of low-carbon transportation fuels in the U.S., with the goal of establishing a comprehensive and reliable approach for applying life-cycle assessment to developing low-carbon fuel standards.

In preparing the report, the committee gathered input from life-cycle assessment experts, including researchers specializing in aviation fuels, biofuels, hydrogen fuels, fossil fuels, and soil carbon implications of biofuel production. The report, which includes 70 total recommendations, includes suggestions for improving models, increasing transparency, and verifying emissions. The report provides an understanding of the state-of-the-science in quantifying the climate impact of a transition to new transportation fuels.

“We suggest that the approach to life-cycle assessment needs to be guided by the question the analysis is trying to answer,” Thomas said. “Different types of assessment are better suited for answering different questions. While some methods work well for fine tuning a well-defined supply chain, other methods are needed to understand the global, economy-scale effect of a major technology or policy change.”

Thomas hopes that research programs will be created to advance key theoretical, computational, and modeling needs to better evaluate the transition to low carbon fuels.

The National Academy of Sciences was founded in 1863 by an act of Congress and it includes the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Its charge is to “provide independent, objective analysis and advice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems and inform public policy decisions.”

CITATION: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. “Current Methods for Life Cycle Analyses of Low-Carbon Transportation Fuels in the United States.” Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/26402

Two Georgia Tech employees are among the 35 faculty and staff members named to the University System of Georgia’s (USG) Executive Leadership Institute (ELI) class for 2022-23.

Josh Rosenberg, senior director of Grants and Contracts Accounting, and Beril Toktay, Brady Family Chair in Management and interim executive director of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, will represent Tech during this training cycle.

Each USG member institution nominates one academic leader and one staff leader to participate. Individuals are selected for the six-month program and participate in a curriculum that includes group learning and assessment, personal reflection, job shadowing and cross-mentoring.

“This is about supporting our own people within the university system,” USG Chancellor Sonny Perdue said. “Many times, the best talent is already among us. We want to give our people the best opportunity to experience this kind of professional development so they can reach their full potential.”

For more than a decade, the USG has hosted ELI for faculty and staff to develop new leaders within the university system and offer professional develop opportunities to help them advance their careers in Georgia.