SwRI develops low-emission natural-gas-fueled hybrid truck

SwRI-designed medium-duty truck demonstrated a 25% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions with hybrid natural gas powertrain

 NEWS RELEASE 4-MAR-2024

SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE

 

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SWRI DEVELOPED AND DEMONSTRATED A STATE-OF-THE-ART NATURAL GAS-FUELED/HYBRID POWERTRAIN FOR MEDIUM- AND HEAVY-DUTY APPLICATIONS. THE MEDIUM-DUTY NATURAL GAS HYBRID DEMONSTRATION TRUCK REDUCED GREENHOUSE GASES BY 25% RELATIVE TO STANDARD DIESEL-POWERED TRUCKS.

 

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CREDIT: IMAGES/VIDEOS MAY BE USED BY THE PUBLIC FOR EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

SAN ANTONIO — March 4, 2024 — Southwest Research Institute has developed a natural-gas-fueled medium-duty truck outfitted with a hybrid powertrain that achieved a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) over standard diesel powertrains. The vehicle uses an SwRI-designed, spark-ignited natural gas engine coupled with a hybrid powertrain and a 40-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

The project was awarded by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in 2021 as part of a larger $11 million program to promote the development of advanced natural gas vehicle technologies. Isuzu Motors, Woodward Inc. and South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) also collaborated on, and helped fund, the project.

Using a commercially available medium-duty diesel truck as a baseline for fuel economy and carbon dioxide emissions, the team aimed to develop a new natural gas engine/hybrid powertrain to achieve the best balance of fuel consumption, energy savings, air quality improvement and total cost of ownership.

“The problem with most natural gas engines is that they are usually derived from a diesel engine platform that has been highly optimized for burning diesel fuel,” said Ryan Williams, manager of the spark-ignited engine section in SwRI’s Powertrain Engineering Division. “For this program, our team completely redesigned the cylinder head around a modern gasoline engine better suited for natural gas. This design approach produced much faster combustion, which opened new pathways for higher efficiency.”The demonstration vehicle integrates a “P2” or hybrid architecture that places a 100 kW electric motor between the engine and the transmission, powered by a 40 kWh battery.

This configuration enables seamless switching between an EV mode, engine-only mode or a combined hybrid mode depending on vehicle speed and power demands.

“Our engine runs as efficiently as a conventional diesel engine, but it produces 12% less carbon dioxide due to the lower carbon content of the natural gas fuel,” Williams said. “The addition of the hybrid powertrain allows us to turn off the engine for large portions of the operating cycle for additional CO2 reductions. We have shown a 25% reduction in GHG emissions under typical city driving conditions.”

In addition to the greenhouse gas reductions, the program also targeted a significant reduction in tailpipe NOx emissions. Current regulations limit total NOx emissions to 0.2 grams per horsepower-hour, but future regulations to be phased in by 2027 will require 80-90% reductions. Using a standard three-way catalyst, the vehicle demonstrated compliance with the most stringent standard of 0.02 g/hp-hr.

Learn more about SwRI at https://www.swri.org/technical-divisions/powertrain-engineering.

The demonstration vehicle integrates a “P2” or hybrid architecture that places a 100 kW electric motor between the engine and the transmission powered by a 40 kWh battery. This configuration enables seamless switching between an EV mode, engine-only mode or a combined hybrid mode depending on vehicle speed and power demands.

CREDIT

Southwest Research Institute

Associations of medical debt with health status, premature death, and mortality in the US

About The Study: The findings of this study of 2,943 counties suggest that medical debt is associated with worse health status, more premature deaths, and higher mortality rates at the county level in the U.S. Therefore, policies increasing access to affordable health care, such as expanding health insurance coverage, may improve population health. 

Authors: Xuesong Han, Ph.D., of the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, is the corresponding author. 

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ 

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.54766)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

 

Dr. Schooley's call to action: Elevating phage therapy trials through strategic translational research

Meeting Announcement

MITOCHONDRIA-MICROBIOTA TASK FORCE

 

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IN HIS TALK AT TARGETING PHAGE THERAPY 2024, PROF. SCHOOLEY WILL DISCUSS CRITICAL STRATEGIES FOR INTEGRATING TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH INTO CLINICAL TRIALS IN PHAGE THERAPY, ENSURING THEIR SUCCESS AND IMPACT.
 

