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Interviews at Emerson: Michael Tucker
By Katie Koenig Nowadays, we toss the word ‘sustainability’ around a lot without defining exactly what we’re talking about. It’s an incredibly broad term, which I suppose is one of the reasons we use it so often. Still, it can be hard to figure out what sustainability is and how to practice it on a…
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Day in the Life 3: What Are LEED Certifications?
Emerson is LEED certified—yay! Wonderful! We love accreditations! …But what does that actually mean? The U.S. Green Building Council can certify any building with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. It’s a “globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement,” ensuring that the building is cost-saving, energy efficient, and offers additional environmental benefits. There are…
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Day in the Life 2: Voluntary Carbon Market
By: Katie Koenig In my last post, I mentioned doing research on other universities’ carbon offset strategies for Emerson to create its own. What I didn’t explain was the background for why so many universities have turned to offsetting their emissions in the first place. Starting in the ‘90s, the voluntary carbon market (VCM) began…
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Day in the Life 1: What Does Carbon Neutrality Actually Mean?
By: Katie Koenig Officially, I’m the Research Sustainability Fellow at Emerson College. Functionally, that means I spend a lot of time on my computer, figuring out the most efficient way to word google queries to find the exact internet pages and websites I need for my current projects. Not a lot of my work is…
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Kasteel Well 6: Flying Home
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig With the hindsight of winter break, it’s a lot easier to pinpoint the things that really worked out for move out and the flight back to Boston, and the things that really didn’t. For starters, I was so glad I had so little to pack during finals weekend—a weird…
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Kasteel Well 5: Buying in Bruges
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig As the end of the semester crept closer for us Castle students, some friends and I were determined to get in some kind of holiday cheer as a last hurrah before the abysmal weeks of finals and finals prep were upon us. Although the first snow in Kasteel was…
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Kasteel Well 4: Second Excursion and Learning Limits
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Our second academic excursion seemed to arrive faster than a single blink. One second, I was tallying up all my assignments for the three weeks before midterms, and the next I’m a full week past our travel break and it feels like I never had a break in the…
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Kasteel Well 3: Independent Travel and Brussels
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Traveling alone is a daunting task, made even harder when in a completely different country that speaks a different primary language than you. Help from Castle staff and buddying up with peers makes it easier, but there are innumerable considerations to take into account, and adding sustainable methods of…
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Kasteel Well 2: Travel Tips and First Excursion
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Finally, onto the actual travel advice! Even if you aren’t staying at the castle, I’ll try and keep my tips applicable to general travel as well, even just for students that have to travel far to get to and from the main campus each semester. Amsterdam Excursion To give…
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Tech Series 6: Energy Storage
By Sustainability Research Fellow Katie Koenig Part 1: Renewable Energy Storage Introducing Power Plants Electricity acts like the air that we breathe, or the water we drink—it’s that important to our day-to-day lives. Even a short blackout can send entire communities into haywire. Power plants, by extension, are vital to the functioning of our lives.…
