Raising Awareness: Sustainability as an Opportunity for the Materials Research Community

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NON TECHNICALA one-day Focus-on-Sustainability program of activities created by the Materials Research Society (MRS) and supported by the Division of Materials Research for the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit in Boston, MA, is designed to raise the awareness of the nexus between materials, materials research, and sustainable practice. The program will create opportunities for a diverse group of stakeholders to interact in a variety of ways to build a community of practice-galvanizing action towards, and bolstering participation in, research and education focusing on sustainability and the key role that materials play. The planned events include a session of invited talks by corporate social responsibility officers to be embedded in an existing Materials as Tools for Sustainability symposium, a poster competition for the MRS University Chapters (Sustainability@MySchool), a keynote presentation by a materials/sustainability-innovator in the Technology Innovation Forum, a preview of the new STEM course "Impact of Materials on Society," a Corporate Sustainability Roundtable, a preview of Strange Matter Green Earth museum exhibition under development by the MRS, a dynamic floor session on interacting with the public, and networking events to start and end the program.TECHNICALThe Materials Research Society (MRS) Focus-on-Sustainability events, supported by the Division of Materials Research, will kick off the 2014 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit on Sunday, November 30th and run through Monday, December 1. A central strategy for the program is the participation of corporate social responsibility leaders. It is important to connect this corporate group with the materials research community, in order to foster new synergies that drive research supporting sustainable materials usage, considerations of materials life-cycles, materials reuse and repurposing, green processing, and energy conservation and generation. Successful corporations practice systems-level thinking, and materials researchers can benefit from incorporating this point-of-view in the development of their research portfolios, especially as it pertains to sustainability. The planned events include a session of invited talks by corporate social responsibility officers to be embedded in an existing Materials as Tools for Sustainability symposium, a poster competition for the MRS University Chapters (Sustainability@My School), a keynote presentation by a materials/sustainability-innovator in the Technology Innovation Forum, a preview of the new STEM course "Impact of Materials on Society," a Corporate Sustainability Roundtable, a preview of Strange Matter Green Earth museum exhibition under development by the MRS, a dynamic floor session on interacting with the public, and networking events to start and end the program.