The University of Michigan is leading research, analyzing new technologies, and convening and expanding programs and partnerships around critical topics pertaining to sustainable business practices, environmental policy and climate action, and emerging economic trends.
From helping Michigan communities plan for renewable energy use to examining the broader discourse between climate change and national politics, U-M experts are assessing innovative environmental policies, business practices, and economic trends. Some of our key partnerships and initiatives include: the Erb Institute, the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy, the Urban Collaboratory, and the Urban Energy Justice Lab (UEJ). Find U-M experts in sustainability and environmental science, across fields and academic units.
Private sector initiatives may be the key to spurring climate action across the political spectrum, particularly among moderates and conservatives. That finding is based on new research by Kaitlin Raimi, an assistant professor at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy, and her colleagues that has been published in Energy Research & Social Science.
The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) was established by President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad to fulfill his and Vice President Harris's commitment to confronting long standing environmental injustices and to ensuring that historically marginalized and polluted, overburdened communities have greater input on federal policies and decisions.
The University of Michigan will immediately shift its natural resources investments to focus more on renewable energy, stop investing in funds primarily focused on certain fossil fuels and discontinue direct investments in publicly traded companies that are the largest contributors to greenhouse gases.
The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality at the University of Michigan has submitted its final report, which contains recommendations to help the university achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The report includes 50 recommendations that U-M could take to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses.
Co-producing climate information improves Great Lakes cities' adaptation to climate change, but how can these partnerships be sustained long-term? One successful model, according to a Gala learning case, is through the Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network (GLCAN), which has linked a number of organizations together to provide Great Lakes cities with the information they need to adapt.
As robots and autonomous systems are poised to become part of our everyday lives, the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Company are opening a one-of-a-kind facility where they’ll develop robots and roboticists that help make lives better, keep people safer and build a more equitable society.
