Portland State University was recently awarded a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation in support of their cutting-edge graduate training program: Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions (ESUR). Given the US BCSD’s strong focus on Ecosystem Services and Ecosystem valuation methods, we’re please to see such a strong academic program gaining national support.

The ESUR grant is part of NSF’s flagship Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program for interdisciplinary education of Ph.D. scientists and engineers. This is the first IGERT awarded to Portland State University, and the first nationwide to focus on issues that arise from the pressures placed on ecosystem services by rapidly urbanizing areas.

Portland and other fast-growing urban areas around the globe face two opposing pressures—rising resource demands and the declining capacity of natural ecosystems to support their populations,” says the grant’s principal investigator, David E. Ervin, professor of economics and environmental management and a Sustainability Fellow at Portland State University. “This IGERT program will train the next generation of leaders to create innovative solutions that protect and improve natural ecosystems vital to the resilience of our high-growth urban regions.

At the same time, urban areas now comprise 50 percent of the world’s population for the first time in history, and are projected to reach 70 percent by 2050. Burgeoning urban centers compromise these natural life support systems, increasing pressure on surrounding and more distant ecosystems, and often forcing more expensive man-made replacements.

The Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions program integrates economics, environmental science, engineering, geosciences, urban studies and planning, business administration and social sciences to understand the complex roles that ecosystem services play in supporting rapidly urbanizing areas of the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Click here to read the full press release.

US BCSD member Cook Composites and Polymers Co. (CCP) was recently highlighted in the WBCSD’s monthly publication Sustain #32, focusing on Business & Biodiversity.

“On its industrial site in Houston, US, Cook Composites and Polymers Co. (CCP) is faced with frequent storms and associated flooding. To reduce exposure to the flooding and its financial consequences, CCP supported by the US BCSD has weighed the options of either building a new storm water storage tank or restoring a small degraded adjacent wetland.

The wetland restoration option proved to be the most cost-effective solution and plant biodiversity is expected to increase by approximately 30 species. As part of the ongoing restoration activities, CCP is also engaging the local community thereby strengthening its social license to operate.” (p. 28, Sustain #32)

Many points raised in this issue of Sustain align directly with the US BCSD’s new platform Business and Biodiversity, exploring a company’s relationship to ecosystem services and quantifying their value. CCP’s Ecological Stormwater Management Project is one strong example leading the US BCSD in an ambitious new direction. For more information, visit our Business and Biodiversity project page.