-

Sustainability Research Strategy 

EPA 600/S 07/001 | October 2007 | www.epa.gov/sustainability 

EPA 600/S-07/001 | October 2007 

Sustainability Research Strategy


Office of Research and Development 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

Washington, D.C. 
To download this report 


and learn more about 


EPA programs 


that support 


sustainability, 


please visit 


www.epa.gov/sustainability 
Foreword


Within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Research and Development (ORD) has a central role in 

identifying, understanding, and helping to solve current and future environmental problems. The Sustainability Research 

Strategy (SRS) describes ORD’s approach to some of the most pressing current and future national environmental issues. 

Science and technology are two key elements in ensuring that people understand the full environmental implications 

of their actions and will help ensure that sound decisions are made by individuals, communities, companies, and 

government agencies. ORD presents this Sustainability Research Strategy to improve understanding of the earth’s natural 

and man-made systems, to assess threats to those systems, and to develop and apply new technologies and decision 

support tools. 

The focus on sustainability research recognizes the changing nature of environmental challenges that society faces today. 

In the past EPA focused its actions more directly on specific pollutants, their sources, and causes. More recently, and 

into the future, the Agency must provide information to help address a broader set of environmental issues involving 

population and economic growth, energy use, agriculture, and industrial development. Capably addressing these 

questions, and the tradeoffs they will entail, requires the new systems-based focus on science and analysis outlined in 

the Sustainability Research Strategy. 

EPA is an agency with a strong internal research capability. The ability to directly link research and policy in one agency 

puts EPA in a good position to lead on environmental sustainability. ORD leads the research element in that linkage; 

by thinking and operating strategically, it plays a vital part in forming and driving the policy element. This research 

strategy recognizes that system-wide thinking is required to ensure our goal of promoting and achieving environmentally 

sustainable decisions at home and around the world. 

George Gray 

Assistant Administrator for Research and Development 

 
Acknowledgments


We acknowledge and thank the drafting team of Gordon Evans, Douglas Young, Heriberto Cabezas, Michael Gonzalez, 

Frank Princiotta, Cynthia Gage, and Tim Johnson (National Risk Management Research Laboratory); Diana Bauer and 

Julie Zimmerman (National Center for Environmental Research); Anita Street (Office of Science Policy); and Donna Perla, 

Richard Iovanna, and Edward Fallon (Office of the Assistant Administrator) for preparing this research strategy. 

Gary J. Foley 

Director, National Center for Environmental Research 

Sally Gutierrez 

Director, National Risk Management Research Laboratory 

Alan D. Hecht 

Director, Sustainable Development 

 
Peer Review History


Peer review is an important component of developing a research strategy. The following is the peer review 

history for this document: 

Office of Research and Development Science Council 

September 7, 2005 

EPA Science Policy Council 

November 21, 2005 

External Peer Review Science Advisory Board (SAB): 

June 13-15, 2006 

Environmental Engineering Committee Augmented for Sustainability Advisory 

Dr. Michael J. McFarland, Utah State University, Logan, UT, Chair 

Chartered SAB Members 

Mr. David Rejeski, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC 

Dr. Thomas L. Theis, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 

Dr. Valerie Thomas, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 

Members of the Environmental Engineering Committee 

Dr. Viney Aneja, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 

Dr. David A. Dzombak, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 

Dr. T. Taylor Eighmy, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 

Dr. Michael Kavanaugh, Malcolm Pirnie, Inc., Emeryville, CA 

Dr. Catherine Koshland, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 

Dr. Reid Lifset, Yale University, New Haven, CT 

Dr. Mark Rood, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 

Dr. John R. Smith, Alcoa Technical Center, Alcoa Center, PA 

Member of SAB Ecological Processes and Effects Committee 

Dr. William Mitsch, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 

Member of SAB Environmental Economics Advisory Committee 

Dr. Anna Alberini, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 

Peer Review Coordinator 

Ms. Kathleen White, Designated Federal Officer, EPA SAB Staff, Washington, DC 

 
Acronyms 

BOSC Board of Scientific Counselors 

CNS Collaborative Science and Technology Network for Sustainability 

EDS Environmental and Decision Sciences 

EERS Environmental Economics Research Strategy 

GEOSS Global Earth Observation System of Systems 

ISA Integrated Systems Analysis 

LCA Life Cycle Assessment 

LTG Long-Term Goals 

MFA Material Flow Analysis 

MYP Multi-Year Plan 

NACEPT National Advisory Committee for Environmental Policy and Technology Policy 

NEPA National Environmental Protection Act 

NPD National Program Director 

ORD Office of Research and Development 

P People, Prosperity, and Planet Student Design Program 

RoE Report on the Environment 

SAB Science Advisory Board 

SRS Sustainability Research Strategy 

STS Science and Technology for Sustainability 

 
Table of Contents


Foreword ...........................................................................................................................................1 

Peer Review History ..........................................................................................................................3 

Acronyms ..........................................................................................................................................4 

Table of Contents ..............................................................................................................................5 

Executive Summary ..........................................................................................................................6 

Chapter 1 Introduction and Purpose................................................................................................................11 

Describes the strategy’s organization and its national benefits 

Chapter 2 Rationale for the Strategy ...............................................................................................................15 

Assesses the impact of selected future stressors and justifies the need 

for sustainable use of resources 

Chapter 3 Definition and Scope ......................................................................................................................21 

Defines an EPA context for sustainability 

Chapter 4 Six Research Themes......................................................................................................................25 

Defines six sustainability research themes 

Chapter 5 Research Objectives........................................................................................................................37 

Describes how ORD will organize its research activities 

Chapter 6 Roadmap for Implementation .........................................................................................................47 

Describes ORD’s roadmap for implementing the Sustainability Research Program 

 
Executive Summary


Chapter . Introduction and Purpose 

We make decisions on a daily basis that affect the quality of our own lives as well as the lives of future generations. These 

decisions determine how sustainable our future will be. To assist governments, businesses, communities, and individuals 

in making sustainable choices, our Sustainable Research Strategy aims to develop an understanding of the earth as a 

natural system and craft models and tools to support sustainable decision making. Our strategy incorporates both core 

research that advances fundamental understanding of key biological, chemical, and physical processes underlying 

environmental systems, and problem-driven research that targets specific environmental problems or customer needs. 

The research strategy draws on and integrates across the many research programs within the Office of Research and 

Development and focuses this research to support sustainable decision making. 

