Patel College of Global Sustainability

So this week during my internship has been pretty slow. We are at a standstill waiting for the paper work for a warehouse to go through, but hopefully we will get the ok to move in to our new place next week. We have been thinking about how we are going to decorate our new office space. Ideas of a bean bag room with a wii have been communicated. A nap room for those days that just drag on. Also an on campus raised garden to allow us to get outside for a little while. It has been exciting to discuss, but I think we are all ready to finally move in.

I also explored downtown Melbourne this week and I was just blown away by all the unique architecture that there is. It is a mixture between ornate older buildings with new modern ones and it somehow worked so well. It was also nice to not see any cookie cutter complexes or skyscrapers like we have so many of back in the states. There was just so much to look at and it was all so beautiful. I also went to the aquarium which was a nice change. I hope the weather stays nice so that I can have a chance to explore the zoo during the upcoming week. I can’t believe how much time has gone by already and all the things that I would like to do while I am here. I will definitely have to come back to explore it all and more of Australia!

I hope you enjoy the architecture like I did,

Ashley

Old and New Architecture

Old Melbourne Hotel

Veteran's Monument at Royal Botanical Gardens

Obscure Window Patterns

Geometric Patterned Building

Modern Office Complex

Melbourne Aquarium

Emperor Penguin

I found Nemo!

Amazon River Turtle

Week 4 Submission

Greetings USF Sustainability  Enthusiasts.
This past week marked my first week in Norway! The first phase of my
research included three weeks focusing on the capabilities,
techniques, and sustainable approaches for mobility in Central
Europe. During my time, I experienced record rainfall.  Flooding was
a major concern in Austria as many people were evacuated from their
homes in certain areas. It practically rained every single day where
I was, seeing the sun only two or three times during my entire stay.
To my surprise, the public transportation system, through
electromobility, was unaffected.

Now, in Scandinavia I will execute phase two (the final phase) and study three total weeks comparing and contrasting the similarities-differences. Thus far I am astonished to
find a larger amount of smart cars, with many incentives to purchase
intelligent transportation vehicles. During my time studying at the
University of Oslo three years ago, I learned Norway is an oil rich
country, but not an oil dependent country. Utilizing this resource to
stimulate their economy, instead of fueling it, you can expect to pay
estimated 8 (USD) per gallon at the pump. Meanwhile it is very
expensive to own a  car due to an endless amount of taxes, an all
access public transportation card is very affordable (especially for
students, while priced around 60 (USD)). There are many factors that
I look forward to researching and including in my report such as the
cost of living, average income, GDP, geography, incentives, taxes,
sustainable lifestyles, etc. I believe my findings in Central Europe
combined with Northern Europe will offer a broader spectrum and point
of view to European mobility.

This week our main goal at ettitude was to find a suitable warehouse and office space. We are drawing near to our deadline to move and things have been getting a little stressful. However, on Friday, we have hit the warehouse jackpot. Myself, the owner, and her VP toured a great warehouse. There was a little hick up though, it was next to a coffin supplier. lol. It was very unexpected when they brought one out to their van because we all thought it was a furniture warehouse. Other than that though, the warehouse was perfect for our operations and room to add more employees in the future.

We were also lucky enough to pass 2 more warehouses in the same area that were for lease and one of the agents was in the area and let us do a walk through of our ideal location. It was brand new with finished concrete as well as great office and reception areas. They also utilized some green construction during building which was great to hear. We are hoping to hear from the landlord on Monday if they approved our offer so  we can move in right away. It is a very exciting time for the business so we can receive larger shipments from our supplier as well as adding new product lines because we will be able to house them properly.

I am enjoying my time here at La Hacienda de la Norma very much. During the past few days I have been conducting interviews in the local community including the homeowner Nuri who lives on the farm. Nuri lives off of the land mostly and has chickens, ducks, and horses from her backyard. Each week she makes fresh cheese called cuhada from the cows milk produced on-site. There are about 38 horses here and even more cows. When asked what Nuri sees for the future of the Hacienda and Pura Aventura, the eco-tourism business across the street from her home, she said she wants more tourism! I think Nuri and her husband, who manages the ranch operations, Diolis Matarrita, realize that if it wasn’t for the canopy and horseback riding tours the property they reside on might not be able to sustain itself environmentally or economically.

As a result, the Hacienda is making more efforts to become sustainable with the help of Americans Peter and Mareka Lawson who manage the tourism side of the ranch. Global Sustainability student, Tony Pooley, has also been a great assest to the two property managers’ plan to construct a composting greenhouse and a half-acre garden. The garden has hopes to produce mangos, bananas, lemons, oranges, and herbs like thyme, rosemary, and basil. Their goal is to supply food for both the Lawson and Matarrita households as well as the café where many tourists as well as employees enjoy breakfasts, lunches, and mid-day snacks.

