Crain's Detroit Business • 6th September 2020

40 Under 40 - Jonathan Quarles

When Jonathan Quarles founded the BTL Group, he didn’t intend to get into the business of water. But in 2018, he waded into the Flint water crisis when helping a company get its water generation technology deployed.

Associations Now • 12th August 2020

Sustainability: Landscape Architects Take Steps Toward Carbon-Neutral Communities

You might not expect to find landscape architects in the army of professionals fighting climate change. But they are.

Planet Detroit • 14th July 2020

Detroiters Do Science: What we found (so far) in our urban neighborhoods

Since the Detroiters Do Science project began in May, citizen scientists across Metro Detroit have recorded nearly 2500 observations (and counting!) through the iNaturalist app as part of our Nature in Your Neighborhood project.

Planet Detroit • 11th June 2020

Why biodiversity matters in urban areas like Detroit

A church garden in Detroit might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of biodiversity, but each individual plant, bird and insect that inhabits the space is doing its part.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 28th May 2020

Sowing doubt and undermining science

Science should be able to speak for itself. But people with a vested interest in undermining science are working behind the scenes to obscure it.

Model D • 17th March 2020

High water: Metro Detroit communities prepare for record-high water levels this spring

In an average year, Michigan gets about 31.5 inches of rain. But 2019 wasn’t an average year — more than 41.5 inches came down and wreaked havoc across the state.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 11th March 2020

The Detroit water crisis and unexpected coalitions

Since 2014, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department has shut off the water to 141,000 households whose bills were past due. Last year, more than 23,000 households reportedly had their water shut off.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 4th March 2020

Climate change is not just an environmental issue

The term “environmental justice” still may be unfamiliar to some people, but you don’t have to be familiar with it to understand what it means when you see it. With the Flint water crisis and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the people who were hit hardest were poor and black.

Metromode • 9th January 2020

From Port Huron to South Haven: How the Great Lake to Lake Trail links up Metro Detroit communities

It may be frigid outside, but plenty of Metro Detroiters are still getting out on their local trails frequently. What they may not know is that some trails stretch all the way across the state.

Sierra Club • 27th November 2019

Kids With Disabilities Have a Right to Outdoor Field Trips

The benefits kids reap from nature are well documented, which is part of the reason school field trips often involve excursions into the Great Outdoors. Children with disabilities, however, sometimes get left behind.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 14th November 2019

ICYMI: Special Feature: Sustainability in Detroit

What does sustainability look like in Detroit, a city that is going through changes that some consider a renaissance? The Erb Institute talked with five people who are working to make Detroit more sustainable—in wildly divergent ways, from bees, to dirt, to real estate development, to stormwater.

GlobalSport Matters • 28th October 2019

'No summit too high' for amputee climbers who tackled Cotopaxi

Seven amputees who found themselves atop a 19,347-foot volcano in Ecuador last month probably never envisioned themselves there together.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 14th October 2019

Sustainability in Detroit, Part 4: The dirt

Detroit Dirt makes waste into a commodity. It takes food waste, green waste, spent grains and herbivore manure and uses an aerobic process to make it into high-quality compost.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 27th August 2019

Sustainability in Detroit, Part 2: Making way for bees

Timothy Paule and Nicole Lindsey started the nonprofit Detroit Hives, transforming vacant lots into urban bee farms. They also teach the community about the importance of honeybees and conservation.

Outdoor Insider • 5th October 2018

Q&A With Brian Merrill: CEO of Western River Expeditions

Brian Merrill is the CEO of Western River Expeditions and the Moab Adventure Center, but he started out as a lawyer. He talked with Outdoor Insider about going from river guide to lawyer to operations manager to COO to CEO, and about the ways he has expanded the business.

Outdoor Insider • 5th October 2018

Q&A With Gavin Noyes: Executive Director of Utah Diné Bikéyah

Utah Diné Bikéyah (UDB) is a nonprofit organization that supports indigenous communities in protecting their ancestral lands. Along with the five sovereign nations of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, UDB got the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument designated—the first tribally led national monument in American history.

Sierra Club • 13th July 2018

The Power of City Camping

Until the last couple of months, no one had used Detroit’s sole campground in more than a decade. In May, the first group of kids arrived to set up camp.

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 5th June 2018

Dispatches from the Sustainable Brands Conference - Vancouver 2018

U-M Erb Institute | Business for Sustainability • 30th May 2018

A right to water - Is water a human right or a commodity?

Is water a human right or a commodity? It’s treated like both.

Sierra magazine • 23rd November 2017

First-Time Summit Builds Community for Climbers of Color

Last month, 120 climbers descended on Horse Pens 40 in Steele, Alabama, for the first-ever large-scale celebration of diversity in climbing: the Color the Crag Festival.