Chapter . Rationale for the Strategy 

A combination of forces—including unprecedented growth in population, economy, urbanization, and energy use—are 

imposing new stresses on the earth’s resources and society’s ability to maintain or improve environmental quality. In 

order to improve environmental protection, human health, and living standards, our generation must move to mitigate or 

prevent the negative consequences of growing population and economy. The increasing stresses require new approaches 

to environmental protection that go beyond end-of-pipe control strategies concerned principally with pollutant emissions. 

Based on our understanding that environmental problems are rarely contained within a single resource or geographic 

area, we must develop and implement integrated and systems-based approaches to meet society’s needs today and 

ensure a more sustainable future. 

Chapter . Definition and Scope 

The concept of sustainable development marries two important insights: environmental protection does not preclude 

economic development; and economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long run. Sustainable 

development, which requires an integration of economic, social, and environmental polices, cannot be achieved by 

any single federal agency, because it relies on policy coherence across government agencies. EPA’s contribution to 

sustainability is to protect human health and the environment for both this and future generations. Our Sustainability 

Research Strategy rests on the recognition that sustainable environmental outcomes must be achieved in a systemsbased and multimedia context that focuses on the environment without neglecting the roles of economic patterns and 

human behavior. This recognition begets a fundamental change in research design. In a systems-based approach, the 

traditional goals of achieving clean air or water or protecting ecosystems and human health can be fully understood 

only through a multimedia approach. EPA and its partners will develop integrating decision support tools (models, 

methodologies, and technologies) and supporting data and analysis that will guide decision makers toward environmental 

sustainability and sustainable development. 

 
Chapter . Six Research Themes 

Emphasizing an integrated and systems-based approach to achieving sustainability, 

we focus on six broad research themes. 

1. Renewable Resource Systems. The sustainability of natural systems is critical to protecting human health, supporting 

our economy, and maintaining our quality of life. Sustainability demands that we determine how best to obtain the 

benefits that renewable resources provide, while considering the system-wide effects their use has on the regenerative 

capacity of the entire system. Three of our research strategy aims are especially relevant to renewable resources: (1) 

defining clear measures of sustainable renewable systems, (2) improving understanding of ecosystem processes and 

services, and (3) developing and applying advanced systems models and tools for decision making. 

2. Non-Renewable Resource Systems. The extraction, processing, and use of fossil fuels, minerals, and other materials 

are critical elements of our economic life. Sustainability calls for greater conservation and efficient use of these nonrenewable resources, as well as greater reliance on renewable energy, development of substitutes for toxic and 

dangerous materials, and an emphasis on management of materials rather than disposal of waste products. Our strategy 

seeks to promote sustainable management of non-renewable resource operations and to support the shift to renewable 

resources. The research will include life cycle assessment and material flow analysis; application of models to assess the 

regional impacts of various energy sources on emissions and air quality; and development of alternative chemicals and 

new industrial methods. Climate change research and assessment, a major global sustainability issue, will continue to be 

a collaborative effort of many programs at EPA and other agencies. 

3. Long-Term Chemical and Biological Impacts. The intergenerational dimension of sustainability means that society must be 

mindful of the long-term threat posed by chemical and biological impacts on the environment. Improving our use of materials, 

shifting to environmentally preferable materials, and protecting human health all rely on assessing and eliminating the longterm impacts posed by harmful chemical and biological materials. Our research will aim to develop alternate chemicals and 

new industrial processes, as well as decision support tools for evaluating the environmental dimensions of the new chemicals 

and processes. It will also employ life cycle assessment and material flow analysis to evaluate environmental releases from 

industrial systems and nanomaterials. 

4. Human-Built Systems and Land Use. The growth of urbanized areas over the past century has shown that humanbuilt systems can significantly harm ecosystems and undermine their ability to provide critical services. This strategy will 

include research on topics such as sustainable building design and efficiency, management of urban systems, life cycle 

assessment for building design and land use, and decision support tools for urban land development and revitalization. 

ORD scientists and engineers will work directly with key customers and stakeholders who can most benefit from our 

research capabilities in these areas—such as those at state and local levels responsible for myriad decisions on urban 

development, land use, and provision of public services. 

 
5. Economics and Human Behavior. Since the sustainable management of natural and man-made systems depends on 

human behavior and choice, our research strategy is closely linked with research in economics and behavioral science, 

such as developing ecosystem valuation methods and analyzing the role of incentives in decision making and the causes 

of market failures. Research in this area is led by ORD’s Economics and Decision Science Research Program. Activities 

in the Sustainability Research Strategy will be closely coordinated with this program. 

6. Information and Decision Making. The establishment of an information infrastructure of sustainability metrics and 

environmental monitoring is a necessary component of any strategy advancing sustainability. EPA’s Draft Report on 

the Environment (RoE) provides snapshots of the existing environmental state. Metrics are defined in relation to clearly 

stated questions such as, “What are the conditions and current trends of surface waters?” and, “What are the trends in 

the ecological processes that sustain the nation’s ecological systems?” As EPA moves toward identifying a set of clearly 

articulated questions related to sustainable outcomes—such as, “How sustainable are the nation’s water supplies?”— 

research can focus on identifying appropriate indicators and ensuring their quality. Our strategy is also closely linked with 

the Global Earth Observation Systems of Systems (GEOSS) program. GEOSS will effectively take the pulse of the planet by 

compiling a system of all relevant databases (or systems), thus revolutionizing our understanding of how the earth works. 

Over time, GEOSS will contribute greatly to sustainability by providing important scientific information for sound policy 

and decision making in every sector of society. 

Chapter . Research Objectives 

The five principle research objectives of our research strategy represent areas of strong ORD competence. Our research 

aims first to advance systems understanding—to better comprehend the interconnections, resilience, and vulnerabilities 

over time of natural systems, industrial systems, the built environment, and human society. Second, our research aims 

to further develop decision support tools to assist decision makers. A third key element of our strategy is to develop and 

apply new technologies to address inherently benign and less resource-intensive materials, energy sources, processes, 

and products. Fourth, our research is committed to collaborative decision making. We aim to develop an understanding 

of motivations for decision making and to craft approaches to collaborative problem solving. Fifth and finally, our research 

strategy emphasizes developing metrics and indicators to measure and track progress toward sustainability goals, to send 

early warning of potential problems to decision makers, and to highlight opportunities for improvement 

 
Chapter . Roadmap for Implementation 

Our Sustainability Research Strategy builds on ORD’s traditional focus on risk assessment and risk management and 

dovetails with EPA’s commitment to stewardship and sustainable outcomes. The strategy supports shifts by program 

offices toward developing sustainable water infrastructure, managing materials rather than waste, managing ecosystems 

and ecoservices, and emphasizing green chemistry and urban sustainability (including green building design and lowimpact development). To implement this research strategy we will take the following steps: 

•	 Demonstrate the value of sustainability research by identifying key national issues where application of sustainability 

approaches can be most effective in promoting sound and sustainable economic growth. 