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CREDIT: TARGETING PHAGE THERAPY 2024

The 7th World Conference on Targeting Phage Therapy is being organized on June 20-21, 2024 at Corinthia Palace Malta.

Robert T. Schooley, M.D., Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and Co-Director of the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics and member of the Executive Committee for the University of California Disaster Resilience Network, will introduce Phage Therapy 2024 with a key note talk titled "Phage Therapeutics 2024: Essential Translational Research Components for Clinical Trials.

Dr. Schooley will highlight the pivotal moment that phage therapy research finds itself in. With Phase 2 studies transitioning to Phase 3 trials, he stresses the critical need for a unified approach in integrating translational research components into clinical trials to ensure their success and meaningfulness.

Dr. Schooley critiques the current trend in trial design, which often aims narrowly at achieving clinical endpoints for regulatory approval, yet lacks the depth to provide insights or guidance should the trial not meet its objectives.

He references the instructive case of one study, which, despite its failure, offered valuable lessons due to its comprehensive assessment approach. This study revealed significant insights post hoc, such as issues with microbiology, phage-phage antagonism, and dilution effects, which were not addressed upfront. These revelations underscore the necessity of including detailed evaluations in clinical trials to verify that phages reach the infection site in effective quantities and intervals, to monitor the development of resistance during the study, and to assess the impact of phage-specific antibodies on treatment efficacy.

Dr. Schooley's message is a call to action for the phage therapy research community to adopt a more thorough and insightful approach in clinical trials. This includes the implementation of substudies to document key aspects of phage therapy application and the development of consensus protocols for evaluating phage-specific immunity, pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) relationships, and phage resistance mechanisms. Such measures are vital for understanding why certain therapeutic interventions succeed or fail, enabling researchers to refine and improve treatment strategies.

In advocating for this approach, Dr. Schooley highlights a fundamental challenge: the repetition of past mistakes due to a lack of comprehensive analysis and learning from failed trials. Without addressing this issue, the field risks stagnation, unable to leverage cumulative experience to accelerate progress. His passionate plea underscores the importance of not just aiming for short-term successes in phage therapy research but also building a robust and insightful framework that enhances the field's overall efficacy and resilience.

To learn more about Targeting Phage Therapy 2024 program and speakers, please visit: www.phagetherapy-site.com 

SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=PHAGES

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BIOPHAGES

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 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=BACTERIOPHAGE

 

WVU research shows government regulation of jobs hinders workers and consumers

Occupational licensing’s impact on the workforce

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY

 

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AUDIOLOGISTS, LIKE MANY OTHER PROFESSIONALS IN THE UNITED STATES, MUST BE LICENSED TO DO THEIR JOBS. TO ILLUMINATE THE CONSEQUENCES OF OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING, A NEW DATABASE FROM THE WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY KNEE REGULATORY RESEARCH CENTER BREAKS DOWN THE LICENSING REQUIREMENTS — FEES, EXAMS, EDUCATION AND MORE — FOR AUDIOLOGY AND 49 OTHER PROFESSIONS, STATE BY STATE.

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CREDIT: WVU PHOTO/DAVIDSON CHAN

Audiologists, auctioneers and crane operators have one thing in common: they can’t legally do their jobs without licenses that create professional obstacles and hike prices, according to the West Virginia University Knee Regulatory Research Center.

In a paper for The Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy, WVU researchers introduced a new database that reveals occupational licensing’s impact on the workforce. The database encompasses state regulations on 50 jobs across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with represented professions ranging from acupuncturist to interior designer to nuclear medicine technician to shampoo assistant.

Contributors to the paper included Knee RRC members Conor Norris, assistant director; Edward Timmons, director; and Ethan Kelley and Troy Carneal, legislative analysts.

“We have stronger evidence that licensing reduces the supply of professionals than that it ensures quality,” Norris said. “Professional licenses increase the cost and time to enter a licensed profession. As a result, consumers pay higher prices for services.

“At the RRC, our aim is to enhance transparency and facilitate policy discussions about occupational licensing. This database is key to that effort because it enables comparisons of standards across different states.”

The Center is housed within the WVU John Chambers College of Business and Economics.

Licensing is a form of regulation that imposes specific requirements on people before they can legally practice certain professions. In the 1950s, the percentage of licensed workers in the U.S. was around 5%. Now, it’s up to 22%. The point of occupational licensing is to improve quality of services and ensure consumer safety, but according to Norris, results are mixed.

