Climate action. Now.

By Eric Gallippo | Art by Adam Beeman | Photos by Marc-Grégor Campredon, Fatimah Bolhassan for U‑M Graham Sustainability Institute, Maddie Fox for U‑M SEAS, Detroit PBS

The impacts of climate change are everywhere today: record temperatures, severe storms, routine flooding, dangerous wildfires, food shortages, droughts, and even extinction for species unable to adapt. “These are the crises that define the 21st century,” said Jonathan Overpeck, Samuel A. Graham Dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS).

“They're more intense than we expected, they've come sooner than was expected by the models and the researchers, and we are on a short fuse to do enough to avoid some of the worst of them,” added Jennifer Haverkamp, Graham Family Director of the Graham Sustainability Institute. 

The threats hit harder depending on where people live, what resources are available, and other social factors, compounding challenges to public health and outdated infrastructure.

“All of the climate action and sustainability work is about sustaining vulnerable communities,” said Jonathan Massey, dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. In other words: “The stakes are always human.”

The University of Michigan is facing this existential crisis head on. With research and innovation, through new collaborations and coursework, and by building a culture to transform every U‑M community member into a sustainability leader, the university is deploying all of its expertise, scale, and spirit to tackle climate change with solutions that benefit everyone.

“The leaders at the University of Michigan, all the way up to the president, realize that if we are a world-class university, we can help solve some world-class problems,” Overpeck said. “And we have some real advantages in doing this.”

As Haverkamp put it: “It's imperative that a public university with the resources and talent that we have in our faculty, staff, and students do whatever we can to face this problem.”

Walking the talk

Sustainability leaders across the university agree: U‑M must lead by example on climate action. Since the Board of Regents announced a commitment to achieving carbon neutrality in 2021, the university has been working to reduce campus greenhouse gas emissions, purchase electricity from renewable sources, and foster a broad culture of sustainability. It’s a bold call to action that necessitated new leadership roles under the provost and the executive vice presidents for finance and operations and Michigan Medicine. Today, those leaders are Shana Weber, associate vice president for campus sustainability; Shalanda Baker, associate vice provost for sustainability and climate action; and Tony Denton, senior vice president and chief environmental, social and governance officer for Michigan Medicine.

“You now have a dynamic trio of new leaders working together across campus sustainability, on health system sustainability, and sustainability in education, research, external engagement. This powerful collaboration sets the stage for unprecedented progress,” Haverkamp said.

Those leaders are already overseeing transformational changes on campus: New construction to be heated and cooled by combustion-free, geo-exchange, and renewable electricity. Plans for on-campus solar power installations capable of generating 25 megawatts across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn, and Flint campuses. Expanded efforts in sustainable building standards, energy conservation, green anesthesia, materials recycling, food composting, and virtual patient care at Michigan Medicine.

Across disciplines, there’s also a growing movement to imagine U‑M’s campuses as living laboratories for testing new approaches and technologies with real-world applications in sectors like building, farming, and mobility.

“It’s an opportunity to deploy some of the innovations that faculty and students are creating in labs and classrooms and prototyping facilities to actually build them, and learn from their performance,” Massey said.

Outside of the classroom, the university is working to educate all students in sustainability literacy and a basic understanding of the climate crisis, regardless of their major or career plans, through the Graham Institute's Planet Blue Ambassador program. Ten thousand members strong and growing, the training is also available to faculty, staff, and alumni.
 

Complex problems, multidisciplinary solutions

Collaborative sustainability work on campus and with outside partners is part of the DNA at SEAS and the Graham Institute. The university is also home to several other specialized centers, initiatives, and student organizations, along with world-renowned academic programs. Together, they make U‑M uniquely positioned to face our greatest environmental challenges. And it’s already being tapped to do so, from a state partnership to accelerate electric vehicle production to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency project to restore the lower River Rouge. 

“When you have architects, civil and environmental engineers, environmental scientists, and policy people coming together across campus, you can really tackle an issue that's bigger than any one of those disciplines,” Massey said.

Adding to that list, Massey highlighted the importance of artists, performers, and storytellers to shape the way we think about the environment and change behaviors that are harmful to it, from immersive theater about single-use plastics and storytelling workshops on a Detroit River sailing ship to video games that demonstrate the power of carbon capture technology and art exhibits aimed at turning climate anxiety into action.

“Working collaboratively also ensures that we have a broader range of voices at the table—that those viewpoints that are not always incorporated into the decision making and the planning are brought to bear,” Haverkamp said. “Working together like that, you have a shared sense of responsibility to deliver on the results. And that inclusive decision making enhances the buy-in from everyone.”
 

Redesigning the future

University faculty and students are partnering with urban, rural, and tribal communities across the state of Michigan, from Detroit to Benton Harbor and Ann Arbor to Douglas Lake, to not only gain new knowledge and develop new technologies, but also learn what issues matter most locally and help address them. 

Through its Center for EmPowering Communities, U‑M is supporting rural communities—vital hosts of new solar and wind developments and key partners in the clean energy transition—by advancing technology, conducting essential research, and fostering robust community engagement. And its Urban Collaboratory initiative and SEAS Sustainability Clinic-Detroit are working to build climate resilience, clean up contamination, and reconnect residents to natural areas previously lost to pollution and policies that promoted segregation in Michigan cities.

“This university and higher education, in general, need to do more for society. We need to help average Americans solve their problems, and that's what we're doing here,” Overpeck said.

That includes university efforts to help train tomorrow’s workforce through partnerships with the private sector and community colleges, and also working to influence policy and public perceptions.

“Part of the solution is ensuring that everyone benefits and no one disproportionately suffers more,” Overpeck said. “That's critical, because we're not going to solve the problems fast enough unless people at scale can see how they're going to benefit—how their communities are going to benefit—by embracing the change and the speed of change that we need to solve these problems.”

An impact like no other

Overpeck noted that U‑M has a legacy of leading in sustainability: The university inspired the first Earth Day and was the first to offer environmental justice as a field of academic study. 

Backed by visionary donors passionate about the environment, that legacy has grown with the founding of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, Graham Sustainability Institute and its Carbon Neutrality Acceleration Program and U‑M Water Center, Tischman Center for Social Justice and the Environment, and the new Climate Futures launching this fall at Taubman, along with critical scholarships and funded research opportunities for students, including those at U‑M Biological Station in Northern Michigan. 

“Philanthropic support helps us move into new areas to take risks, to find new solutions to these problems,” Haverkamp said. “It also enables us to leverage other sources of funding. With support up front, we’re better positioned to put together the teams and do the preliminary research to access federal and state funding.” 

Donors also bring new ideas and experiences, the kind Overpeck said are crucial when it comes to moving the university’s innovations from campus to the market.

“They're very interested in solving the same problems, but they bring a whole other set of tools to the table,” Overpeck said. “It's by combining forces that we can really have an impact that no one else can have.”