•	 Advance core sustainability research and development of new tools and methodologies by transitioning the current 

Pollution Prevention and New Technologies Research Program into the Science and Technology for Sustainability 

Research Program. 

•	 Leverage all ORD resources by coordinating and integrating research across ORD that builds a critical knowledge 

base for sustainability, such as identifying synergies, gaps to be filled, and high-priority emerging areas among 

existing research strategies. 

•	 Leverage all EPA resources by coordinating and strengthening collaborations and partnerships—with EPA program 

and regional offices, other federal agencies, state and local governments, communities, industry, nonprofit 

organizations, universities, and international partners—that address critical sustainability issues and stimulate 

broader progress toward sustainability in both research and implementation. 

 
0 
Chapter . Introduction and Purpose 

This chapter relates the Sustainability Research Strategy to the mission of the Office 

of Research and Development and describes the research strategy’s goals, outcomes, 

and organization. 

Sustainability and the ORD Mission 

From the perspective of the Office of Research and 

Development, the science of sustainability is developing 

the underlying knowledge base that allows decision 

makers to make sustainable choices. For natural resource 

managers, this means how to manage our resources to 

provide maximum services today and in the future. For 

urban planners, this means how to build cost-effective 

and efficient urban systems that protect both human 

health and the environment. For decision makers in 

industry, this means how to enhance economic growth 

while minimizing industry’s footprint on the environment. 

The science of sustainability aims to anticipate problems 

and promote innovation. A 1997 National Academy of 

Engineering report suggests the path to sustainability 

“involves the creative design of products, processes, 

systems and organizations, and the implementation of 

smart management strategies that effectively harness 

technologies and ideas to avoid environmental problems 

before they arise.”1 

ORD conducts cutting-edge research and fosters the 

use of sound science and technology to fulfill the 

Agency’s mission of protecting human health and 

safeguarding the natural environment. ORD research 

is a mix of (1) core research that seeks to advance 

fundamental understanding of key biological, chemical, 

and physical processes that underlie environmental 

systems; and (2) problem-driven research that focuses 

on specific environmental problems or customer needs. 

The Sustainability Research Strategy encompasses 

both core and problem-oriented research, aiming first 

at understanding biological, physical, and chemical 

interactions through a systems approach; and second, 

developing effective models, tools, and metrics that 

enable decision makers to achieve sustainable outcomes.2 

This important goal of helping society make good 

decisions was identified by the 1998 House Committee on 

Science report, Unlocking Our Future: 

While acknowledging the continuing need for science 

and engineering in national security, health and the 

economy, the challenges we face today cause us to 

propose that the scientific and engineering enterprise 

ought to move toward center stage in a fourth role; 

that of helping society make good decisions. We 

believe this role for science will take on increasing 

importance, as we face difficult decisions related to 

the environment.3 

Recent external reviews of two other ORD research 

programs have re-emphasized the theme of this 

congressional guidance. The 2005 reviews by ORD’s 

Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) of the Ecological 

Research Program and Global Change Research Program 

both emphasized a need for activities that lead to “wise 

decision-making” and that are “demand-driven and 

participatory.”4 

1	 National Academy of Engineering. The Industrial Green Game: 

Implications for Environmental Design and Management. Washington: 

National Academies Press, 1997 

2	 National Research Council, Building a Foundation for Sound 

Environmental Decisions. Washington: National Academies Press, 

1997. 

3	 Unlocking Our Future: Toward a New National Science Policy. 

Washington: House Committee on Science. September 24, 1998. 

4	 The BOSC review of ORD’s Global Change Research Program noted: 

“Two underlying themes have surfaced in the Program’s approach to 

its work. The first is that its emphasis now and for the future should 

be on decision support—improving the ability of those who control 

actions to make wise choices in the face of global change through 

provisions of useful research and activities. The Subcommittee 

concludes that this is the right emphasis and that it should be a 

guiding star for the efforts of this Program. The second emphasis is on 

stakeholder involvement—being ‘demand-driven’ and participatory.” 

Board of Scientific Counselors, Review of the Office of Research 

and Development’s Global Change Research Program at the U.S. 

Environmental Protection Agency: Final Report. (March 27, 2006). 

www.epa.gov/OSP/bosc/pdf/glob0603rpt.pdf 

 
Purpose of the Strategy 

Recognizing its responsibility to lead EPA in science 

applications for decision making, ORD management 

identified two objectives for this research strategy: 

•	 Develop a crosscutting sustainability research plan 

that will tie together the ORD multi-year plans (MYPs) 

that concern component parts of sustainability; and 

•	 Develop a revised MYP for Pollution Prevention (P2), 

entitled “Science and Technology for Sustainability,” 

that will identify new annual and long-term goals and 

annual performance outcome measures to better 

focus pollution prevention and innovative technology 

on sustainability. 

In moving to establish an integrated sustainability 

research program across ORD, management recognizes 

three challenges: (1) defining clear and comprehensive 

sustainability goals that are meaningful to EPA and that 

connect the dots among existing ORD research strategies; 

(2) initiating and leveraging new activities within a limited 

range of budget options; and (3) overcoming a tradition of 

media-specific (“stovepipe”) approaches to environmental 

problems. 

Through this strategy, ORD aims to address these 

challenges by defining sustainability within EPA and 

identifying research priorities and management steps 

necessary to achieve the dual national goals of supporting 

a growing economy and advancing environmental 

protection. 

Stakeholder Input and Strategy 

Goals and Outcomes 

This Sustainability Research Strategy was derived from 

input gathered through internal and external activities: 

•	 Consultation with regional and program offices on the 

types of research that can provide the greatest benefit 

to their programs, 

•	 Recommendations of the EPA Science Advisory 

Board (SAB) and Board of Scientific Counselors 

(BOSC), 

•	 Review of the sustainability research literature and 

consultation with outside experts, 

•	 Review of EPA-sponsored workshops related to 

sustainability, and 

•	 Review and consultation with other national 

governments, the European Commission, and 

multilateral organizations. 

