Cities, and specifically the energy they consume, are at the forefront of the sustainability challenges we face. Energy consumption creates significant environmental, health and social impacts including increased temperatures, pollution and high energy costs in an ever carbon constrained world. The concept of sustainability has emerged from a global political process that has tried to bring together, simultaneously, the most powerful needs of our time: (1) the need for economic development to overcome poverty; (2) the need for environmental protection of our air, water, soil and biodiversity, upon which we all ultimately depend; and (3) the need for social justice and cultural diversity to enable communities to express their values in solving these issues (Newman and Ken worthy, 1999, p. 4) Over 50 percent of the world’s population currently lives in cities, and the trend suggests drastic increases (Grimm et al., 2008). As universities and colleges create and implement campus sustainability plans, the irrespective cities and communities can benefit when these knowledge gains are shared.
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