Did you know that 79 percent of all plastics ever produced have accumulated in the natural environment or landfills? Two billion people live without any waste collection services at all. Sustainability is a global concern and it will take everyone doing their part to effect positive change. That change has to start right at home and in your communities! 

Focusing on Sustainability

Temple University's commitment to sustainability has a profound impact on the health and quality of life of a large and diverse population within Temple and its surrounding community. To reach its goals for sustainability, Temple University has made a commitment to examining decisions for their environmental impact. The expected outcome of these steps is the creation of a culture and expectation for environmental action at all levels. The Office of Sustainability's mission is to lead the integration of sustainability into Temple University's curriculum, research, culture, building design and campus operations.

Green Your Workspace

Little changes can play a big role in reducing your footprint and promoting sustainability in your workplace! To learn more, visit https://sustainability.temple.edu/.

Green Your Office Space

Take your office space to the next level by following this sustainability tips! To learn more, visit https://sustainability.temple.edu/.

Green Your Commute

Infusing a little sustainability into your commute is a great way to cut your carbon footprint and start each day on a green note! To learn more, visit https://sustainability.temple.edu/.

Green Your Team

Create a sustainable workplace culture by greening your team! Want more information? Check out https://sustainability.temple.edu/.

What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is the idea that we are able to develop as a society without compromising future generations from meeting their own needs. This video from Go Green Post provides an introduction to some of the concepts of sustainability. 

Three Types of Sustainability

This video from Carbon Radio explores three types of sustainability that all work hand-in-hand: Environmental Sustainability, Social Sustainability and Financial Sustainability. 

Sustainability in Every Day Life

In our day-to-day life we face small actions that can make a big difference for the environment. For example, LED bulbs consume less energy than conventional bulbs. Even covering the pot while cooking saves 25 percent of the energy used to cook something without a lid. In this video from ACCIONA, learn from basic types for how to live sustainably. 

Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.

Living within planetary boundaries is the most promising strategy for ensuring a healthy future. Human prosperity need not cost the earth. Living sustainably is about doing more and better with less. It is about knowing that rising rates of natural resource use and the environmental impacts that occur are not a necessary by-product of economic growth. Video presented by the UN Environment Programme. 

Jeff Speck: The Walkable City

How do we solve the problem of the suburbs? In this TedTalk by Urbanist Jeff Speck, he shows how we can free ourselves from dependence on the car - which he calls "a gas-belching, time-wasting, life-threatening prosthetic device" - by making our cities more walkable and more pleasant for more people.

Earth Day Great Global Cleanup

The Great Global Cleanup® is a worldwide campaign to remove billions of pieces of trash from neighborhoods, beaches, rivers, lakes, trails, and parks — reducing waste and plastic pollution, improving habitats, and preventing harm to wildlife and humans. This program aims to continue clean ups every day of the year for a brighter, greener, and cleaner planet. Where will you fit into the story of beautifying our world? Learn more from Earthday.org.

10 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day from Home

Every April 22, we celebrate Earth Day! At the Old Farmer's Almanac, we believe that caring for nature, plants, and the land is integral to our own health and that individual responsibility lies with each of us! Whether it’s a healing walk through the woods, picking up litter (while walking!), or buying more Earth-friendly products, here are 10 ways that you can help to care for your planet.

15 Things You Can Do to Protect the Earth

In honor of Earth Day, the Farmers' Almanac is providing 15 practical steps you can take toward living a more sustainable life while helping to protect the Earth. Learn about smart heating and cooling, reducing waste, eating green, and more!

Temple's Green Roofs

Temple's Office of Sustainability has provided some essential tips on how to "green" your life from your commute to your workspace (scroll above). How about greening your roof? Temple's campuses have a few vibrant examples to share! The Charles Library's green roof at Main Campus shows that sustainability starts from the top down.  The green roof was one of the factors in the library earning LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold certification.  

At the Temple Ambler Campus, the PECO Green Roof Garden, located atop the Intercollegiate Athletics Field House, is a biological community of plants and micro-organisms that provide an environmentally sound alternative to a traditional roof system. Green roofs utilize growing plants on rooftops, essentially replacing the vegetation that has been removed by the building construction. Green roofs are alive; a living biological community of plants and microorganisms growing in a lightweight medium that provide an opportunity to revitalize urban landscapes ecologically, economically and socially.