Economic Benefits 

The economic benefits of applying sustainable 

management practices for current and future energy 

construction, greenhouse gas emissions, material and 

chemical use, ecosystems services, and health protection 

are only now being fully appreciated. For example, by 

2030 new and replacement building development will 

amount to 204.1 billion square feet, equal to almost 

90 percent of the built space that existed in 2000. 

All of this amounts to about $30 trillion in total new 

development (including infrastructure) that will occur 

between 2000 and 2030. A new focus on biofuels as 

an energy source will demand new infrastructure and 

transportation systems in nearly all ecozones of the United 

States. Rebuilding the aging U.S. water infrastructure 

will translate into billions of dollars. EPA’s Clean Water 

and Drinking Water Infrastructure Gap Analysis (2002)5 

estimated that if capital investment and operations and 

maintenance remain at current levels, the potential 

funding shortfall for drinking water and wastewater 

infrastructure could exceed $500 billion by 2020. 

5 www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure 

 
Aiming to affect present and future economic 

development and encourage sound taxpayer and public 

investment, the research strategy seeks to advance these 

goals: 

•	 Improve understanding of earth systems to better 

protect human health, manage natural resources, 

and design 

cost-effective and sustainable policies; 

•	 Enable EPA, states, and communities to more 

successfully envision, plan, develop, manage, and 

restore their infrastructure and spaces so that human 

health and quality 

of life, and the quality of air, water, and land are 

protected 

for the future; and 

•	 Design, manufacture, and manage chemicals and 

materials so as to protect the environment and public 

health, prevent pollution, and conserve resources, 

while advancing global competitiveness and societal 

objectives. 

Criteria for measuring the success of this research 

strategy and the companion ORD MYPs are outlined in 

Goal V of the 2006-11 EPA Strategic Plan.

6 

Goal V of the EPA Strategic Plan for 00-0 

Objective 5.4: Enhance Society’s Capacity for 

Sustainability through Science and Research. 

Conduct leading-edge, sound scientific research on 

pollution prevention, new technology development, 

socioeconomics, sustainable systems, and decisionmaking tools. By 2011, the products of this research 

will be independently recognized as providing critical 

and key evidence in informing Agency polices and 

decisions and solving problems for the Agency and its 

partners and stakeholders 

Sub-objective 5.4.2: Conducting Research. Through 

2011, conduct leading-edge, sound scientific 

research on pollution prevention, new technology 

development, socioeconomics, sustainable systems 

and decision-making tools. The products of this 

research will provide critical and key evidence in 

informing Agency policies and decisions affecting the 

Agency programs in Goal 5, as well as EPA partners 

and stakeholders. 

6 www.epa.gov/ocfo/plan/plan.htm 

7 www.epa.gov/indicators/roe 

 
 
Chapter . Rationale for the Strategy 

A host of far-reaching, interrelated, and complex factors—such as growing human 

populations, increases in waste production, growing energy demands, and land 

development—are all contributing to stresses on the earth’s natural systems. Protecting 

human health and safeguarding the natural environment in the face of these stressors is 

a national priority—and a daunting challenge. 

To meet this challenge, EPA’s Sustainability Research Strategy explores an integrated, 

scientific approach to defining and achieving sustainability goals in six key natural 

resource systems: energy, air, water, materials, land, and ecosystems. 

Given the breadth of existing ORD research activities, this chapter explains the rationale 

for the new strategy, concluding that a more crosscutting and system-oriented research 

strategy is needed to address existing and emerging environmental problems. 

Externalities Affecting the 

Environment 

Water, air, land, and energy research are interrelated and 

affected by a host of externalities related to economic 

growth, demographic changes, and energy use. Economic 

growth is essential for maintaining social well-being; how 

this growth is achieved determines a society’s quality of 

life. Most countries have clearly learned that sustainable 

environmental polices are an essential component of 

sound economic growth. Research that supports this goal 

is thus an area of national priority. 

When EPA was founded in 1970, the U.S. population 

was just over 203 million; in 2006 it reached 300 million, 

reflecting a 35-year increase of nearly 50 percent. 

This growth, however, has not been distributed evenly. 

About one-third of the U.S. population resides in the 17 

Western states, which include seven of the nation’s 10 

fastest growing states. Through 2030 the population of 

the Southwest is projected to increase as a proportion of 

the U.S. population. The population increase has already 

greatly affected the allocation and use of resources. 

Approximately one acre of land becomes urbanized or 

otherwise developed for each additional U.S. inhabitant. 

Many Western and Southwestern states with rapidly 

expanding population are also experiencing urban 

expansion, increasing energy demand, and diminishing 

water resources.8 The U.S. population is also aging, 

thereby creating new needs for health and human 

services. These changes require a heightened awareness 

of potential future challenges, especially increasing 

demand for water and energy in much of the nation. 

World population and economic growth will expand rapidly 

during the coming decades. Global population is expected 

to increase by nearly 40 percent by 2050. By 2030 more 

than 60 percent of the world’s population will live in 

cities, many in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where the 

urban populations will grow from 1.9 billion people to 3.9 

billion people. Economic growth in the “BRIC” countries 

(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) will significantly impact 

future global and trans-boundary environmental issues. 

Over the next 30 years, while the U.S. per capita GDP is 

expected to increase by 60 percent, the per capita GDP 

in China and India is projected to increase nearly tenfold.9 

Together these changes will place considerable stress on 

the earth’s resources and on humanity’s ability to maintain 

or improve environmental quality. Unless steps are taken 

to address the consequences of growing populations and 

economies, the resilience of the global ecosystem will be 

undermined. The challenge is to prevent or minimize the 

potential negative consequences. 

8	 Population data is taken from Mark T. Anderson and Lloyd H. Woosley, 

Jr., Water Availability in the Western United States. U.S. Geological 

Survey Circular 1261. Washington: USGS, 2005. http://pubs.usgs. 

gov/circ/2005/circ1261 

9	 Dominic Wilson and Roopa Purushothaman, Dreaming with BRICS: 

The Path to 2050. Goldman Sachs Global Economics Paper No. 99. 

October 2003. www.gs.com/insight/research/reports/report6.html 

 
Table .. Proposed Sustainable Outcome Measures 0 

Natural Resource Systems Sustainable Outcomes 

Energy Generate clean energy and use it efficiently. 

Air Sustain clean and healthy air. 

Water Sustain water resources of quality and availability for desired uses. 

Materials Use materials carefully and shift to environmentally preferable materials. 

Land Support ecologically sensitive land management and development. 

Ecosystems Protect and restore ecosystem functions, goods, and services. 