Adios, Toni

Week 5 included a trip to Capachica which is a península that juts into Lake Titicaca.  This was an attempt to see a different part of the Puno region.  This part is a bit more of a broad high plain that ends to the east in a small beach along the lacustrine edge of Lake Titicaca.  I was accompanied by another student, Melissa, who is an undergraduate anthropology student with the University of the Altiplano here in Puno.  She is doing her summer internship with my host institution, registering guinea pigs, conducting guinea pig raising workshops, and administering surveys with local women involved in this program to raise guinea pigs.  This was a great trip because while we worked with mostly Aymara communities in Vilquechico, we visited Melissa’s grandparents in Capachica, and they are of Quechua origin.  I got the distinct pleasure of watching a new generation interact and relax with the old generation, the whole time speaking in their native language, Quechua.  I also observed similar subsistence farming practices and baby pigs!! 

I also visited two government offices, wanting to learn more about different coping strategies in the Puno region with regards to climate change, subsistence farming and water management, and what these all have to do with local beliefs, norms and attitudes.  I had an excellent meeting with the regional government of Puno, in the office of the Environment, natural resources, and biodiversity conservation.  We discussed their 2010-2014 strategy for climate change and their 2010-2014 strategy for biodiversity conservation.  In summary, their strategy is based on the concept of ecosystem services.  They really seem to ‘have their ducks in a row’ because when I asked them how they integrate local norms, beliefs and attitudes into their strategic planning, they responded that they have various technical teams that weigh in on the strategic planning with these concerns.  And these teams are made up of experts from local NGOs who have on the ground experience.  This includes an NGO that I visited called Chuyma Aru, whose objective is to remind new generations of their ancestors’ practices, traditional ecological knowledge and rituals.  The main goal is to re-value and rebuild sustainable practices for a better future.  I think there is a split down the middle of local NGOs though.  Some think that social change towards this goal is impossible and others think that it has to happen.  This is my observation through talking to various NGO practitioners. 

This week I went to Cala Cala which is a small community in the District of San Antonio de Putina, located at a higher elevation than anywhere I have been so far, to see a vicuña management and conservation area.  I wanted to see this because most people in this area do both agricultural work and some type of raising of livestock.  The vicuña is a South American camelid that was close to becoming extinct in the 1960s until the governments of Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina banded together and decided to embark upon a remarkable program of species recovery and conservation. The vicuña lives at altitudes between 3900 m.s.l. and 4900 m.s.l.  so they take advantage of altiplano pastures in which very few other species can survive.  According to national law in Peru now the indigenous communities living at these altitudes have usufruct rights over the fiber of the vicuña which is the most luxurious fiber in the world and fetches a price of $600 per kilo for finished spun fiber.  These communities have regained the capacity of the chaco, which is a yearly round up using people and motorcycles to push the animals into corrals for a day and a half during which the animals with appropriate length of fiber are shorn and released.  The chaco is actually an ancient Inca and pre-Inca practice that has been re-valued and re-discovered as part of a modern sustainable management practice promoted by the national and regional government. 

Sand dunes on the coast in Port Stephens, Australia.

Australia’s Green Building Council (GBCA) uses Green Star as a third party green building certification system.  I was asked yesterday how the U.S. compares to Australia’s advancement in sustainable initiatives and I was pleasantly surprised that for me it was not a clear cut answer pinning the U.S. against a wall.  The U.S., as one of if not the biggest contributor to global warming, can be easily criticized for not doing enough to reverse the effects of irresponsible use of products and chemicals in various industries that harm our environment, irresponsible management of water, energy and waste disposal, no federal initiatives to offset carbon emissions or national scale recycling initiatives … and the list can go on.  Certainly plenty of other countries can be criticized for this too, but many around the world look to us to assess our response when predicaments, such as climate change, arise.

Just about a two hour drive from the central business district in Sydney lies the Blue Mountains, one of Australia's gorgeous works of art.

All this said Green Star was founded in 2002 which when compared to the USGBC’s LEED system (founded in 2000) is only a couple of years behind.  One big disadvantage in Green Star, agreed on by those familiar with the system, is that assessing how well the buildings perform after they are certified was in the past not given enough importance.  I attended an exposition on all things buildings, the Total Facilities Expo, in which one of the main focuses was on sustainability and many exhibitors were advertising building management systems and services that monitor energy use (among other things).  So, the industry is moving in that direction.  This is untimely and unfortunate for my research study as it makes it heaps more difficult to obtain energy efficiency performance data for case studies.  The good thing for the GBCA?  They are releasing a new rating system this year that will certify buildings based on their performance after a 12 month period and hopefully the results from using this tool will be made public and used to role model what smart building design can accomplish.

This week went by quickly. Not until the weekend was it nice weather. Oh and what perfect timing as Friday-Sunday was the 16th annual Vegan Mania Festival which took place on Mariahilfer Street (Vienna). Taking the opportunity to spend my time there, I was in search to network with fellow transportation enthusiasts. I did not find what I initially sought after, but I did meet animal rights enthusiasts, food conservationists, and ocean preservationists. It was definitely a beautiful experience with live entertainment. Almost everyone speaks English so communication is hardly ever a problem. Austria is a central location for sustainable entrepreneurs. People are eco friendly, and have the means to pay for higher quality and more sustainable products. The festival offered an array of bio products and foods that attracted a very large crowd all weekend. Austrians appear to love to be outside at any opportunity when the sun is out. Especially this year, after having an especially long winter I think everyone was outside.

For more information from the Vegan Mania Festival- http://www.veganmania.at/2013/wien.htm