While more than 1,000 professions are estimated to require a license in at least one state, there is no definitive count and no complete list of every profession licensed in every state. Norris said individual states don’t even display lists of the professions they license, along with requirements, in one central location. Policymakers are often unaware of licensing laws in other states.

Other databases of licensed occupations do exist. For instance, the Institute of Justice publishes a detailed, wide-ranging list of licensing requirements, but that resource focuses on low- and moderate-skilled professions, omitting many skilled professions, including in health care. The RRC database provides information about more than 30 health care careers and incorporates details absent from other collections, such as requirements like citizenship, English proficiency and good moral character.

The RRC database also includes information about transferring licenses between states. Because licenses are only valid at the state level, licensure makes it more difficult for workers to move from one state to another. State policies like endorsement or reciprocity may reduce that burden.  

As a test case, the researchers used the database to contrast licensing standards for audiologists across different states. Audiology is not included in any other occupational databases or research, Norris said, even though licensing requirements can vary widely from state to state. For example, in Pennsylvania, audiologists pay a licensing fee of $50, while in Minnesota are charged up to $544. A master’s degree is required in 19 states, while 32 states require audiologists to hold a doctorate. Seven states have minimum age requirements for audiologists, 17 states require them to be U.S. citizens, four require them to speak English proficiently and 19 require them to have good moral character.

“Far more workers are affected by licensing than other labor market institutions like labor unions or minimum wage laws,” Timmons said. “Unlike these other laws, licensing mainly focuses on service professions and ones that typically offer avenues for entrepreneurship.

“Our data not only catalogs specific licensing requirements, it exposes their effects. We can now estimate, for instance, if licensing fees restrict the supply of workers. We can estimate the effect of education requirements and exams on the quality of professionals and their services. And citizenship requirements and English language proficiency are especially useful for understanding licensing’s effect on immigrants.”

Timmons and Norris said the RRC will check and update the data every year and there are plans to add more professions.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy

DOI

10.1108/JEPP-05-2023-0047 

ARTICLE TITLE

Introducing a new state-level occupational licensing requirement database

 

The health and economic impact of youth violence in the United States reached $122 billion in 2020

New research in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine estimates the cost of homicides and nonfatal assaults of young people in the US

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

Ann Arbor, March 4, 2024 – In 2020, the cost of youth violence in the United States was approximately $122 billion, according to new research in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier. The study quantifies the economic toll of homicides and nonfatal assaults of young people ages 10–24 years, differentiating by injury mechanism (e.g., firearms, stabbings, and other methods). Youth homicide cost the US an estimated $86 billion, of which firearm homicides contributed $78 billion. Nonfatal assault injuries among youth cost $36 billion. 

Lead investigator Elizabeth M. Parker, PhD, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, explains, “We lose young people to violence every day in this country. Violence is a leading cause of injury and death among American youth. It affects all types of communities across our country, causing pain and suffering to individuals, families, and communities. The high economic cost is an important measure of the widespread problem of youth violence. Understanding it helps us grasp the broader consequences of violence and the critical importance of violence prevention programs, policies, and practices. We hope identifying the economic implications of youth violence will encourage active engagement and contribute to building safer communities for all.”

The investigators used data from the CDC’s publicly available Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) to analyze homicides and nonfatal assaults resulting in emergency department visits among youth ages 10–24 years in 2020, as well as analyze the average economic cost of those injuries. The estimate includes costs for medical care, lost work, and reduced quality of life but does not include costs to the criminal justice system.

The study segmented the data by the injury mechanism or cause (e.g., firearms, stabbings, etc.), which distinguishes it from other recent research on youth violence. Injuries from firearms and stabbing accounted for 96% of youth homicides.

The findings highlight the importance of developing and implementing programs to address risk factors and prevent youth violence.

Dr. Parker adds, “Youth violence is preventable. We know there are strategies that work to prevent violence and ease the pain, suffering, and economic burden associated with youth nonfatal assault and homicide. CDC developed Resources for Action that describe strategies with the best available evidence to help communities and states focus their violence prevention efforts to ensure safer and healthier communities for all.”