Achieving Sustainability 

This challenge means that achieving sustainable 

environmental outcomes must be a long-term national 

environmental goal. This is a key goal of the new EPA 

report, Everyday Choices: Opportunities for Environmental 

Stewardship, in which senior EPA managers identify 

sustainable outcomes in six resource systems relevant 

to the Agency’s mission. The report is the first explicit 

statement of EPA senior leadership focused on 

recommendations for sustainability outcomes that the 

nation should seek. While much more discussion and 

debate will be needed to refine these goals, the report’s 

linkage of stewardship with sustainable outcomes has set 

a direction for future policy development and research. 

The sustainable outcomes outlined in the report are 

listed in Table 2.1. 

The possibility of achieving these outcomes will be 

greatly affected by the trends presented in Table 2.2. For 

example, growing population and GDP will significantly 

impact the six resource systems. Population increases 

will affect how and where land is developed and thus the 

viability of ecosystems. Population growth has historically 

led to increased use of energy, water, and materials— 

and increased production of waste, leading to greater 

pollution of air, water, and land, with associated negative 

consequences for ecosystems and human health. 

Economic growth has usually required greater quantities 

of energy, materials, and water from expanded agriculture 

and industry, leading to more waste, toxics, and pollution 

of air and water. The land and ecosystems change as 

materials are extracted, goods produced, infrastructure 

built, and wastes disposed of. 

EPA’s 2003 and 2007 draft reports on the environment 

outlined U.S. successes in environmental protection and 

identified many remaining challenges and data gaps. 

Table 2.2 lists examples of trends identified in this report 

for each of the six resource areas, revealing a few of the 

many potential stresses stemming from the expected U.S. 

population and economic growth. Other potential impacts 

of stressors on the environment have been identified 

through a survey of EPA senior program officers and from 

external future studies.11 

10 Everyday Choices: Opportunities for Environmental Stewardship, 

Innovation Action Council Report to the Administrator, November 

2005. www.epa.gov/epainnov/pdf/rpt2admin.pdf 

11 www.epa.gov/indicators 

 
Table .. Potential Consequences of Growing U.S. Population and GDP 

Natural Resource Systems Current Trends 12 Consequences Projected 

Over 0 Years 

Energy 

In the last 30 years energy consumption 

has increased by 42%. 

Between 1982 and 2001, NOx emissions 

rose by 9%, primarily from increased 

diesel fuel use. 

Demand for petroleum, natural gas, and 

coal each will increase by 25-40%. 

Passenger miles driven and number of 

road vehicles will increase by 30-40%. 

CO2 emissions will grow by 28%.13 

Air 

133 million people live in areas with air 

quality not meeting NAAQ standards 

(indoor air pollution is associated with 

asthma in children). 

Increased transportation demand will 

increase NAAQS exceedances; between 

23 million and 33 million additional 

housing units will be needed. 

Water 

408 billion gallons of water per day 

are withdrawn. 

Excess nitrogen and phosphorus have 

degraded aquatic life in 2.5 million acres 

of lakes and 84,000 miles of rivers and 

streams. 

In some areas, existing water supplies 

will be inadequate to meet demands for 

people, cities, farms, and the natural 

systems and biota.14 

Reduced water availability is projected to 

impede electric power plant growth.15 

Materials 

MSW over the last decade MSW has 

leveled at 4.5 lbs/person/day. 

Waste systems are managing growing 

quantities of toxic chemicals. 

Under “business as usual” scenarios, a 

24% projected increase in population will 

result in a comparable increase in total 

waste generation. 

Land 

The pace of land development between 

1992 and 1997 was more than 1.5 times 

the rate of the previous 10 years. 

About 10% of forested land is expected 

to be converted to urban and developed 

use.16 

Ecosystems 

Coastal wetland area has decreased by 

8% since the 1950s. 

One third of native species are at risk. 

Flux of nitrogen to coastal ecosystems 

will increase by 10-20% worldwide. 

Species extinction rates are projected to 

be ten times higher than current rate.17 

12 Extracted from the 2003 Draft Report on the Environment Technical Document. Washington: 

EPA, 2003. www.epa.gov/indicators/roe/html/tsd/tsdTOC.htm 

13 Department of Energy. Annual Energy Outlook 2004. DOE/EIA-0383(2004). January 2004. www.econstats.com/EIA/AEO2004.pdf 

14 Department of the Interior, “Water 2025: Preventing Crises and Conflict in the West.” www.doi.gov/water2025 

15 Electric Power Research Institute, 2001. www.epri.com 

16 Climate Change Science Program, 2003 

17 United Nations, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Washington: Island Press, 2005. www.millenniumassessment.org/en/index.aspx 

 
Table .. Linkages Among Resource Systems 

Resources Under Stress 

Potential Response to the Stressed Resource System 

Energy Air Water Materials Land Ecosystems 

Energy 

(increased use) 

Increased 

pollutants 

Increased 

demand 

Increased 

extraction 

Extraction 

impacts 

Extraction 

impacts 

Air 

(increased pollutants) 

Increased 

energy for 

cleanup 

Pollutant 

deposition 

from air 

Increased 

demand, 

Degradation 

Waste 

disposal 

Increased 

negative 

impacts 

Water 

(increased pollutants) 

Increased 

energy for 

cleanup 

Transfer of 

pollutants 

from water 

Increased 

demand, 

Degradation 

Waste 

disposal 

Increased 

negative 

impacts 

Material 

(increased use) 

Increased 

demand 

(processing 

energy) 

Increased 

pollutants 

Increased 

demand, 

Increased 

pollutants 

Extraction 

impacts, 

Waste 

disposal 

Increased 

negative 

impacts 

Land 

(increased development) 

Increased 

demand 

Increased 

pollutants 

Increased 

pollutants, 

Runoff 

Reduction 

of 

resources 

Reduction 

of resource 

Ecosystems 

(decreased availability) 

Increased 

energy for 

restoration 

Reduced 

natural 

processing 

capacity 

Reduced 

natural 

processing 

capacity 

Reduced 

renewable 

resources 

Erosion 

 
Even as population and GDP impact a particular resource 

system, that system in turn interacts with other areas in 

complex, dynamic, and interrelated ways. For example, 

since 1971 each 1 percent increase in worldwide GDP 

has resulted in a 0.64 percent increase in energy use. 

