Throughout the day-long Northwestern Sustainability lecture series on May 1, a common theme emerged: the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration and partnership in making progress toward climate and sustainability objectives. At the event, nearly 200 attendees heard from six speakers from around the world with specialties in energy, climate and the environment, and urban transformations.
The first presentation was made by Doug Aitken, Ph.D., General Manager, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland. According to Aitken, the average cellphone uses up to 64 elements in its production. Many precious metals for products like these are gathered from well-established sites in “mining countries” like Australia, which maintains over 350 mines across the country. Still others are harvested from rapidly developing markets like that of northern Chile, where the Atacama Desert region’s characteristic water scarcity is a serious barrier to efficient and sustainable extraction.
The rapid production and replacement of commodities—like cellphones, batteries, and thousands of other applications global society has found for these precious minerals—has introduced waste, energy, and resource challenges in the communities where mining resides.
Sustainable critical mineral management and collection is a symbol of the full-circle, waterfall nature of sustainability issues. Attendees learned that environmental challenges rarely stay within their silos. Rather, they spill into whole economies, ecosystems, and communities that transcend the borders of nations, whether it be for better or for worse.
Alessandro Rotta Loria, Trienens Institute faculty affiliate and Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, launched the lecture series’ inaugural edition in 2022, this year hosting an audience comprised of future scientists, journalists, and policymakersThe 2024 event was sponsored by the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy, The Alumnae of Northwestern, and the Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience.
“I was inspired by environment we have here at Northwestern, the diversity of perspectives—I knew we could challenge each other and enrich the overall educational environment with an event like this,” said Rotta Loria, who designed the agenda to complement the attendees’ diversity of interests. The speakers were:
Trienens Institute faculty affiliates Jennifer Dunn; professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Director, Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience, and Yarrow Axford, William Deering Professor in Geological Sciences, each moderated sections of the day. Dunn reunited with Doug Aitken, executive director, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland, who she has previously worked with to explore the role of critical minerals and mining in the energy transition.
"What we’re really aiming to do is break these vicious cycles, and build virtuous cycles instead,” said Aitken during his talk. Latin America—Chile, in particular—boasts the largest lithium and copper reserves in the world but faces resource scarcity that restricts efficient and sustainable extraction. In Chile, Aiken said, each mining site has begun to build its own desalinization plant, which requires a huge amount of energy, resources, and emissions. Instead, desalinization plants can be shared, serving not only nearby mines, but providing reliable freshwater to the communities they neighbor. Ideas like this one, yielded by considering not only individual pieces of a structure but by viewing challenges and opportunities from a perspective of a fully integrated environment, may be one way to transform industries from vicious to virtuous in the long-term.
Kim Cobb, Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES), presented her own images of Pacific coral reef structures she’s studied for the last 30 years, highlighting the effects of climate change on reef mortality. True to the spirit of the event, Cobb encouraged the crowd to transcend their respective fields in their pursuit of a climate-stable planet.
“Science communication and public engagement are key areas when we talk about a transdisciplinary machine,” Cobb said during her talk, “Going ‘All In’ – Activating for Climate Solutions in a Warming World,” which was moderated by Axford. “Students should push themselves to broaden their views and learn more widely about the ecosystem in which we work.”
For more information on this year’s Northwestern Sustainability Lecture Series, visit its event page. Subscribe to the Trienens Institute’s monthly newsletter to stay up to date on upcoming events, including next year’s installment of the lecture series.