These evidence-based approaches include but are not limited to, early childhood home visitation programs, preschool enrichment with family engagement, mentoring or after-school programs, street outreach, and community norm change campaigns.

 

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2023.12.019 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The Health and Economic Impact of Youth Violence by Injury Mechanism

 

Communities severed by roads and traffic experience a larger number of collisions in New York City

Peer-Reviewed Publication

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

March 4, 2024- New York City neighborhoods with disrupted community connections, due to traffic, roads, and transport infrastructure, are experiencing an increase in traffic collisions. This increase is seen both in total collisions and for those in which pedestrians or cyclists are injured or killed, according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are reported in the journal Environment International.

“Despite recent remarkable progress, road safety remains an urgent urban issue in New York and other U.S. cities. It is important to understand how the spatial configuration of the city enhances these road safety issues,” said Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, ScD, associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and senior author. “We wanted to investigate how the presence of road traffic and roads influence our health, beyond more commonly studied exposures such as air pollution and noise. Hopefully, our findings can help the design of a less deadly and a healthier city.”

In the United States, roadway fatalities declined from 1980 to 2010, followed by a plateau in the 2010s but increased again in 2020 and 2021. The authors developed the first index of community severance (Community Severance Index) to characterize the role of roads, traffic, and lack of pedestrian infrastructure in the disconnection of communities. The authors then examined the impact of community severance on road collisions, both in general and specifically pedestrians and cyclists.

The researchers used road traffic collisions for 2019, to estimate the association between census block group-level Community Severance Index and annual traffic collisions. NYC-Open Data provided detailed information on the date and location of road traffic collisions. The authors used three main categories of spatial data to develop the Community Severance Index for every census block group in NYC: road infrastructure, road traffic activity and pedestrian infrastructure.

The spatial data to generate the index were obtained through the smart location database from EPA and other providers such as road infrastructure data from OpenStreetmap and road traffic intensity from the U.S. Department of Transportation.  They used an artificial intelligence algorithm to identify patterns in the data, identifying many severed communities in the city, with a high presence of roads and traffic, to the detriment of spaces for pedestrians. “We hypothesized that this novel index of community severance would be higher in areas prone to traffic collisions and investigated the relationship between the two,” said Jaime Benavides, an associate research scientist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, who led the study.

“We further evaluated the association between the Community Severance Index and road traffic collisions specifically when pedestrians or cyclists were injured/killed, finding similar effects. We also took into account additional factors, including sociodemographic data, which could potentially influence the association between the Community Severance Index and road traffic collisions.” 

The researchers focused on road traffic collisions, as an approximation for road safety, because they can affect urban health both directly through injuries and death, but also indirectly, by for example, influencing the chosen transportation mode. “Perception of lower road safety can lead people to choose to drive a car instead of cycling or walking in their day-by-day trips,” said Benavides. 

The health impacts of living in severed communities, nonetheless, can go beyond road safety. For instance, other studies have shown that residents on streets with higher traffic volume interact less with their neighbors relative to those living on less congested streets. Historically in the U.S., financial and political support has prioritized highways instead of public transit systems. Many of these urban highways were built directly through the neighborhoods of disadvantaged Black communities, severing their connections internally and, or, segregating them from other communities. Investigating how the predominant presence of roads and traffic shapes our health and behaviors and acts as a barrier, to the detriment of urban spaces for pedestrians, was the authors’ motive to develop an index to measure community severance.

“Our results highlight the necessity to further understand how the presence of road infrastructure and traffic influences human health in cities beyond most commonly studied traffic-related exposures such as air pollution and noise,” said Kioumourtzoglou. “The comprehensive indicator we developed for the presence of roads and traffic, the Community Severance Index, can be useful to identify areas that require targeted interventions, such as pedestrianization programs in New York City and other U.S. cities,” said Benavides.

Co-authors are Sabah Usmani and Vijay Kumar, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

The work was supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) (P30 ES009089, R01 ES028805, R01 ES030616). The authors have no known competing financial interests. 

Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Founded in 1922, the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health pursues an agenda of research, education, and service to address the critical and complex public health issues affecting New Yorkers, the nation and the world. The Columbia Mailman School is the fourth largest recipient of NIH grants among schools of public health. Its nearly 300 multi-disciplinary faculty members work in more than 100 countries around the world, addressing such issues as preventing infectious and chronic diseases, environmental health, maternal and child health, health policy, climate change and health, and public health preparedness. It is a leader in public health education with more than 1,300 graduate students from 55 nations pursuing a variety of master’s and doctoral degree programs. The Columbia Mailman School is also home to numerous world-renowned research centers, including ICAP and the Center for Infection and Immunity. For more information, please visit www.mailman.columbia.edu.