Most of the energy has been produced from fossil 

fuels, so the increased energy use has led to greater 

emissions of air pollutants from the combustion of these 

fuels. Nearly half of U.S. water withdrawals are used for 

cooling power plants and water is also used to scrub air 

pollutants from flue gas; so rising energy use increases 

both demand for and pollution of water. Extraction of 

fossil fuels from the earth requires use of more materials, 

changes the surrounding land, and produces more 

wastes (i.e. unwanted materials). Finally, increased energy 

use impacts ecosystems through such factors as silt 

runoff from energy extraction activities and the decline 

in water quality caused by runoff from mining facilities. 

Such response impacts are shown in the first row of 

Table 2.3. Interactions like these demonstrate forcefully 

that a systems approach offers the best strategy for 

understanding environmental impacts and for designing 

cost-effective and sustainable policy responses.

 Sewerage provides another example of interaction 

among resource areas. As shown in Table 2.3, polluted 

sewer water requires energy for cleanup; air pollutants 

of methane and nitrogen compounds are produced, and 

solid waste is generated and typically sent to landfills. 

Finally, sewerage overflows can impact ecosystems. These 

examples illustrate how a change in one resource area 

can negatively reverberate through other areas. 

The Need for a Systems Approach 

Ensuring continued improvement in environmental 

quality and in the protection of human health under these 

increasing stresses requires new approaches. Fortunately, 

this is not without precedent, as approaches to 

environmental protection have evolved over the decades 

to meet emerging challenges and the advance of science. 

In its early years, EPA developed end-of-pipe strategies 

that targeted emissions of pollutants from, for example, 

smokestacks and sewer lines. As these strategies 

matured, new problems were recognized, and were met 

accordingly with new upstream approaches, such as 

waste minimization and pollution prevention. 

As additional environmental stressors were recognized, 

the evaluation and choice of pollution control and 

mitigation options required greater understanding of the 

overall context of problems. This led to the development 

of life cycle assessments, which demonstrated that 

the vast majority of environmental problems are not 

contained within a single resource area or within a single 

product’s life cycle, but extend across multiple areas 

and timeframes. It is now clear that a more integrated 

approach to environmental protection is needed. 

As environmental protection has become more complex, 

the Agency has evolved, moving from point-source 

pollution controls associated with particular industries 

to larger problems of regional emissions, such as 

those associated with agricultural operations, urban 

transportation, and emerging contaminants. Successfully 

meeting all of these challenges—significant increases in 

stressors, impacts across resource areas, emissions from 

diffuse sources, and emerging contaminants—will require 

a continued evolution in how environmental protection 

approaches sustainability. 

Is the problem of sustainability urgent? Does it address 

the national interest? There is no doubt that improving 

the health and well-being of people today and in the 

future, while growing the economy and protecting 

natural resources, is a national priority. Prudent scientific 

management would suggest launching a program aimed 

at better understanding the linkages among the six 

resource systems and developing effective means to 

disseminate and apply the research results. 

 
0 
Chapter . Definition and Scope 

ORD focuses its sustainability research portfolio on capturing and quantifying systems 

dynamics, assessing and managing variability, and understanding resilience of 

systems to stresses and disturbances, both expected and unexpected. Sustainability 

research is an essential foundation that incorporates new research approaches with 

the established foundation of ORD’s existing research focused on individual media 

(land, air, and water). 

Sustainability research will focus on six broad crosscutting themes that are 

coordinated with ORD’s economic and behavioral science research and global 

monitoring programs. 

Toward Sustainable Development 

The concept of sustainable development marries two 

important insights: (1) environmental protection does 

not preclude economic development; and (2) economic 

development should be ecologically viable.18 Sustainable 

development also addresses the question of trade-offs 

between the welfare of people today and the welfare of 

people in the future. In the words of the 1987 report 

Our Common Future—better known as the Brundtland 

Report—development is sustainable when it “meets the 

needs of the present without compromising the ability of 

future generations to meet their own needs.”19 

Sustainable development fosters policies that integrate 

environmental, economic, and social values in decision 

making. The National Environmental Protection Act 

(NEPA)—drafted in 1969 before EPA was established— 

provides that the federal government, in partnership 

with the states, should “use all practicable means and 

measures... to create and maintain conditions under 

which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, 

and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements 

of present and future generations of Americans.” This 

NEPA provision is implemented in today’s federal policies 

and actions that promote stewardship and collaborative 

problem solving. Subsequent legislation and executive 

orders have directed federal agencies to pursue sustainable 

management of federal facilities and to measure and report 

on economic, environmental, and social responsibilities of 

their operations.

20 On January 24, 2007, President Bush 

signed Executive Order 13423, “Strengthening Federal 

Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” 

which sets goals in the areas of energy efficiency, 

acquisitions, renewable energy, toxics reductions, recycling, 

sustainable buildings, electronics stewardship, vehicle 

fleets, and water conservation. The order directs heads 

of federal agencies to implement sustainable practices in 

these areas, echoing the NEPA goals expressed in 1969 

by specifying that “sustainable”means” “creat[ing] and 

maintain[ing] conditions, under which humans and nature 

can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the 

social, economic, and other requirements of present and 

future generations of Americans.”21 The Government 

Accountability Office has also recently assessed the 

role that federal agencies are playing in complementing 

U.S. business goals of promoting global corporate social 

responsibility.

22 

18 Dan Esty, “A Term’s Limits.” Foreign Policy. September/October 2001, 

pg. 74-75. 

19 World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common 

Future. London: Oxford University Press, 1987. 

20 Emil J. Dzuray, et al., “Achieving Sustainability of Government 

Operations,” LMI Research Institute Report IR 521 R1. September 

2005 

21 www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/01/20070124-2.html 

22 Government Accountability Office. Globalization: Numerous Federal 

Activities Complement U.S. Business Global Corporate Social 

Responsibility Efforts. GAO-05—744. Washington: August 2005. 

 
Environmental Sustainability 

EPA has moved steadily over the past 36 years to ensure 

that its policies and programs are responsive to changing 

environmental stresses. U.S. environmental policies 

have evolved from reliance on laws and regulations 

requiring only compliance, to new emphasis on policies 

and incentives that encourage industry to go beyond 

compliance. Growing use of market-based economic 

instruments, voluntary programs, public reporting by 

industry, and creative public-private partnerships are 

bringing a new era of environmental management. Former 

Administrator William K. Riley, however, noted, 

I don’t think we will be able to say, in the popular 

phrase of the moment, that we have attained a 

sustainable level of development until we function in 

harmony with these ecosystems, and learn to keep 

them productive... We are not, nor ought to be, 

fundamentally about reducing this effluent or that 

emission, but rather about protecting the totality of 

the environment.23 

The Brundtland Report recognized that environmental 

protection is different from, but related to, sustainable 

development: “Environmental protection and sustainable 

development must be an integral part of the mandates of 

all agencies of government, of international organizations, 

and of major private-sector institutes.”24 Sustainable 

environmental policies are critical for achieving 

sustainable development. EPA and ORD are in position 

to lead those policies by developing a strong research 

foundation that contributes to policies supporting 

sustainable development. 

