When people discuss sustainability, usually the concern is, “What are the economic benefits?” The ecological and social concerns are usually kept in the dark. This approach to sustainability was challenged at the Sustainability Symposium, hosted by Stevens Institute of Technology and sponsored by New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS) this past weekend. This was NJHEPS’s first event at Stevens this semester. The event had the goal of raising awareness and learning about different sustainability methods in academia and industry. Many companies market themselves as being “green,” but they don’t incorporate these ideals into corporate practices. Sonia Mantzouridou-Onasi, a Stevens graduate student who led the event, wanted to bring this to the attention of the attendees, remind them that sustainability is something that comes from the inside, and to present the something people would not expect.
Mantzouridou-Onasi shocked the audience by inviting onstage keynote speaker Dr. Carlos Lopez Cano Vieira, a professor at the Universidad de Algarve in Portugal, and guide for the International Program of the Global Village at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. Vieira described how sustainability is trending among companies, schools, and even countries as they attempt to become green. Yet discussions usually revolve around the economic benefits for those companies. In addition, he mentioned how many scientists and engineers are quick to think of the technological advances in the “green” field, forgetting that humans should care about sustainability because they owe respect to the lives of organisms that are unable to speak up. Vieira wanted to remind the audience the importance of the conscience and not just the technology. “We have to feel life, to understand life.” Humans are an “evolutionary animal,” said Vieira, with the power to continually change the world.
He proceeded to discuss freedom and its value. Vieira defined freedom as the power of the mind and the imagination, the ability to rethink life and grow your “superior conscience.” He posited that education lowers the conscience and teaches society to fight for the self and not for the world. Therefore, humans should be constantly questioning everything they know, since the “mind can lie.” After all, one can’t rethink something and improve society, if he or she believes in everything. Vieira told a story of him giving a lecture in a prison, during which he told the inmates, “There are more prisoners outside than inside [the prison],” referring to the fact that humans have gotten into an endless cycle, and don’t stop to think about life.
He said power is not in language, but in feeling. Sustainability is not about comparing the work others are doing to oneself; it is about studying oneself and the conscience. There is no final conscience, it should always be continuously evolving. People need to consider the materialistic view versus if they would be happier improving the world.
The symposium proceeded with two panel discussions: “Campus-Driven Innovation” and “Sustainable Innovation in Industry.” A lot of the conversation revolved around different research and initiatives on campuses and communities regarding sustainability. The second panel consisted of panelists from various industries, such as architecture, healthcare, transportation, and education. One common idea was that sustainability has to be brought to people in the terms that interest them. For instance, the healthcare field might be concerned about the detrimental effects of air pollution on premature birth. The only way sustainability will improve is if the stakeholders are engaged and educated. The panel concluded with one question, “What are some things we should be thinking about as we move into the new decade?” The responses stressed finding a passion: there should be analysis, and only then action. After all, many people can discuss ways the Earth can be helped, but the ideas have to be realistic.
Some of these realistic ideas were presented at the student research poster session in the afternoon, at which the top three posters were selected and given prizes. Students from numerous colleges, including Stevens, presented their research on improving the sustainability in either their campus or community. The winning poster was The Living Laboratory presented by Stevens Institute of Technology. Students Andriana N. Herrara, Zachary McKeehan, Taylor Race, and Sabrina Smith worked on the research for the poster.
The first sustainability symposium was a success, with 120 registrations and 19 posters. The symposium shined a different kind of light onto the subject that sparked interesting conversations.
