Creating a Sustainable Earth: An MIT Research, Teaching, and Public Service Initiative for Understanding, Restoring and Managing the Environment A Report by the Committee to Assess Environmental Activities at MIT

The Committee to Assess Environmental Activities at MIT was chartered to recommend a way forward in coordinating and expanding the scope of environmental activities at the Institute. Currently, there is an impressive array of outstanding research and educational endeavors that span all schools, but lack of coordination results in low visibility and the perception of sub-critical mass, and at an institutional level MIT is not viewed as being among the leaders in this field. MIT’s commitment to the environment, and the related area of sustainability, must emphasize the integration of its research, practice, and teaching strengths across the Institute. The Committee recommends a shared vision to unite environmental studies: Creating a Sustainable Earth: An MIT Research, Teaching, and Public Service Initiative for Understanding, Restoring and Managing the Environment. This initiative will involve the breadth of MIT in understanding the environment and using this increased knowledge to design a sustainable future. Positioning this initiative for success will require a new organizational structure that must be at once “top down”, ensuring buy-in from the senior Administration, and “bottom up”, enabling faculty members to claim ownership. Environmental activities should be integrated to the extent possible with the Energy Initiative, to maximize intellectual synergies. By organizing optimally and expanding appropriately, MIT will greatly enhance its ability to provide a breadth of balanced scientific, technical, economic and policy analyses on issues relating the environment and sustainability and their relationship to energy