News and Blog Landing | MIT Sustainability

MIT researchers have found that, by encouraging the placing of charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) in strategic ways, as well as setting up systems to initiate car charging at delayed times, electric vehicles could have les...

MIT News Office

March 15, 2023

Minimizing electric vehicles’ impact on the grid

Careful planning of charging station placement could lessen or eliminate the need for new power plants, a new study shows.

MIT researchers have built TILE2NET, an open-source tool that uses aerial imagery and image-recognition to create complete maps of sidewalks and crosswalks. Pictured is a view of Boston with an inset showing how the model detecte...

MIT News Office

March 15, 2023

Where the sidewalk ends

Most cities don’t map their own pedestrian networks. Now, researchers have built the first open-source tool to let planners do just that.

John Sterman and colleagues offer a suite of well-honed strategies to smooth this journey, including a free global climate policy simulator called En-ROADS.
Photo: David Sella/MIT Corporate Relations

MIT News Office

March 10, 2023

Engaging enterprises with the climate crisis

John Sterman brings workshops with management flight simulators to businesses working toward environmental sustainability.

Students from Malden Catholic High School worked with MIT chemical engineer Ariel Furst to create electrodes for low-cost microbial fuel cells. Left to right: Chengxiang "Eric" Lou, Christian Ogata, Angelina Ang, Phuc "Vincent...

MIT News Office

March 10, 2023

Shrinky Dinks, nail polish, and smelly bacteria

High school students spend time at MIT building a low-cost fuel cell.

A panel at the 2023 Sustainability Connect event featured Director of Sustainability Julie Newman (left), who served as moderator, and panelists (left to right) John Fernández, director of Environmental Solutions Initiative an...

MIT News Office

March 10, 2023

Celebrating a decade of a more sustainable MIT, with a focus on the future

The MIT Office of Sustainability gathers students, staff, faculty, and researchers for annual Sustainability Connect.

MIT alumnus-founded FarmWise uses hulking, autonomous robots that resemble tractors to preserve crops while snipping weeds, eliminating the need for herbicides.
Courtesy of FarmWise

MIT News Office

March 9, 2023

Titanic robots make farming more sustainable

MIT alumnus-founded FarmWise uses autonomous machines to snip weeds while preserving crops, eliminating the need for herbicides.

“Nuclear power is safe, sustainable, and reliable; now we need to be on time and on budget [to achieve] climate goals” says MIT doctoral student Assil Halimi.
Photo: Gretchen Ertl

MIT News Office

March 8, 2023

Working to make nuclear energy more competitive

Through research on high burnup fuels and improving the design of nuclear power plants, NSE doctoral student Assil Halimi is adopting a dual approach to addressing some of the industry’s toughest challenges.

An MIT study finds that smoke particles in the stratosphere can trigger chemical reactions that erode the ozone layer — and that smoke particles from Australian wildfires widened the ozone hole by 10 percent in 2020. This map show...

MIT News Office

March 8, 2023

Study: Smoke particles from wildfires can erode the ozone layer

MIT chemists show the Australian wildfires widened the ozone hole by 10 percent in 2020.

The continued study of gibberellins could lead to further breakthroughs in agricultural science and have implications for food security.
Photo courtesy of SMART.

MIT News Office

March 7, 2023

Nanotube sensors are capable of detecting and distinguishing gibberellin plant hormones

Developed at SMART, the nondestructive nanosensors could have wide applications in agricultural science.