Brightening Our Corner Newsletter - February 2018

This is the quarterly newsletter for the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, a private family foundation that seeks to promote a sustainable society by supporting and funding educational and project-based initiatives that advance knowledge and innovation in sustainability.

Los Angeles Convention Center Installs Rooftop Garden

The Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC), managed by AEG Facilities, recently revealed its new 9,500 square-foot rooftop garden. Located above the LACC’s South Hall lobby, the garden features various citrus trees and vegetables that will be used to provide produce for the LACC in-house caterer Levy Restaurants.

Avery Dennison Among Barron's 100 Most Sustainable Companies

Sustainability, one of our company values, means we are focused on the long-term health of our business, planet and communities. Our efforts over the last few years have dramatically raised the bar, and recently resulted in our ranking #72 on Barron’s first list of 100 Most Sustainable Companies. Barron’s is a US-based publication that covers the financial and investment industries. It's 100 Most Sustainable Companies list was developed with Calvert Research and Management, which looked at the 1,000 largest publicly held companies headquartered in the US (size determined by market value) as of December 31, 2017.

Erb Institute Student, Jim Gawron, Part of Research Team on Maximizing the Benefits of Autonomous Vehicles

ANN ARBOR—The added weight, electricity demand and aerodynamic drag of the sensors and computers used in autonomous vehicles are significant contributors to their lifetime energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study.

The Expanded Role of Sustainability in Healthcare Interiors

Mohawk Group’s Cynthia Hubbell, VP of Healthcare & Senior Living, talks about sustainability in Healthcare Facilities today.

How CBRE Develops Competitive Advantage: Q&A with Global Director of CR David Pogue

“Commercial real estate is at the nexus of many issues — waste, water, energy, emissions, health,” says David Pogue, global director of corporate responsibility for CBRE. “We have a particular responsibility as a real estate services company to help our clients and the whole industry move forward.”

For CBRE, this means adopting a strategy that takes shared values into consideration. Recently, Environmental Leader caught up with Pogue to learn how the company is integrating corporate responsibility into its business practices, and what kind of competitive advantages this can produce.

Participatory Planning Produces Strategic Blueprints for Cities

Graeme Thompson, communications specialist for the Tetra Tech-implemented U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Urban Municipal Governance project (UMG) in Guatemala, discusses how the project executed a three-month technical assistance initiative to help four municipalities deliver high-quality operating plans to the Ministry of Finance. All opinions expressed in this post are the author’s own.

Tetra Tech Conducts Hawaiʻi State Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment

According to a new report released by the State of Hawai‘i, the impact of sea level rise poses an imminent danger to the islands of Hawai‘i, with the potential to cause the loss of roads, utilities, and structures across the state. Tetra Tech developed the “Sea Level Rise Vulnerability & Adaptation Report”—the first statewide assessment of its kind—in conjunction with the State of Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources, Office of Conservation and Coastal Lands. The accompanying, interactive Hawai‘i Sea Level Rise Viewer illustrates projected impacts to coastal areas.

What Can We Learn from MBA Students in China on Business Sustainability?

Dr. Thomas P. Lyon recently taught a short course at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy. Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, with appointments in both the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and School for Environment and Sustainability. He talked with the Erb Institute about his experience teaching on these topics in Shanghai.

MEASURING WELL: ASID Post-Occupancy Analysis Highlights the Value of Designing WELL

Considering that 90% of a company’s operating costs are spent on personnel, it’s no surprise that some of the earliest adopters of WELL have been commercial office spaces. It hasn’t taken long for human resources professionals and executives across the globe to realize that prioritizing people results in substantial return on investment.

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