Projects

Our project conducted research in two phases. The first phase analyzed various factors - political, technical, regulatory, and geographic - that influence the uptake of utility scale solar across t...

The Village of Northport intends to develop and implement a Renewable Energy Community Plan that will enable the village and township to attain their goal of becoming a 100 percent clean energy com...

Autonomous vehicles have the potential to provide transportation services that are currently offered by buses, taxis and delivery vehicles.  A recent global market analysis by Navigant Consulting...

The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians (LTBB) is a federally recognized tribe, with 4,559 Tribal Citizens residing on approximately 336 square miles of land in the northwestern part of Mich...

Kellogg Company sources agricultural commodities from around the world to manufacture its products; the company is committed to enhancing the natural resources and livelihoods of the areas and peop...

The goal of this project is to engage students at the More than Me Academy in a participatory landscape design project that will provide designs for a new school yard landscape. More that Me is an ...

With growing globalization, complexity has increased in the supply chain system. To mitigate the potential sustainability risks, comprehensive evaluation and assessment should be developed to provi...

The objective of this project is to develop a novel methodology to evaluate alternative designs for a State Implementation Plan to comply with Clean Air Act Section 111(d) greenhouse gas emissions ...

Project Objective: This research project will employ and advance state of the art power systems modeling to evaluate an updated Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for Michigan. In addition to met...

Dow Distinguished Awards for Interdisciplinary Sustainability The Graham Sustainability Institute administers the Dow Sustainability Fellows on behalf of the university.  To foster high-im...

Background of U-M Third Century Initiative As the University prepares to celebrate its bicentennial in 2017, the President and Provost have established the Third Century Initiative (TCI), a $50...

New approaches are needed to assess in parallel the benefits and impacts of changes in the amount of dairy products in the US diet. Thus, we propose a framework to compare both nutritional/health b...

Background of U-M Third Century Initiative As the University prepares to celebrate its bicentennial in 2017, the President and Provost have established the Third Century Initiative (TCI), a $50...

Michigan's existing renewable energy standard will plateau at 10% in 2015. The recent ballot initiative to expand this standard failed and there is currently no mandate to increase it...

This project works to characterize the life cycle aspects of natural fibers such as hemp and kenaf and to develop a tool for evaluating the sustainability of lightweighting materials to better unde...

Overview- Detroit Climate Action Collaborative: In 2011, Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ), the oldest urban environmental justice organization in Michigan, convened ...

Natural fibers such as coconut, hemp, and kenaf, are being researched as a replacement for glass fibers and mineral fillers in polymer composites due to potential environmental, cost, and weight-sa...

The World Wildlife Fund's Market Transformation Initiative aims to reduce the environmental impact of global commodity production through partnership with major companies and their supply networks....

The Kohala Center, an independent, community-based institute for research, education, and conservation based on Hawaii Island, has just completed a plan for the County of Hawaii Energy Sustainabili...

Increasing population, modernized diet, and climate change will impose various pressures on global food systems - from agricultural production to nutrition consumption - for the next decades. On th...

One of the largest challenges in integrating large quantities of wind power into the grid is the variability in its power output. The fast ramping up or down of its power output can have negative c...

The residential buildings account for 22% of the U.S. primary energy consumption and 17% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission in 2011. Individual housing units are becoming more energy efficient in per...

Intellectual Merit      Electricity accounts for ~40% the energy consumed in the U.S. and most is derived from non-renewable resources including fossil and nuclear fuels.&nb...