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JOURNAL

Environment International

DOI

10.1016/j.envint.2024.108526 

ARTICLE TITLE

Development of a community severance index for urban areas in the United States: A case study in New York City

 

Illinois study: Supporting disease-challenged broiler chickens through nutrition

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL, CONSUMER AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

 

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NEW UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS RESEARCH FROM JULI JESPERSEN (PICTURED), RYAN DILGER, AND OTHERS PROVIDES A HOLISTIC LOOK AT NUTRITIONAL SUPPORT FOR BROILER CHICKENS EXPERIENCING A COMMON PARASITIC DISEASE.

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CREDIT: JULIANNA JESPERSEN, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

URBANA, Ill. — When broiler chickens are busy fighting the parasitic infection coccidiosis, they can’t absorb nutrients efficiently or put energy toward growth. With consumer sentiment pitted against antimicrobials and other drugs, producers still have some options to ensure optimal growth during inevitable outbreaks. New research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests diet changes might help. 

“Vaccines and anticoccidials are the traditional ways to prevent this disease. Nutrition can't replace all of the pharmaceuticals, but it can be supportive in providing care,” said senior study author Ryan Dilger, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at U. of I. 

Standard poultry diets have been carefully formulated to provide for the nutritional requirements of healthy birds, but diets had never been holistically optimized for disease-challenged broilers. Dilger and doctoral student Julianna Jespersen set out to fill that gap. 

“Using nutrition to support healthy poultry has been a hot topic for 50-plus years. The novelty in our approach is to look at all the major nutrients simultaneously, rather than looking at them individually,” Dilger said. “That’s information producers can use.”

In two studies, both published in Poultry Science, the research team induced coccidiosis, and then altered the diet to understand the roles of various ingredients. In the first study, the team adjusted the starch, oil, and amino acid content of the classic broiler diet and monitored body weight gain and feed conversion ratio.

“If you visualize a triangle, the three points represent diets with the highest starch, oil, and amino acid content,” Jespersen explained. “We used varying proportions of those three ingredients to mix 10 experimental diets, one being a control diet with an equal proportion of each ingredient.”

The optimal diet mix — the diet leading to the highest body weight gain in coccidiosis-challenged birds — consisted of 35.8% starch, 8.9% oil, and 101.3% of recommended amino acids relative to the control diet. 

The researchers acknowledge 9% oil inclusion is well above practical levels for the industry. 

“That level of oil is going to be hard for producers to fathom. But previous research from our lab has shown this parasite reduces lipid absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, so the birds can't get as much energy or lipid components out of the diet,” Dilger said. “We think that's why we found optimal results at 9%. Producers might look at that and laugh, but the bird is telling us why it should be that high for optimizing outcomes in disease-challenged birds.”

Jespersen says although it may not be feasible to include oil at 9%, the results show that increasing oil to any level above the usual 1% should be beneficial. 

A second study looked specifically at optimal levels of methionine for coccidiosis-challenged broilers. As the first limiting amino acid, methionine levels dictate the overall growth of the bird. 

“Unless methionine is supplied at adequate levels, it doesn’t matter how much of the other amino acids are in the diet,” Jespersen explained.

Again, methionine inclusion levels have been determined for healthy chickens, but little was known about how much of the amino acid is needed in disease-challenged birds. The research team tested a diet with methionine levels 15% below, equivalent to, and 15% above that of a standard diet for healthy birds. The data showed that bumping methionine up from 15% below to the equivalent amount was beneficial, and suggested that more was even better. However, the results were statistically inconclusive.

“We did not actually determine what the methionine requirement was for infected birds in this experiment, but we found evidence that the methionine requirement does increase during a coccidiosis infection,” Jespersen said. “Knowing that most broilers are going to be exposed to this infection during their growth cycle, we're recommending that we bump up methionine. We still need to do more research to determine the exact level.”

Dilger says coccidiosis is a fact of life for broiler production. Birds walk on the ground and will inevitably ingest parasites, which start to propagate in their intestines. 

