The Sustainability Studio: Where Change-Making Ideas Collide
Imagine a place where change-making ideas collide. Where students, faculty, staff, and community members come together to share and shape a more equitable future. That’s the aim of the Sustainability Studio.
Located on the first floor of Carnegie Mellon’s Hunt Library, the Studio is a vibrant, open, and dynamic hub that embodies the spirit of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In fact, the goals are visually integrated within the space, creating an immersive experience that feels like you’re stepping into an environment imbued with transformative opportunities. Here, sustainability is not just a buzzword; it's a commitment to social, economic, and environmental action.
The Sustainability Studio supports CMU’s Sustainability Initiative, led by Alex Hiniker. Her key message: sustainability is about more than recycling or greenhouse gases: it’s about addressing inequities and a wide range of complex issues. At CMU, we often talk about doing work that matters, and tackling problems that are characterized within the SDGs:
The Studio provides a physical location where these various threads can be explored, considered, and connected together. It's where bi-weekly snack hours spark unexpected conversations and where students from diverse disciplines can collaborate on projects, learn about initiatives, or explore career opportunities.
Alex designed the Studio to be student-led, centered around a team of seven interns, each with a variety of skills such as marketing, planning, engagement, or data analytics. Alex describes the interns as the heart of the work within the Studio. Their creativity and interests fuel the programming:
The core idea: the Sustainability Studio isn’t just a place to connect people and the SDGs (though it is great at that!); it’s also a social laboratory and living classroom where students acquire hands-on experience, build capacity, and gain confidence with valuable skills like communication, community organization, project management, program development, public speaking, event coordination, leadership, and advocacy. The construct of the SDGs and physical studio space in the library provide a thematic platform — but it’s more than that— this initiative acts as an engine for agency and self-efficacy.
The Sustainability Studio is more than just space, furniture, and aesthetics, it's about cultivating a particular mindset. It’s the intangibles that make it a success.
Listen to this EcoThreads podcast with Alex and Aleena Siddiqui to learn more.
Also see: Sustainability Initiative Finds a Permanent Home At CMU, the Sustainability Initiative is part of the Library Dean’s portfolio.
This is part 1 of a three-part series on the library and SDGs.
Part 2: Mapping SDGs across teaching & research.
Part 3 (forthcoming) will be about open practices & SDGs
