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Pitt Day of Giving Returns
Mark your calendars—Pitt Day of Giving will be taking place this year on Tuesday, February 22nd! Pitt Day of Giving is an annual 24-hour online fundraising event that gives alumni, students, faculty, staff, family, and friends the opportunity to support the programs at Pitt that mean the most to them. Your gift to Pitt has the potential to make an even further impact via Pitt Day of Giving’s challenge funds, which are awarded to areas that receive the most support from community members. This Day of Giving, please consider donating to help advance sustainability at Pitt and to continue making it an integral part of the University’s campus culture. There are five campaigns within the Pitt Sustainability umbrella that can be given to: the Office of Sustainability Initiatives, the Pitt Green Fund, the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, the Center for Sustainable Business, and the Collaboratory for Water Research, Outreach, and Education. To learn more, view the Pitt Sustainability video below, or visit the Pitt Day of Giving website here. Thank you for helping sustainability continue to thrive at Pitt!
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2022 Pitt Sustainability Award Nominations Now Open
Nominations Due February 18
Since 2015, the Pitt Sustainability Awards have recognized students, faculty, staff, and groups at the University who, through their initiatives, leadership, or other actions, have striven to create a lasting impact within one or more of the Pitt Sustainability Plan’s three primary categories—Stewardship, Exploration, and Community and Culture—and have helped Pitt’s sustainability values flourish throughout campus. In addition to the Awards, the Student Sustainability Champion recognition, which was first introduced in 2021, will be utilized to acknowledge graduating students—both graduate and undergraduate—who have demonstrated their dedication and initiative to Pitt Sustainability’s efforts and objectives both on campus and in their community. Nominations for the Pitt Sustainability Awards will be open through February 18th and can be submitted here. The Awardees and Student Champions will be recognized during the Sustainability Symposium on Friday, April 21st.
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2020 GHG Inventory: Pitt On Track for Carbon Neutrality
Pitt Sustainability has released the University’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory for the 2020 fiscal year. The report gave a positive outlook for Pitt’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2037; greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by 31.9% in comparison to the 2008 fiscal year, and have been reduced by 13.6% since the 2019 fiscal year. Some highlights include a 6.5% decrease in campus-wide electricity use since the 2019 fiscal year, despite the campus being expanded by almost 82,000 square feet. In addition, the University’s paper-attributed emissions shrank to a mere 0.27%—the lowest it has ever been. Completed by PhD student Jessica Vaden with the assistance of MCSI’s Melissa Bilec, this is the sixth Greenhouse Gas Inventory that the University has released. This inventory has also proven to be instrumental to the development of the Pitt Climate Action Plan, which is expected to be released this year. The full 2020 report and reports from previous years can be found here.
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Sustainably-Grown Greens Coming to On-Campus Dining
 Pitt Eats has recently partnered with a local company, Fifth Season, to provide students, faculty, and staff with fresh, locally grown greens at on-campus dining locations.
Founded by two Carnegie Mellon University graduates, Fifth Season’s indoor, fully-automated, and human-free growing facilities are located in Braddock—seven miles southeast of downtown Pittsburgh. The brand has also begun selling prepackaged salads at the University-affiliated grocery store, Forbes Street Market. This partnership not only provides the University with fresh products such as spinach and lettuce, but also upholds its sustainability goals; Fifth Season’s growing process uses 97% less land and up to 95% less water than traditional growing methods. Combined with reduced transportation emissions due to the farm’s close proximity, it is clear that this partnership will benefit both the University’s dining program and create progress within the Pitt Sustainability Plan. To learn more, read the Pitt News article here.
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“Having Pitt Sustainability, and having centers like MCSI and the Center for Sustainable Business…provides guidance, education, and…opportunities to get involved.”
-William Sapon, M.B.A. 2017
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William Sapon
Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.),
Strategy & Operations — 2017
William Sapon—an alumni of the Katz Graduate School of Business—is dedicated to improving sustainability in more ways than one. A key leader in the sustainability efforts of Peoples Natural Gas, an Essential Utilities Company, a board member of both the Pitt Business Alumni Association and Pittsburgh Region Clean Cities, and a vital figure to the foundation of Pitt’s Center for Sustainable Business, Sapon is using his passion for energy and the environment to transform the Pittsburgh region in multiple aspects.
Sapon, who aspired to work in the energy sector for a large portion of his life, first became interested in sustainability during a hiking trip in Central America. After encountering villages without access to power or running water, he recalls realizing that the utilization of renewable power methods would be essential in providing sustainable, reliable, affordable, and resilient infrastructure in such areas. This recognition is still apparent in his efforts today: currently, Sapon is an integral part of Essential Utilities’ mission to create and promote more sustainable infrastructure, assisting in projects such as reducing the company’s Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 60% from their 2019 baseline and establishing the Pittsburgh International Airport’s current microgrid, which is fully powered by natural gas and solar energy.
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Covestro LLC to Establish New Program at Pitt
Covestro LLC has partnered with the University of Pittsburgh to create the Covestro Circular Economy Program. It is the first graduate program of its kind in the United States to specifically address global waste and its reduction via the re-use of materials. The program will not only give students the opportunity to study circular economy principles and provide them with the tools to establish circular, sustainable products and services, but will also create opportunities for research, education, and innovation within the circular economy field. The program, set to begin in the fall of 2022, will be housed at the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation and the Swanson School of Engineering. The full press release can be found here.
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MCSI Faculty Fellow Receives Provost Award
Bob Kerestes, an assistant professor at the
Swanson School of Engineeri ng and a faculty
fellow of the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation, was recently awarded the Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum. This honor recognizes outstanding efforts to incorporate equity, diversity, and inclusion into preexisting courses and curricula. Kerestes provided a more engaging environment to his students within his course on electromagnetics by enabling
teamwork, gamification, and diversity and inclusion practices. View the full Pittwire article
here to learn more.
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Announcing the First Green Speakeasy of 2022
 The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation is pleased to announce its first Green Speakeasy of 2022, which will feature Sundaa Bridgett-Jones, an alumna of Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and the Chief Partnerships & Advocacy Officer of The Rockefeller Foundation. In this talk, she will discuss how the Global Energy Alliance for People and the Planet, an initiative operated by The Rockefeller Foundation, aims to sustainably increase energy access in low- and middle-income countries while simultaneously creating jobs. The presentation will be held virtually on February 22nd from 4:00 to 5:30. Those interested can learn more about the event here and register to attend here. More information about MCSI’s past Green Speakeasy events can be found here.
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Looking for a Role with the PWC?
 The Pittsburgh Water Collaboratory is currently looking for a full-time Research Analyst for a project involving the construction of water quality databases for rivers and reservoirs in the Ohio River Basin using satellite imaging. The primary roles of this position are to build workflows for remote sensing image analysis and to create interactive data visualizations for stakeholders and public use. The preferred start date for this position is between April and August of 2022. Click here for more details, including the position's necessary qualifications and application instructions.
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Thank you so much for reading.
See you in the Spring!
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