How Green Roofs Can Help Cities

NPR took a field trip to the largest green roof in New York City. Then they imagined what the city could be like if all of its roof space was green.

DIY Living: Green Roof Installation

In this video from EcoHome, discover the steps necessary to install a green roof and the benefits of doing so. 

How Do Solar Panels Work?

The Earth intercepts a lot of solar power: 173,000 terawatts. That’s 10,000 times more power than the planet’s population uses. So is it possible that one day the world could be completely reliant on solar energy? In this video from Ted-Ed, Richard Komp examines how solar panels convert solar energy to electrical energy.

Learn About Wind Farms

Did you know that we can create electricity using the wind? Super Simply Play and Caitie's Classroom takes us to a Wind Farm where we get to see just how the wind turbines spin and why this renewable resource is so important for having clean air to breathe and clean land to live on.

Reduce, Reuse and Recycle To Enjoy a Better Life

In this video from Happy Learning, the Earth would like a word with you - three of them actually - reduce, reuse and recycle!

Partnering to Improve Air Quality

Air pollution can come from many different sources. Industry, power plants, cars, and trucks—as well as many consumer products—all contribute to poor air quality. This means that everyone—businesses and consumers—contribute to the problem. Since air currents can carry pollutants great distances, millions of people are impacted by air pollution, making it our region’s largest environmental health risk.

The Air Quality Partnership (AQP) is a public/private coalition dedicated to improving air quality in the Greater Philadelphia Region by providing air quality advisories and educating the public about air quality issues. The AQP is administered by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. How can you help improve air quality and learn more about how the quality of the air affects you and the world around you? Here are a few helpful guides!

• Actions You Can Take

• Children and Air Quality

• Older Adults and Air Quality

• Your Business and Air Quality

• How Can Maintaining My Car Improve Air Quality?

• Electric Vehicle Resource Kit for Municipalities

Earth Day Live: Breaking Free From Plastics Dependence

In this program from earthday.org, a panel of experts talk about the dangers, challenges, and solutions of our plastics crisis.

E-Waste and Digital Equity with Temple University's Computer Recycling Center

E-waste has a poor reputation of disposal and improper management. Commonly being disposed of on streets, sidewalks,  in curbside collections, its life cycle never truly ends. E-waste ends up being stored in perpetuity, sent to landfills or to an incinerator and burned. These irresponsible and illegal methods of disposal put people, especially poor communities and communities of color, at risk of the negative health impacts associated with burning electronics. In this video, learn from Jonathan Latko, Director of the Temple Computer Recycling Center, on his recent initiative to bring digital equity to the North Philadelphia community. Read the full story here.

Today I Learned: We Waste One-Third of Food Worldwide

When you were a kid, your mom probably made you stay at the dinner table until you finished your peas. Most of us eventually gave in, swallowing the evil little green bits like pills with milk. It was torture at the time, but, according to National Geographic, mom had the right idea—and not just because peas are good for you.

Earth Day Live: We Throw it All Away

An earthday.org panel of food system experts discusses food waste, its impacts, and the solutions for healthier, planet-friendly diets.

What is Food Equity?

What is food equity? Food equity is the concept that all people have the ability and opportunity to grow and to consume healthful, affordable, and culturally significant foods. Food equity requires that food systems be democratically controlled and community stakeholders determine the policies that influence their food system. In this video from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, good food leaders from Michigan share their insights.

EPA’s EJ Screen Tool: A Webinar for Parents and Teachers

This webinar from the Environmental Protection Agency introduces parents and teachers to environmental justice and the mapping and screening tool EJSCREEN. In order to better meet the Agency’s responsibilities related to the protection of public health and the environment, EPA has developed a new environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN. It is based on nationally consistent data and an approach that combines environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports.

Farming for a Sustainable Future

Nothing is more precious to farmers than healthy soil. However, modern row-crop farming practices have degraded soil health and threaten America’s waterways. But there is hope. With support from The Nature Conservancy, the Soil Health Partnership, the Soil Health Institute and our many partners, increasingly America’s farmers are turning to key conservation practices that improve and maintain soil health—and keep excess fertilizers out of our waterways.

