Agnes Scott College

 

ATLANTA - Colleges and universities should fight the economic crisis with a greater commitment to sustainability, according to Anthony Cortese, an expert in sustainability issues and an Agnes Scott college national sustainability adviser.

Cortese was a featured speaker recently at Agnes Scott's annual Anne Register Jones Leadership Conference for alumnae, which focused on effective management of resources this year. As president of the nonprofit organization Second Nature, he is dedicated to making sustainability a base of learning and community in higher education.

Offering experience at many levels of the sustainability movement, Cortese also has served state government and higher education. Agnes Scott became a charter signatory 14 months ago to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment.

Agnes Scott integrated the sustainability planning process as a key objective of the college’s strategic plan “Engaging A Wider World.” Leadership for this initiative can be tied directly to Agnes Scott College President Elizabeth Kiss, an ethicist who places top priority on creating and maintaining a sustainable campus.

A strong national advisory committee was key to the planning process for Agnes Scott’s sustainability initiative, and Cortese was a top priority recruit. “Dr. Anthony Cortese is what I like to call a 'practical visionary.' It's a very rare thing to meet a practical visionary,” Kiss said.

Cortese built his expertise in sustainability by working as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and in education at Tufts University as its first dean of environmental programs and an activist. He traces his commitment to the environmental movement back more than 35 years. In one of his earliest positions, he cut his teeth on early environmental regulation serving as a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service from 1969-1971, assigned to the federal Environmental Protection Agency just as it was being established under William Ruckelshaus, founding director.

He spoke at Agnes Scott as reports proliferated throughout the media of a looming financial crisis. Resolving these problems won't be easy but every solution needs to be developed on sustainable terms, Cortese said.

The early environmental movement was established in response to similar challenges to Earth's ecosystems. These included spiking population growth, huge public health problems on a worldwide scale, the increasing gap between rich and poor that frequently explodes into wars of varying dimensions – all issues posing potential threats of global proportions.

Those challenges have endured and manifested into problems of multiple dimensions. Responses to these problems often have materialized in the form of human rights abuses in many parts of the world that ultimately denied people the ability to participate in their government and societies, Cortese added.

One of the earliest and most significant global responses to these problems came in 1983 when Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, in response to a request by the United Nations secretary general, established and chaired the first World Commission on Environment and Development and was credited with coining the term "sustainable development."

Only two years earlier, Brundtland had been elected Norway's first woman prime minister, but served for only seven months before her party lost power. In many ways she would earn more recognition for her environmental work at the United Nations.

"The commission traveled around the world to look at environmental issues and they found that traditional economic development was making all of these key problems worse," Cortese said. "And so they came up with a new sustainable approach."

Cortese serves as one of Agnes Scott's national sustainability advisers alongside Georgia State Rep. Kathy Ashe of Atlanta – a 1968 Agnes Scott graduate and trustee; Ciannat Howett, director of sustainability initiatives at Emory University; Julian Keniry, director of campus ecology, National Wildlife Federation and an Agnes Scott alumna from the class of 1989; David Orr, chair, environmental studies program at Oberlin College and a former Agnes Scott faculty member; David Shi, president, Furman University and leader in the ACUP Climate Commitment and David Warren, president, National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and a trustee of Agnes Scott.

The panel of advisers is composed of formidable talent with Cortese certainly not the least among them, Kiss said.

“I had the great pleasure to meet Dr. Cortese about a year ago at a conference and was just so impressed with the energy, vision and joy that he brings to his work promoting sustainability,” she recalled. “I knew how many colleges wanted his service as an adviser for their sustainability committees, but I decided to ask him to work with Agnes Scott.”

“It took me about a microsecond to say yes,” Cortese said of Kiss’ request. “When Elizabeth asks you to do something you probably already know that you automatically will say yes.”

The term sustainability was created to define how the world would meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept of sustainable development has proven a credible answer to early critics of the environmental movement who tried to frame the issue as one of "jobs versus the environment," Cortese said.

"Sustainable development gives us the resources that make life possible," he said. "Without the Earth we wouldn't have food, fuel, fiber. You wouldn't have housing – everything comes from here. The Earth is also the repository for a lot of our waste and hopefully when it's functioning well it takes those waste products and makes them back into useful substances."

To illustrate an especially flawed economic development model, Cortese described the design of a generic laptop computer, noting the significant waste built into the process.

"We value that little laptop based on whatever we pay for it. But all it reflects is the cost of the manufacturer chose to place on it,” he said. “It doesn't reflect the cost of pollution to the environment, and it doesn't reflect the cost to people who were harmed in making it. Economists call this manufacturing element an 'externality,' ” Cortese said. “Manufacturers assume that externalities don't count. If you were to cut down all of our forests in the world tomorrow, our economy would look like it was in great shape. GDP would go up because we exchange money for the lumber, but next year of course we wouldn't have the forest systems to do all the things these habitats do for us.”


Sustainable economies need to find a different way of accounting and thinking. This is not about the environment it's about how we create an opportunity for everybody on earth to be healthy and strong, living in thriving communities to have economic opportunities for everyone in the world – not just the top 25 percent. And in order to do that we have to keep the life-support systems in good shape, Cortese said.

Some successful sustainability programs not only limit pollution but help generate new resources. As an example Cortese pointed to Atlanta-based Interface Flooring Systems, a floor covering systems manufacturer that produces new carpet from recycled carpet fibers. Or the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company that has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 73 percent compared to 1990 levels and by so doing has saved the company as much as $3 billion.

“So it's a new way of thinking. It's a much more holistic way of thinking  it's how we create a win-win win. And it's complicated by the fact that we have 25 percent of the world's population consuming about 70 percent of the world's resources,” Cortese said, referring to the United States.

At the same time the new science of sustainable development is being enhanced and refined, the environment is giving us signs that its degradation may be moving faster than our understanding of the problems.

"So we need to find a different way of accounting and thinking. This is not just about the environment. It's about how we create opportunities for everybody on earth to be healthy and strong," Cortese said. "It's about creating thriving communities with economic opportunities for everyone in the world."

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Agnes Scott College educates women to think deeply, live honorably and engage the intellectual and social challenges of their times. Students are drawn to Agnes Scott by its excellent academic reputation, exceptional faculty, and metropolitan Atlanta location – offering myriad cultural and experiential learning opportunities. A diverse and growing residential community of scholars, this highly selective liberal arts and sciences college is known for its dynamic and challenging intellectual community. Encouraging students to engage the wider world through study abroad and presenting its curriculum with international context, Agnes Scott College delivers on its promise: The World for Women.