2023 MCSC Member Meetings

Joint session with the MIT Energy Initiative Future Energy Systems Center on topics of mutual interest such as data centers and computing, and marine and aviation low-carbon fuels

Interactive simulation exercise applying the Equitable Resilience Framework where participants will explore the issues and trade-offs involved in the development of offshore wind energy projects.

Reception and poster session featuring the work of MCSC Impact Fellows, MCSC seed awardees, and others in the MIT community.

Recent discourse on ecosystem valuation has focused on carbon sequestration potential as a measure of direct climate impact. However, the impact that climate and land use change have on biodiversity is an equal or even more pressing concern. This workshop will involve guided debate and discussion around opportunities to drive measurably positive outcomes in biodiversity protection and recovery. What are scientific and corporate goals to track and appropriate metrics for biodiversity? How do those metrics connect to ecosystem interventions which we are already associating value to, for example in the form of carbon credits? What is actionable now based on current science and where is the boundary between corporate and government responsibility in addressing this daunting challenge?

This session will develop a set of immediate activities to foster resource pooling  opportunities within the MCSC. Case studies will be reviewed and explored in the heavy duty trucking sector to: 1) collectively support third-party carriers in transitioning fleets to alternative fuels and powertrains through shared educational resources or infrastructure support, and 2) identify corridors with low barriers to transition and opportunities to leverage public investment and incentives. Are there opportunities to apply the developed methodology for resource pooling, risk mitigation and collective investment to other critical needs in climate and sustainability, exploring CO2 offtaking as a specific case study. 

This workshop involves a strategy discussion focused on the use of materials passports and traceability mechanisms to derive value from product composition data and achieve complementary objectives of improving resource recovery and optimizing material use. The conversation will use PixelFrame, a design innovation in reusable building structures, as a case study and focus on the degree to which two key areas of opportunity can form a positive feedback loop at industrial scales.

1. Increasing the efficiency of material, energy, and water recovery through data collection: This will cover the selection of implementation mechanisms for materials passports, determination of product ‘genotypes’, minimization of data collection costs, sharing of sensitive data, and the interpretability of data.
2. Using material recovery data to optimize materials for circularity: treating mixed waste as valuable information streams, with the goal of designing materials that require less effort to unmix and/or have desirable properties. This will cover how data collection at end-of-life can inform predictions of the functional properties of mixed materials to identify materials which are both more useful and recoverable in industrial supply chains.

This session will focus on transition risks, which are those challenges that arise during the transition from the status quo to a decarbonized future. The session will be organized around the assessment and planning that industry leaders are engaging in to understand and proactively prepare for transition activities. The case studies will explore themes of energy, policy, and entrenched systems that are applicable across many different sectors. Links will be made between transition risk and physical risk, and we will discuss how these risks evolve in time.

What is the role of behavior change to increase impact in climate and sustainability? Featuring case studies from circularity and transportation this session analyzes how corporate sustainability and climate action can be best communicated and framed for consumers and financial markets in order to best support and reinforce corporate decarbonization. Discussion will build from the MCSC’s September workshop on behavioral interventions for circularity.

In this workshop, periscoping involves an exploration of how MCSC member companies are considering social sustainability questions in their operations. How are member companies anticipating and strategically engaging with change and complexity in the landscape of human rights and social impact? What challenges and opportunities are peers facing integrating social impact into core business operations? How can we proactively engage with emerging regulatory directives? Over the course of 2023, MCSC impact fellows have conducted in-depth interviews with over 50 people at MCSC member companies working in all dimensions of social sustainability. This session will share initial findings and include peer-to-peer dialog on social sustainability cross-sector collaboration opportunities. 

This session will workshop how industry can focus on translational research efforts within their engagement with MIT and draw from successful examples on campus.