Management consultants often urge their clients to view setbacks or difficulties as opportunities. The cost of reducing environmental impacts are often cited as one such “opportunity”.

But a global study from consultancy BCG and MIT Sloan Management Review has shown that companies are increasingly putting this advice into practice and succeeding in getting the returns.

The study is based on a survey of 2,600 executives and managers from companies around the world and found that the number of companies achieving a profit from introducing changes aimed at making their business more sustainable rose 23 percent last year, to 37 percent of the total.

Nearly half of the companies have changed their business models to try to make the most of sustainability opportunities—a 20 percent jump over last year.

To read more, click here.

The institutions are ranked on many factors including reputation for excellence among peer institutions, faculty credentials, student satisfaction as measured by retention and graduation rates, accreditation, and academic and career support services offered to students.

To read more, click here.

State regulators celebrated the results of California’s first-ever auction of greenhouse gas emission permits, declaring the long-awaited kickoff to the nation’s first effort to put a price on carbon pollution a success.

The state did not disclose how many companies participated in the historic auction. But there were three times as many bidders than buyers, a sign that the business community is taking the new carbon market seriously. A ton of carbon sold for $10.09 at the auction, just slightly above the $10 floor price established by regulators, according to data released by the California Air Resources Board.

More important, all of the 23.1 million permits offered at the auction to cover 2013 emissions were purchased, raising $233 million and calming fears that the market would be under-subscribed.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

To read more, click here.

Andrew Light is associate professor of philosophy and environmental policy, and director of the Center for Global Ethics at George Mason University. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. A globally recognized environmental ethicist – specializing in the ethical dimensions of environmental policy, restoration ecology, and, more recently, climate change – he has authored, co-authored and edited 17 books on environmental ethics, philosophy of technology, and aesthetics, including Environmental Values (2008), Reel Arguments: Film, Philosophy and Social Criticism (Westview 2003), The Aesthetics of Everyday Life (2005), Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice (2003), Technology and the Good Life (2000), and Environmental Pragmatism (1996).

Light is also co-editor of the journal Ethics, Place, and Environment and serves on the editorial boards of Environmental Ethics, Environmental Values, Ecological Restoration, Philosophical Practice, and Theoria. He is currently finishing a book on the ethics of restoration ecology in a changing climate.

Juliet Eilperin, a born-and-bred Washingtonian, graduated in 1992 magna cum laude from Princeton University where she received a bachelor’s in Politics with a certificate in Latin American Studies. In the fall of 1992 she went to Seoul, South Korea on a Luce Scholarship, which allowed her to cover politics and economics for an English-language magazine. Returning to Washington, Ms. Eilperin wrote for Louisiana and Florida papers at States News Service and then joined Roll Call newspaper after the Republicans took control of Congress in 1994. In March 1998 she joined The Washington Post as its House of Representatives reporter, where she covered the impeachment of Bill Clinton, lobbying, legislation, and several national congressional campaigns.

Since April of 2004 she has covered the environment for the national desk, reporting on science, policy and politics in areas including climate change, oceans, and air quality. She covered the 2008 presidential race, traveling with GOP nominee John McCain and his vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, while continuing to serve as the Post’s national environmental reporter.

In the spring of 2005 she served as the youngest-ever McGraw Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, teaching political reporting to a group of undergraduate and graduate students. In the spring of 2006 Rowman & Littlefield published her first book, “Fight Club Politics: How Partisanship is Poisoning the House of Representatives,” which was featured on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross.” Ms. Eilperin’s new book, “Demon Fish: Travels Through the World With Sharks,” was published by Pantheon in June, and has been featured on NPR’s “Weekend Edition Saturday” as well as in People, Smithsonian and Popular Science magazines.

“For a small school, we have an impressive number of success stories,” says Jennifer Sellers, assistant professor of psychology and Academic Awards Coordinator. “We also help students identify scholarships, fellowships and awards that give them outstanding credentials and the skills and experience they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”

Here is an updated list of students participating in internships or REUs this summer:

Lan Tran – Internship, New York University
Brad Loomis – REU, Field Museum in Chicago
Emma Lord – REU, Western Kentucky
Lara Baxter – Internship, Boston Aquarium Internship
Kristina Seitler – REU, Dartmouth College
Alexandra Hilliard – REU, Miami University in Ohio
Jacqueline Caster – Internship, National Seashore Cape Cod Intern in Sea Turtle and Marine Mammal Rescue
Kim Barret – Internship, Vermont Parks
Nelson Villa-Santana- REU, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratories
Sean McNamara- REU, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

One big surprise occurred during the presentation of degrees when Army staff sergeant Erich Schmidt appeared on stage to hand Chanleigh Casey of Granville, N.Y. her diploma. Casey’s father is serving in Kuwait and could not be present at the ceremony, so Schmidt, a long-time family friend, was there to greet the delighted graduate.

Speaker Majora Carter, a notable entrepreneur and community organizer, charged students to work hard toward equality in their chosen field. The youngest of ten children growing up in the South Bronx, Carter graduated from Bronx High School of Science, studied film at Wesleyan University, and received an MFA from New York University in 1997. She began volunteering for a youth development and arts organization and secured a $10,000 grant to provide seed money for river access restoration projects along the Bronx River on land dominated by blighted post-industrial landscape.

Working with other community groups, corporate neighbors, and the New York City Parks and Recreation department, Carter leveraged the grant into over $3.27 million in funding to build Hunts Point Riverside Park.

Carter later founded and led Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), a non-profit organization dedicated to economic and environmental development under the guiding principle: “You shouldn’t have to leave your neighborhood to live in a better one.”
Also receiving an honorary degree was Cornelius “Con” Hogan of Plainfield, who served as Vermont secretary of human services from 1991 to 1999 and as commissioner for the Department of Corrections from 1977 to 1979. He is also a member of the Green Mountain Care Board, which is charged with oversight of health care policy in the state.

Student speaker Elizabeth Cerezo, a cum laude graduate majoring in psychology from Puerto Rico, described the past four years as an exercise in building a new family. Cerezo recently received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and has been accepted into a Ph.D. program in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Washington.