World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

“Working with faculty and students at Northwestern is helping us train the next generation of environmental leaders. Bringing new and valuable perspectives and partnerships to the table will help us invent new solutions to address the impacts of a changing climate.” — Anita van Breda, World Wildlife Fund senior director of environment and disaster management

ISEN and Northwestern University's partnership with World Wildlife Fund (WWF) leverages multidisciplinary collaboration, foundational science, and global expertise to create more sustainable communities and planet.

Projects

• Resilient Reconstruction and Recovery: ISEN and Northwestern’s School of Materials Science and Engineering are partnering with WWF to develop the Building Material Selection and Use: An Environmental Guide (BMEG), a tool that supports construction industry professionals in making environmentally responsible decisions in the selection, sourcing, use, and disposal of construction material. Originally developed for a disaster recovery context, the guide examines environmental impacts, material alternatives, and design and construction best practices. Work on the BMEG involves its inclusion in the McCormick School of Engineering’s flagship Design Thinking and Communication (DTC) course, as well as funded graduate research assistantship positions.
• Environment and Disaster Management Communications: Through its Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Northwestern is partnering with WWF to administer a graduate student internship for WWF’s Environment and Disaster Management (EDM) program. The EDM program works to ensure that disaster recovery, reconstruction, and risk reduction efforts include environmentally responsible considerations.
• Laws Governing the Arctic: WWF and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Environmental Advocacy Center (EAC) are conducting an analysis of international and laws and guidelines that govern the Artic environment to help WWF build an advocacy strategy for protecting wildlife from the harmful effects of increased underwater industrial activity in the area.
• Ecosystem Impact Analysis of Infrastructure Expansion in Developing Countries (Myanmar/Southeast Asia): ISEN and Northwestern’s School of Materials Science and Engineering are partnering with WWF to develop a quantitative procedure to assess the effect of earth-moving operations in natural landscapes, as well as to identify sustainable design alternatives applicable to developing countries around the world.
• Global Status of Infrastructure Financing: ISEN and Northwestern’s School of Materials Science and Engineering are partnering to provide WWF with a report on the past trends and estimated future flows of global infrastructure investments. The project will inform WWF’s strategy development and preparation of clear, credible communications materials on sustainable infrastructure.
• Environmental Disaster Relief in Latin America and the Caribbean: WWF and Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Environmental Advocacy Center (EAC) are examining public policies in Guatemala, Jamaica, and Colombia, looking at the interaction between environmental laws and disaster risk management policies—including climate change—in each of them. The work will help WWF integrate environmental considerations into its disaster recovery, reconstruction, and risk reduction programs and policies.
• Nature-based Methods for Flood Mitigation (Thailand/Southeast Asia): ISEN and Northwestern’s College of Arts and Sciences are partnering with WWF to educate government stakeholders, regulatory authorities, academics, and NGOs on how community perceptions can be measured and community engagement can be fostered through the planning, implementation, and monitoring stages of nature-based flood management. The to-date, the effort has focused on training seminars in Southeast Asia, but this is likely to expand.

Related Resources

• Article: "Northwestern and World Wildlife Fund Join Forces to Advance Local and Global Sustainability"
• Article: "The Road Ahead: A Sustainable Path Forward in Myanmar"
• Article: "Rethinking Plastic Pollution and the Law"
• Article: "Northwestern Student Explores Legal Solutions to Help Protect the Amazon"
• Article: "Northwestern Student Explores Ways to Designate Underwater Noise as a Pollutant"
• Article: "Partners in Conservation: Student Impact Beyond the Classroom"
• Article: "Defending The Arctic"
• Article: "Partnership Addresses Environmental Disasters on the Global Stage"
• Article: "No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster"
• Article: "The Arctic: An Ocean of Noise"
• Article: "World Wildlife Fund Calls for Better Infrastructure Planning"
• Article: "Northwestern Engineering Students Take on Post-Disaster Building Material Selection and Use"

For more information on partnership opportunities with ISEN, please contact Demetria Giannisis at demetria.giannisis@northwestern.edu.