When Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, arrived at UW–Madison 12 years ago, “the idea that we would’ve had a sustainability symposium, net-zero goals, a zero-waste commitment, graduates working at major sustainability firms around the United States,” was “hard to imagine.”
“I was bombarded my first day on the job, with mail from alumni saying, ‘Where the hell are you people on sustainability?’” Robins said, opening the third annual UW–Madison Sustainability Symposium last week. “And I am very pleased to say that is not how things look now.”
In addition to launching a major environmental sustainability initiative in February 2024, Chancellor Mnookin also announced the RISE Initiative, a hiring effort focused on several research areas. So far, three have been announced: RISE-EARTH, which focuses on sustainability; RISE-AI, which focuses on artificial intelligence; and RISE-THRIVE, which focuses on health.
The RISE Initiative, according to the Sustainability Symposium’s coordinator, Will Erikson, inspired this year’s theme: AI and sustainability. “We wanted to highlight RISE-AI and RISE-EARTH, and talk about the nexus of those two,” Erikson said, adding that the theme lent itself naturally to collaborating with other institutes and departments on campus.
The Symposium was hosted in partnership with the Data Science Institute, Facilities Planning & Management, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University Lectures, and the UW Environmental Awareness Fund.
Dr. Sara Beery of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose work focuses on computer vision research for the environment, biodiversity, conservation, and sustainability, delivered the keynote address. Working at the intersection of conservation and AI, Beery discussed the potential of AI to streamline the work of conservation biologists by turning the data gathered by community scientists, through apps like iNaturalist, into information necessary for scientists to measure biodiversity and understand ecosystems.
According to Beery, iNaturalist houses over 200 million species observations globally, across more than 450,000 species. This makes iNaturalist one of the largest mechanisms for collecting scientific data about species on Earth, surpassing almost all scientific data collection historically, except for data on birds, because of the massive popularity of birdwatching.
However, while there are challenges to harnessing data provided by community scientists—such as capturing images of rare species, or balancing the scales of conservation between the global north and south—Beery explained that AI is a worthwhile endeavor for conservation research. She said it can provide insights into animal behavior, habitat conditions, and interactions between species.
The project is particularly urgent, she emphasized, because since 1970 the world has lost 73% of all wildlife. Additionally, researchers have identified a butterfly effect of species loss, with impacts on public health, food security, the ability of soils to sequester carbon, and ecosystem services like flood mitigation and run-off management.
“We have to save everything or as much as we can,” said Berry, who shifted from a career in professional ballet to computer science out of that desire to “save” as much as possible.
“Biodiversity is important. And this was really a strong motivator for me when I decided to retire quite young from my professional ballet career and go back [to school] and try to work on some big, difficult problems,” she said to the Symposium audience.
“I wanted to be one small cog in a big machine: a big, global, interdisciplinary, complicated machine that’s going to try to figure out how we could address these challenges and how we could try to do better for the planet,” Beery said, adding, that she’s not the only person who “thinks like this.”
Highlighting sustainability research at UW–Madison
With approximately 300 attendees at the Sustainability Symposium and 15 lightning talks on different aspects of the field, Beery’s words ring true.
Lightning talks ranged across a variety of topics, including UW-Madison’s Bee Campus Initiative, research on mapping ecosystem services at the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, communicating PFAS risk, climate considerations in agriculture and shipping fuel, the circular economy, and the need for diverse energy storage solutions.
Arthur Sacks, the second director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and current member of the Nelson Institute Board of Visitors, was most impressed by the locality of many of the lightning talks and how they brought sustainability home. A presentation by Gavin Luter, the Managing Director of the UniverCity Alliance, stood out to Sacks for its intersection of local government importance with community-focused sustainability initiatives in Wisconsin.
“[Their] approach to … serving community is really the basis of the Wisconsin Idea,” Sacks remarked.
In addition to the lightning talks, attendees enjoyed poster presentations and networking sessions where students, researchers, professors and interested Madison community members discussed how to solve big problems over small plates of refreshments (any waste from which was later audited by Office of Sustainability students to assist with certifying the event.)
Caroline Arciszewski, a sophomore majoring in environmental science and pursuing a certificate in sustainability, talked about the variety of connections she made. As an intern at the Office of Sustainability, she’s part of a new academic writing team that is currently researching how other universities like UW–Madison communicate Scope 3 emissions, which are activities from assets not owned or controlled by the university, such as those within its supply chain.
“We’re really open to collaborations and ideas, since we are such a new team,” Arciszewski said, adding that presenting at the Symposium helped toward that goal. “I’ve made connections with people who I wouldn’t maybe connect with in my day-to-day life,” she said.
One poster presentation described a study by Affiliated Engineers (AEI) and Facilities Planning & Management that will inform decarbonization plans for the campus’s district energy system. Willa Kuh, of AEI, said she has enjoyed the opportunity to discuss their work with UW–Madison experts in energy thermal storage, copper, aluminum, and more. “In our process, we engaged faculty a lot … they have an inside view on technology and information—more than we could gather on our own,” Kuh said.
As the university embarks on its sustainability initiative, an effort that will require concerted collaboration across institutes and departments, reaching net-zero emissions by 2048 is among its most ambitious components. “It’s a big task, right?” said Kevin Krause, also of AEI. “This isn’t going to be solved in a day, so I’ve appreciated hearing from folks that they recognize what a challenge it is.”
And what of the increasing role of AI on campus and around the world?
According to Erikson, “We’re at a very interesting inflection point, with AI technology and all the implications it has … [for] energy use, but also with real life, applicable uses of the tech [such as] data querying of images for biodiversity and conservation.”
Ultimately, Erickson hopes that attendees were “inspired by the presentations and got to really see all the different ways great work is being done in sustainability across our campus.”
By: Miquéla Thornton