“One parasite becomes two, becomes four, and then they excrete them out and other birds pick them up. They're always cycling in this way,” he said. “We’re hoping producers will use what we’ve learned here about nutrition to help broilers combat infection and keep growing.”  

The first study, “Defining optimal dietary starch, oil, and amino acid inclusion levels for broilers experiencing a coccidiosis challenge,” is published in Poultry Science [DOI: 10.1016/j.psj.2023.103335]. The second study, “Effects of a coccidiosis challenge on dietary methionine recommendations in broilers,” is also published in Poultry Science [DOI: 10.1016/j.psj.2024.103502]. This research was sponsored by Evonik Operations, Nutrition & Care.

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JOURNAL

Poultry Science

DOI

10.1016/j.psj.2024.103502 

 

Editor-in-Chief of Sustainability and Climate Change Madhavi Venkatesan named USA TODAY Woman of the Year for Massachusetts for leading plastic bottle ban efforts

Business Announcement

MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC./GENETIC ENGINEERING NEWS

 

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FURTHERING THE SCIENCE OF SUSTAINABILITY, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND CLIMATE CHANGE. THE JOURNAL PROVIDES A FORUM FOR ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPERS, AS WELL AS A COMPELLING MIX OF FEATURE ARTICLE CONTENT—COMMENTARIES, PERSPECTIVES, AND REVIEWS—THAT SUPPLEMENT THE RESEARCH AND HIGHLIGHT THE SOCIAL, ETHICAL, AND BUSINESS ISSUES FACING THE FIELD.

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CREDIT: MARY ANN LIEBERT INC., PUBLISHERS

Madhavi Venkatesan, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Sustainability and Climate Change and founder of Sustainable Practices, has been named USA TODAY Woman of the Year for the state of Massachusetts in recognition of her outstanding efforts to eliminate single-use plastic bottles across Cape Cod and the Islands.

With economics and sustainability at the forefront, Venkatesan established Sustainable Practices in 2016, aiming to address pressing environmental issues through innovative solutions. Since then, she and her nonprofit team have spearheaded a series of initiatives that have significantly reduced plastic waste in the region. In 2019, Sustainable Practices launched a groundbreaking municipal plastic bottle ban campaign, targeting the elimination of non-emergency single-use plastic bottles by town governments and the sale of beverages in single-use plastic containers on municipal property across Barnstable County. By June 2021, all 15 towns on Cape Cod had implemented the policy, marking a significant milestone in the fight against plastic pollution.

Building on this success, in 2020, Venkatesan and her team initiated a commercial single-use plastic water bottle ban, calling for the prohibition of the sale of non-carbonated, non-flavored water in single-use plastic bottles of less than one gallon in size within town jurisdictions. By 2023, nine towns, including Brewster, Chatham, Eastham, Falmouth, Harwich, Orleans, Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Yarmouth, had implemented commercial bans, further reducing plastic waste and promoting sustainability in the region.

In recognition of Sustainable Practices' impactful work, Gov. Maura Healey presented the organization with a citation in January, acknowledging their dedication to environmental stewardship and the success of their bottle ban efforts. Following the organization's lead, Gov. Healey announced in September that she would sign an executive order banning the purchase of single-use plastic bottles by state agencies, aligning with Sustainable Practices' mission to create a cleaner, greener future for Massachusetts.

Dr. Venkatesan's leadership and commitment to sustainability have not only transformed communities across Cape Cod and the Islands but have also inspired change at the state level. Her tireless advocacy and innovative solutions serve as a beacon of hope in the global fight against plastic pollution.

About the Journal
Sustainability and Climate Change is a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to furthering the science of sustainability, sustainable development, and climate change. The Journal provides a forum for original research papers, as well as a compelling mix of feature article content—commentaries, perspectives, and reviews—that supplement the research and highlight the social, ethical, and business issues facing the field. The Journal is led by Editor-in-Chief Madhavi Venkatesan, PhD, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, and an esteemed international editorial board. Complete tables of contents and a sample issue are available on the Sustainability and Climate Change website.

About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a global media company dedicated to creating, curating, and delivering impactful peer-reviewed research and authoritative content services to advance the fields of biotechnology and the life sciences, specialized clinical medicine, and public health and policy. For complete information, please visit the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. website.

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JOURNAL

Sustainability and Climate Change

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People