ANN ARBOR—Successful businesses must be sound both economically and ecologically. That is what the University of Michigan’s Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) is all about. For years, the Center has successfully advanced collaborative research efforts between business and industry, government, environmental organizations, and academia to prevent pollution and to develop new tools in conserving non-renewable resources.

Recently, the 3M Corporation, an industry leader in environmental health and safety, made a $250,000 commitment to the Center in response to a $1.8 million challenge grant by the Wege Foundation of Grand Rapids, Mich. The purpose of the Wege Challenge is the creation of an endowment fund that will provide for the financial health of the Center and secure its continued work on pollution prevention, life cycle assessment and industrial ecology.

The endowment gift is a direct result of 3M’s pollution prevention technologies and practices. Notably, 3M reduced the amount of volatile organic compounds (VOC) being emitted from its facilities far beyond current regulatory requirements, thus generating VOC reduction credits. In turn, 3M was able to sell these credits to a company developing a new environmentally friendly co-generation facility on a brownfield site, bringing the positive effects borne full-circle.

Instrumental in launching CSS at the U-M in the early 1990s, 3M continues as an active member of the Center’s external advisory board with seats held by both Katherine E. Reed, 3M staff vice president of environmental technology and safety services, and Sara J. Ethier, 3M’s director of environmental operations and energy management. According to Reed and Ethier, this $250,000 gift is intended to benefit the Center’s pursuit of its “vision and mission by fostering environmentally beneficial projects that will preserve clean air, clean water and abundant natural resources for future generations.”

The $1.8 million Wege Foundation challenge grant to CSS addresses the sustainability challenges for the 21st century. Peter Wege, president of the Wege Foundation and retired vice-chair of the board of Steelcase Inc., is considered by his peers to be an “ecological visionary.” Wege has been devoted to U-M’s School of Natural Resources and Environment through his generous philanthropy and his inspirational work, particularly as a guiding force behind the evolution of the Center of Sustainable Systems. Until recently he has served as chair of the CSS External Advisory Board. Wege hopes that the Wege Foundation’s challenge grant “will bring other donors to the table in a collaborative effort to sustain the Center and our world. There is no excuse anymore why products can’t be environmentally friendly.”

Housed at U-M’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, the Center for Sustainable Systems evolved from the National Pollution Prevention Center, which had been started by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1991. Today, under the direction of nationally renowned scholars and an external advisory board composed of Fortune 500 business and industry representatives, the Center’s work has expanded beyond pollution control to include life cycle assessment and the exciting new field of industrial ecology. “Current work at the Center focuses on the life cycle modeling of products from cradle-to-grave, or cradle-to-cradle, when you include recycling and reuse,” says Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Systems. “Life cycle assessment means tracking a product at its source, from starting materials to their final disposal. Sustainability is only truly possible when the total industrial metabolism of energy and materials is considered.”

Through CSS, students in natural resources, chemical engineering, architecture, business, public health, and industrial engineering, are engaged in research and study in the areas of industrial ecology and sustainability. These emerging fields bring various disciplines together to design systems that meet human needs without detriment to the planet’s life support system.

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EDITORS: For more information on the Center for Sustainable Systems, contact the co-directors: Jonathan W. Bulkley, Peter M. Wege Professor of Sustainable Systems, and Greg A. Keoleian, associate research scientist, at (734) 764-1412.

Center for Sustainable Systems3M CorporationPeter WegeSchool of Natural Resources and EnvironmentJonathan W. Bulkley