This Strategy will promote environmental sustainability 

by seeking outcomes that protect and enhance the 

resilience of natural systems to environmental stress and 

that reduce the industrial and urban burdens on the 

environment. 

Sustainability Research 

The research strategy’s definition of sustainability 

research can be clarified through an analogy with nontraditional research being conducted in the investment 

and insurance communities. Traditionally, these sectors 

allocated resources and managed risk with a principle 

focus on short-term performance and economic 

measures, ignoring a host of external social and 

environmental factors. Today they have a growing interest 

in the impact of extra-financial issues on long-term risk 

and investment. For example, Swiss Re, the leading 

reinsurance firm, has declared that “unsustainable 

development increasingly needs to be understood as 

having the potential to substantially change the risk 

landscape,” and has launched an extensive research 

program on the early detection and assessment of 

environmental and health risks.25 

In the investment world, asset owners and managers 

have formed the Enhanced Analytics Initiative, an 

international consortium aimed at encouraging better 

investment research, especially research focused on 

“... the alignment of management and board with longterm company value, the quality of human resources 

management, risks associated with governance structure, 

the environment, branding, corporate ethics and 

stakeholder relations.”26 

23 William K Reilly. Oral History Interview, “Ecosystem Management.” EPA 

202-K-95-002. September 1995. www.epa.gov/history/publications/ 

reilly/21.htm 

24 World Commission on Environment and Development, pg. 311. 

25 Swiss Re, Sustainability Report 2004. Zurich: Swiss Re, 2005 (p. 9). 

Swiss Re has built an extensive research program around detection 

and assessment of risks. Its SONAR research project (Systematic 

Observations of Notions Associated with Risk) is an extensive data 

analysis and systems study that can detect risk signals too weak to 

show up on the radar screen of a wider audience. See 2004 Report, 

page 9. www.swissre.com/INTERNET/pwsfilpr.nsf/vwFilebyIDKEYLu/ 

MSTN-6DFKHP/$FILE/Sustainability_Rep_04.pdf 

26 The Initiative currently represents companies with managing assets 

of more than US$1 trillion (See www.enhancedanalytics.com/Fiesta/ 

EDITORIAL/20060630/CommPresse/PR15_InvestecjoinsEAI_190506. 

pdf). Quote is from David Blood and Al Gore, “It is Essential that 

Investors Look to the Long Term,” www. ft.com, July 6, 2005; 

Financial Times, July 7, 2005. www.generationim.com/media/ 

pdf-ft-david-blood-al-gore-07-07-05.pdf. 

 
The insurance and investment sectors are both promoting 

“better research for better investment decisions”—an 

approach based on future projections, capturing system 

dynamics and points of leverage, and assessing and 

managing variability and uncertainty. EPA can learn 

and benefit from such forward-looking, system-oriented 

research that broadens the application of risk analysis to 

reflect a wider range of environmental and social issues. 

ORD’s Sustainability Research Strategy mirrors the 

expanded research goals of cutting-edge insurance and 

investment firms, because sustainability research similarly 

seeks “to promote more informed and sustainable 

decisions.” Like the financial sectors, ORD must project 

the impact of future economic and demographic changes 

on natural and man-made systems to help decision 

makers attain more sustainable outcomes.27 Research in 

the realms of insurance, investment, and environmental 

protection aims to connect the dots to better understand 

how systems work and how they are affected by change. 

ORD sustainability research aims to capture system 

dynamics, manage variability and uncertainty, and 

understand system resilience to foreseen and unforeseen 

stresses. Improved scientific understanding must be 

translated into useable outcomes. To do this, EPA and 

its partners will develop integrating decision support 

tools (i.e. models, methodologies, and technologies) that 

produce the data and understanding to help decision 

makers shift toward practices promoting environmental 

sustainability, and ultimately, sustainable development. 

Emphasizing a systems approach to achieving sustainable 

environmental management, we focus on six broad 

research themes. 

• Renewable Resource Protection 

• Non-Renewable Resource Conservation 

• Long-Term Chemical and Biological Impacts 

• Human-Built Systems and Land Use 

• Economics and Human Behavior 

• Information and Decision Making 

27 “Shaping our Environmental Future: Foresight in the Office of 

Research and Development.” Washington: EPA, 2007. 

www.epa.gov/osp/efuture.htm 

 
 
Chapter . Six Research Themes 

To promote the integration of research across disciplines and existing ORD research 

programs, and to underscore the importance of a systems approach to future 

planning, this chapter serves three important functions: 

•	 It identifies priority research topics related to the sustainable outcomes 

presented in Table 2.1 and the six research themes described in Chapter Four. 

•	 It identifies existing ORD and EPA research programs that relate to the 


research questions (Table 4.1).


•	 It describes how this Research Strategy and the focus on sustainable 


environmental outcomes advance ongoing EPA efforts. 


Achieving any one of EPA’s proposed sustainable outcome By itself, ORD can address only a small part of the overall 

measures (shown in Table 2.1) will be a formidable research required to advance sustainability, but it can 

challenge, for there are no technological “quick fixes” partner with program and regional offices and other 

offering simple solutions to any of these outcomes. federal and state agencies and can use its research 

Instead, research across physical science, economics, results, methods, and tools to assist clients both inside 

social science, and other disciplines must be combined and outside EPA in pursuing sustainable outcomes. 

in meaningful ways. In turn, the resulting science must 

be made available to decision makers and integrated into 

effective public policy. 

 
Table .. Sustainability Research Themes Addressed by Multi-Year Plans 

l - Some Association l l - Strong Association 

National Program 

Director (NPD) Area 

Multi-Year Plan 

Renewable ResourcesNon-Renewable ResourcesChemical & Biological ImpactsHuman-Built Environ

ment

Economics & BehaviorInformation & Decisions 

Air 

Air Toxics l l 

Particulate Matter l l 

Tropospheric Ozone l l l 

Global Change & 

Mercury 

Global Change l l l l l l 

Mercury l l l 

Water Quality Water Quality l l l 

Drinking Water Drinking Water l l 

Human Health Human Health l l l 

Ecological Risk Ecological Research l l l l 

Pesticides, Toxics, & 

ECDs 

Endocrine Disruptors l l 

Safe Pesticides l l 

Toxics l l 

(not an NPD area) Computational Toxicology l l 

Contaminated Sites/ 

Resource Conservation 

Contaminated Sites 

Hazardous Waste l l 

Economics and Decision 

Sciences 

l l l l 

 
Table 4.2 shows the extent of existing ORD multi-year 

plans. The following sections discuss how these programs 

relate to each other and to the sustainability research 

questions. An example of the possible integration (and 

leveraging of resources) among existing ORD research 

strategies—the coordination of the Sustainability Research 

Strategy and the Economics and Decision Sciences 

Strategy—is illustrated in Figure 4.1 near the end of this 

chapter. 

