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Showing posts from March, 2024

Brown University's Sustainable Future

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After doing multiple studies and publishing blogs about Brown Universities efforts towards sustainability, I in this final blog post of the series would state that it is quite evident that the university is committed to achieve sustainability and supports environmental performance and strategic long term approaches for a better future. As we have seen in the last blogs, Brown university have future plans such as reducing their carbon emissions to net zero by 2040, reducing nitrogen and phosphorous contents, use water responsibly. Apart from these, there are several other goals towards which Brown is working such as safeguarding human health by elimination use of toxic chemicals and decrease noise and air pollution on campus. To educate its students and communities about importance of achieving sustainability in the 21 st century is also one of the most important part of Brown’s road to achieve sustainability. The university has various programs and volunteering opportunities for stude

Brown University's Water Conservation Initiatives

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  The objective of Sustainable Development’s Goal number 6 is to ensure sustainable management and availability of clean water for all. Water is a necessity for survival of humans and ecosystems globally, yet almost 2 billion people on this planet do not have access to clean water for completing the daily basic activities to keep up with hygiene and sanitation. To contribute their part in this goal, Brown University is committed to reduce its water footprints by lowering on campus water use and increase in water quality on campus. To address this situation, Brown University has made significant investments which help in reducing water usage. Firstly, Brown’s has introduced trayless dining which has resulted in saving of half gallon of water per person by eliminating the need to wash those trays. This initiative has also helped Brown University in reducing its energy consumption that would have been used to heat the water.   Secondly, the Office of sustainability at Brown’s has coll

Understanding Nutrient Pollution

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  Nutrient pollution is becoming one of the most extensive and rigorous environment problem faced by our planet. This issue poses significant threats to water quality, human health, and also leads to unhealthy air and acid rain. Nutrient pollution occurs when nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus enters water bodies in over abundance. Even though these nutrient are essential for life but excessive quantities can create serious ecological problems like algae- chocked waterways. This increase in algae can deplete oxygen levels in the water which will result in harming fishes and other aquatic life and in many instances produce toxins that might harm humans. The usage of fertilizers in agriculture is one of the major cause of nutrient pollution. Other causes are improperly managed animal manure in agriculture, lack of operating or removing of excessive nutrients from the wastewater treatment plants, usage of fossil fuels increases the amount of nitrogen in the air and industrial discharg

Brown University's path to net-zero.

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  Climate change is currently one of the biggest threat of 21 st century to the planet and public health. It is essential to take actions against this issue because if nothing is done people will experience significant changing of weather patterns, high temperatures such as heat waves, natural calamities like floods, wildfire, drought, increase in sea levels and much more. These threats are not just limited but may also affect the health of not only humans but also plants and animals. Climate change will also affect future employability, infrastructure and global economy negatively. To take urgent action on climate change is the 13 th goal of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal.   The key targets of SDG to achieve this goal is to help countries strengthen their infrastructure’s reliance, improve their adaptations to extreme impacts of climate change and by also creating awareness and providing climate changes education. The greenhouse gas emissions are the leading cause a

Brown University’s commitment to sustainable development goals for a better future

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  The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted in the year 2015 in the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. There are a total of 17 agendas in the sustainable development goals adopted by the United Nations member countries. The objective of these goals is to address various global problems which covers various social, environmental, economic and governance issues such as poverty, education, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, climate crisis, justice, economic growth and much more. The members aim at making progress in the development goals and provide a better and much more sustainable world for the future generations. Currently, Finland is the country which is ranked number 1 in the SDG’s index rank out of 166 countries. A countries rank is determined by the total progress made for achieving all the 17 goals. The United States of America has a SDG index rank of 39. The United States of America on behalf of their citizens has formed the U.S.