Opportunities and Challenges on the Way to Sustainability March 2, 2011

With the ever growing pressure to decrease our dependence on natural resources, The Cooper Union Institute for Sustainable Design recognizes the immediate need to challenge the status quo and provide a platform for engaging environmental speakers such as international expert Dr. Alexander J.B. Zehnder, who will speak on Wednesday, March 2 at 6:30pm in The Great Hall of The Cooper Union. Zehnder, scientific director of the Alberta Water Research Institute, is renowned for his cutting edge successes in both sustainability research and in turning sustainability from an academic hope into a business reality. He played a key role in designing the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, marking the first global indexes dedicated to tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide. The goal of the initiative is to help guide investors in the long term implications of their investment decisions.

As founder and director of the Sustainable Performance Group, the largest sustainable investment fund in Europe, Zehnder is a co-creator of the 2000 Watt Society, a vision where each person in the developed world would cut their over-all rate of energy use to an average of no more than 2,000 watts by the year 2050. This approach has been adopted by Zurich as the long term guide to its energy management.

The Jack & Lewis Rudin Charles E. Schaffner distinguished lecture series was established by Jack and Lewis Rudin, two of New York’s illustrious business and civic leaders, in honor of Cooper Union alumnus Charles E. Schaffner, a civil engineering graduate of 1941. Topics in the speakers address the larger interdisciplinary impact of technology and science both nationally and internationally

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a distinguished private college of architecture, engineering and art founded in 1859 by Peter Cooper, an inventor, industrialist and philanthropist. Since its establishment, all admitted undergraduate students have received full-tuition scholarships.

Official Website: http://www.cooper.edu