Learn About Urban Farming

By the end of the 20th century, nearly 80 percent of Americans lived in urban areas. And they no longer knew who grew their food. Then something happened. Across America, according to The Lexicon, an urban farming movement has begun. Whether it's on city rooftops, beside freeway off-ramps, in vacant lots, and even in their front yards, when people like Novella Carpenter in Oakland, California grow food in cities it reconnects them to where their food comes from.

Why We Should Be Urban Farming

We are running out of space for farmland and a third of all food that is produced is wasted. Ken Dunn has been called the greenest man in Chicago. In this video from The Good Stuff, he's on a crusade to turn our food waste into productive farmland - right in the middle of the city!

Growing Food in Small Urban Spaces

This video is the first in the Humans Who Grow Food and Rob Greenfield series. Humans Who Grow Food features stories of home gardeners, farmers and community gardens across borders and cultures.

A Farm on Wheels

How do you get fresh vegetables straight to the door of an urgan population - Truck Farm! Truck Farm is a Wicked Delicate film and food project. Combining green roof technology, organic compost and heirloom seeds, they are creating a living story about growing a little food in a big city. Each "episode" is a partial excerpt of a larger film project. You may find episode two here and episode three here.

What is Sustainable Agriculture?

What is Sustainable Agriculture? And How We Practice It? In agriculture, sustainability is a complex idea with many facets, including the economic (a sustainable farm should be a profitable business that contributes to a robust economy), the social (it should deal fairly with its workers and have a mutually beneficial relationship with the surrounding community), and the environment. Environmental sustainability in agriculture means good stewardship of the natural systems and resources that farms rely on.

Earth Day Live: Regenerative Agriculture

Better agriculture can save the world. In this program from earthday.org, learn how we can eat better, fight climate change, and support farmers by joining their panelists!

Losing the Dark

Starry skies are a vanishing treasure because light pollution is washing away our view of the cosmos. It not only threatens astronomy, it disrupts wildlife, and affects human health. This video from the International Dark-Sky Association introduces and illustrates some of the issues regarding light pollution, and suggests three simple actions people can take to help mitigate it.

Accelerating Innovation Through Public Participation

CitizenScience.gov is an official government website designed to accelerate the use of crowdsourcing and citizen science across the U.S. government. The site provides a portal to three key components: a catalog of federally supported citizen science projects from the U.S. Department of the Interior, NOAA, U.S. Forest Service, USDA, National Institutes of Health, a toolkit to assist federal practitioners with designing and maintaining their projects, and a gateway to a community of hundreds of citizen science practitioners and coordinators across government as called for in the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2016 (15 USC 3724). You can learn more about the activities of the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science in this two-page overview document.

An American Conservation Experience

Prior to arriving at Temple University, Mary Cortese - a Research Assistant with the Freestone Lab and the Temple Ambler Field Station and a Biology PhD student - spent three months with the American Conservation Experience (ACE) as a conservation corps member. During that time, she traveled around the Southeastern United States working on a variety of conservation projects. This video was taken during her last project, building a trail for Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. She shares some of her reflections about the experience. With ACE, Mary got to camp and explore outdoor spaces in her own backyard (of North Carolina). She travelled to five states and discovered so many places that she otherwise wouldn't have.

Disaster Dodgers: Introduction to Emergency Planning

This Federal Emergency Management Agency video teaches youth the difference between a disaster, emergency, and hazard. Children will also learn what types of emergencies to prepare for and what to do in order to prepare for them.

Neighborfest – Building Resilience from the Block Up!

In his PrepTalk for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Daniel Homsey shares his tools for building resilient communities at the neighborhood level and why empowering neighbors to help themselves is the best way to prepare your community for any disaster. Daniel Homsey is the Director of the Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN) for the City Administrator’s Office of the City of San Francisco. The NEN empowers residents to build and steward stronger, more resilient communities.

Learn about Lead from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Lead can be found in all parts of our environment – the air, the soil, the water, and even inside our homes. According to the U.S. EPA, much of our exposure comes from human activities including the use of fossil fuels including past use of leaded gasoline, some types of industrial facilities and past use of lead-based paint in homes. Lead and lead compounds have been used in a wide variety of products found in and around our homes, including paint, ceramics, pipes and plumbing materials, solders, gasoline, batteries, ammunition and cosmetics. Who is at risk, both children and adults.

Lead in Drinking Water

This video from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency outlines a program for schools and child care facilities that can help reduce lead in drinking water and protecting them from harmful effects. Learn more about the EPA's 3Ts program.

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