Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 61.60
Liaison Megan Curtis-Murphy
Submission Date Feb. 28, 2023

STARS v2.2

Northeastern University
AC-8: Campus as a Living Laboratory

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 4.00 / 4.00 Megan Curtis-Murphy
Director of Campus Sustainability & Engagement
Climate Justice & Sustainability Hub
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Campus Engagement

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Campus Engagement?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Campus Engagement:
The Myra Kraft Open Classroom addresses public policy issues in a regional context and engages the campus community in discussion and learning. Besides being exemplary practice in that the course is available free of charge to both the Northeastern community and the general public, it also brings experts, practitioners, and students together in a regional context of subject matter. In spring 2022, the focus was on Community Voices in Urban Decision-Making often focusing on climate and environmental justice. In 2020, the series focused on promoting climate change education, resilience, and action.

Public Engagement 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Public Engagement?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Public Engagement:
Community-Engaged Teaching & Research (CETR) at Northeastern supports 50-60 service-learning courses each semester (1500+ students). In service-learning courses, students and faculty work with community partners to reinforce and build concepts learned in the classroom. CETR recruits and matches 150+ community partners with these courses each academic year. In one class, Global Social Entrepreneurship, students partnered with high school students in the Greater Boston area who were participating in the Changemaker Program (an online program that encourages students to design and explore solutions to current societal issues). One of the final projects for this class was a student produced podcast exploring plastic pollution.

Air & Climate 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Air & Climate?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Air & Climate:
Staff regularly avail the campus infrastructure and facilities to faculty and students for learning concepts related to climate change, from calculating carbon footprint, to mechanical systems and operational best practices. In a recent project, students helped the Facilities department report on its Scope 3 emissions associated with purchasing. The team matched spend data to U.S. economic sectors to determine the carbon footprint results.

Buildings  

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Buildings?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Buildings:
The Energy group gives tours of the central steam plant and building mechanical systems to students from the College of Engineering, School of Architecture, and School of Environmental Science. The tours help students understand the challenges to balance sustainability and building operations which helps them understand the problem they are trying to solve.

Energy 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Energy?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Energy:
The Energy group provides tours and information on university energy consumption to support student work and engagement on these topics. Student interns recently worked with the Energy group to design software algorithms to pull data for energy consumption in real time in a project to develop an energy dashboard for the sustainability office.

Food & Dining 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Food & Dining?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Food & Dining:
Northeastern Dining’s menus are intentionally designed to be mindful of healthy, sustainable and delicious food choices. The University uses the Menus of Change principles which work to realize a long-term, practical vision integrating optimal nutrition and public health, environmental stewardship and restoration, and social responsibility concerns within the foodservice industry and the culinary profession. The program supports the work of students to work with NU Dining to incorporate these principles. Recently, NU Dining supported a Menu of Change Student Fellow who developed a paper on how to improve vegan and vegetarian menu options using feedback from students on campus.

Grounds 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Grounds?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Grounds:
Northeastern University’s Arboretum was awarded a Level II Accreditation through ArbNet. To keep the plants healthy, the Arboretum is working to create a soil quality database for the entire campus for monitoring and evaluation. Recently, the Arboretum Team engaged several students in the soil sampling and analysis project resulting in student learning and engagement.

Purchasing 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Purchasing?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Purchasing:
The Planning, Real Estate and Facilities team is committed to improving purchasing policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion as well as sustainability. Recently, a graduate student researched and developed recommendations on policies and procedures to incorporate climate justice (in conjunction with DEI) concepts and tracking into RFPs and the procurement process.

Transportation 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Transportation?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Transportation:
Transportation is often an area where students engage the campus as a living lab as its location serves as an artery with several alternative modes of transportation including trains, busses and bike infrastructure. In recent years the University supported students working on a capstone project focused on mobility including specifically bicycling and other "last mile" initiatives.

Waste 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Waste?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Waste:
From ideas percolating with student groups to student capstones and projects, many sustainability projects revolve around the waste generated on campus and recommendations for reduction. One student project focused on the reduction of waste associated with coffee cups on campus in an effort to encourage reusable options. The students counted the number of disposable coffee cups coming out of a coffee shop on campus and used the information (and cups themselves) to visually report on waste.

Water 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Water?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Water:
Students are using the Arboretum and its tree canopy to study the interception of rainwater by vegetation. Buckets are placed both around the stem of trees to measure "stemflow" and under the canopy to measure "throughfall" of dissolved organic matter (DOM). The research focuses on the quality, potential sources, and potential fates of the DOM.

Coordination & Planning 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Coordination & Planning?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Coordination & Planning:
The university is in the process of updating its Climate Action Plan from 2010. As part of early engagement on this process, the Northeastern Community decided the plan should be centered around climate justice and focus on the needs of those most impacted by the climate crisis. In preparation of this initiative, the Climate Justice & Sustainability Hub worked with a Capstone team to provide recommendations on how to execute a broad engagement program that will ensure involvement of the Northeastern community as well as neighboring communities. Their report included five key recommendations: 1) Maintain transparency and build a trusting relationship with the communities, 2) Leverage widely used social media platforms to engage students, faculty and staff, 3) Connect regularly with the leaders of each student group and faculty/staff department on the planning process, 4) Partner with the internal Northeastern community and work together to include the external community in the planning process, and 5) Reward and incentivize participation. We have incorporated these recommendations into our CJAP process going forward.

Diversity & Affordability 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Diversity & Affordability?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Diversity & Affordability:
The Planning, Real Estate and Facilities team is committed to improving purchasing policies related to diversity, equity and inclusion as well as sustainability. Recently, a graduate student researched and developed recommendations on policies and procedures to incorporate climate justice (in conjunction with DEI) concepts and tracking into RFPs and the procurement process.

Investment & Finance 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Investment & Finance?:
Yes

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Investment & Finance:
Northeastern students participating in the Social Impact-athon, a competition between teams developing plans to best effect change by donating to nonprofit organizations, were challenged to distribute a hypothetical $50,000 between three or more Boston nonprofits centered around environmental justice. The winning team was awarded a real $50,000 to execute their plan.

Wellbeing & Work 

Is the institution utilizing its infrastructure and operations as a living laboratory for applied student learning for sustainability in relation to Wellbeing & Work?:
No

A brief description of the projects and how they contribute to understanding or advancing sustainability in relation to Wellbeing & Work:
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Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the institution’s living laboratory program is available:
https://www.northeastern.edu/experiential-learning/student-research/#_ga=2.73512656.391925224.1616426468-1723582847.1592922249

Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
https://cssh.northeastern.edu/policyschool/events/open-classroom/ ; https://communityengagement.northeastern.edu/programs/community-engaged-research/ ; https://facilities.northeastern.edu/arboretum/

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