The University of Michigan is leading interdisciplinary curriculum and cutting-edge research programs around food security and human health, social equity, and environmental impact. U-M organizations are pioneering sustainable practices for the university community and building partnerships with people and organizations at every stage of the food system.
From analyzing the environmental benefits of diversified farming systems to understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food access, U-M experts are leading efforts to bring forward multidisciplinary, sustainable approaches. Some of our key initiatives in food include: the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative, the Campus Farm, the U-M Sustainable Food Program, and M Dining. U-M also offers an interdisciplinary community-academic partnership course, Food Literacy For All, which is open to the public. Find U-M experts in sustainability and environmental science, across fields and academic units.
This year’s theme was “Global Change and Its Consequences for Green Life,” and focused on the Direct and indirect impacts of environmental change on green life survival, reproduction, and distribution, how green life can buffer the impact of global change, evolutionary responses of green life to environmental change/stress, green life functional traits and their environmental correlates, and agroecology.
A U-M team, along with researchers and staff from Eastern Michigan University, Duke University and cleantech company 374Water, received $200,000 to fund research around converting lawn, garden and food waste from U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens into valuable products, as well as heat and energy for the gardens’ facilities.
U-M ecologists Ivette Perfecto and John Vandermeer examine competition among the ant community at a Puerto Rican coffee farm and the maintenance of species diversity there.
Instances of injustice lie everywhere—from workers’ rights violations to pollution that disproportionately harms low-income communities of color. The Erb Institute recently convened the workshop “Building Connections for Business, Sustainability & Justice Research,” bringing together scholars, corporate leaders and advocates to explore how research can inform solutions to pressing environmental, social and racial justice challenges.
The Dow Sustainability Fellows Program, administered by the Graham Sustainability Institute, will award over $800,000 in tuition and project funding in 2023. The funds will support more than 40 outstanding graduate students from ten University of Michigan (U-M) schools, colleges, and units, including two large student projects funded by Dow Distinguished Awards.
In the effort to reduce plastic waste in the restaurant industry—single-use takeout containers, specifically—U-M researchers compared the lifetime environmental impacts of single-use and reusable food containers. Their findings support the idea that the number of times a reusable takeout container gets used is a key factor impacting its sustainability performance.