. Natural Resource Protection 

(Air, Water, Ecosystems) 

The health and well-being of all societies depends on 

ecosystems and the services they provide. Natural 

resources are an essential support for a nation’s 

economy and quality of life. Where natural systems are 

undermined, the economic and social well-being of 

people is threatened. This is true at local levels, where 

the expansion of urbanized areas is undermining the 

ecological integrity of ecosystems by bringing about 

declines in biological diversity, degradation of water 

quality, and loss of other ecological services. It is also true 

at regional levels, where unsustainable industry and urban 

development are threatening the long-term health of great 

water bodies like the Chesapeake Bay and the Great 

Lakes. And it is certainly true on a global scale, where 

widespread ecosystem loss may affect global atmospheric 

processes and human health. 

The natural resource basis is a complex and dynamic 

system of plants, animals, and the physical environment 

that interact with each another. Lessons learned over 

the years on different approaches and techniques for 

managing natural resource systems, at both small and 

large scales, demonstrate the need to better understand 

the resilience of a natural system to “tolerate disturbances 

while retaining its structure and function.”28 Achieving 

sustainability in managing natural systems therefore 

requires a better understanding of the complexity of these 

systems, including their critical thresholds, resilience, 

and adaptability. 

In a sustainable world, society greatly benefits from 

ecosystem services at all levels, from local flood control 

to global climate protection. A critical test of society’s 

ability to sustainably manage its natural resource base is 

fast approaching. The president’s “Twenty by Ten” goal 

is to reduce gasoline usage by 20 percent over the next 

ten years, with 15 percent of the reduction achieved 

through use of renewable or alternative fuels and 5 

percent from vehicle efficiency improvements.29 A longerterm research and technology goal is to make cellulosic 

ethanol cost-competitive with corn-based ethanol by 

2012 and to replace at least 30 percent of the 2004 level 

of gasoline demand by 2030.30 These transitions will 

require large supplies of sustainable feedstock, major 

feedstock and conversion technology advances, largescale integrated biorefinery demonstrations, and massive 

new infrastructure development that will affect land use 

and ecosystems. Given these policy directions, it will be 

important for EPA and ORD to assess how to produce, 

harvest, and deliver current biomass, or an estimated 1 

billion dry tons of cellulosic biomass, in an economically 

and environmentally sustainable way. 

28 Joseph Fiksel, “Designing Resilient, Sustainable Systems,” 

Environmental Science & Technology. 37 (December 2003), 

5330-5339. 

29 Regarding the 15 percent from renewable or alternative fuels, the 

35 billion gallon would be required if all the fuel were ethanol. 

However, replacement and alternative fuels are expected to include 

ethanol and biodiesel, as well as fossil based alternatives such as 

coal-to-liquids, gas-to-liquids etc, and also include domestic 

production as well as imports. 

30 See: www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2007/initiatives/energy.html 

and Breaking the Biological Barriers to Cellulosic Ethanol: 

A Joint Research Agenda. Washington: DOE /SC-0095, 2006 

 
None of these challenges are new to EPA, which has 

made healthy communities and ecosystems one of its 

five key long-term goals. Existing EPA programs extend 

from protecting ecosystems from risks posed by the 

release of harmful substances, to expanding and restoring 

ecosystems. Filling gaps in current EPA and federal 

agency programs, the Sustainability Research Strategy 

aims to sharpen the focus on achieving sustainable 

management of renewable resources by setting three 

goals: (1) defining clear measures of sustainable 

renewable systems; (2) improving understanding of 

ecosystem processes and their impacts on human health; 

and (3) developing and applying advanced systems 

models and tools to assist decision makers. 

Efforts to achieve the first goal are tied to building 

consensus within EPA on terms and definitions. ORD is 

leading an EPA-wide effort to more clearly define outcome 

goals and measures. Efforts to achieve the second goal 

depend on greater coordination of existing efforts across 

ORD, EPA program and regional offices, and universities. 

Efforts to achieve the third goal depend on expanded 

in-house ORD research and collaboration with ORD 

customers and stakeholders. 

Current ORD systems research aims to address complex, 

long-term environmental problems in ways that go 

beyond traditional compliance and pollution prevention 

approaches to those that focus on sustainable outcomes. 

This effort builds on a growing body of academic research 

that has demonstrated how the integrated assessment 

of a sustainable system cannot be accomplished by 

simply linking together a collection of domain-specific 

models. Research on the bio-complexity in large lake 

systems shows that new modeling approaches are 

needed.31 Frontier interdisciplinary research in EPA’s 

Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program is exploring 

the relationship among anthropogenic stressors within 

ecosystems, changes in host or vector biodiversity, and 

infectious disease transmission.32 

This new research focuses on understanding the 

environmental and social factors that contribute to 

biodiversity change, the population dynamics of animal 

reservoirs and vectors of disease, biological mechanisms 

that influence transmission of diseases to humans, and 

the processes by which infectious diseases emerge and 

spread. Research on the links between anthropogenic 

stressors, biodiversity, and infectious disease can have 

an important impact on our view of biodiversity, the 

services provided by natural ecosystems, and how we 

manage these resources to protect human health 

and the environment. 

PRIORITY RESEARCH TOPICS 

•	 Demonstrating and quantifying the value of 

ecosystem services in environmental protection and 

human health (informing decision makers). 

•	 Understanding long-term chemical and biological 

interactions and cycles among air, land, and water 

resources and their impact on biodiversity (systems 

analysis). 

•	 Exploring interactions among natural resource 

systems that may lead to unrecognized side effects of 

management initiatives, such as loss of soil resilience 

due to over-harvesting of biomass (systems analysis). 

•	 Modeling linkages between human-built and natural 

resource systems in terms of material and energy 

flows (systems analysis). 

•	 Understanding the resilience and adaptability of 

ecosystems to change (resilience and vulnerability). 

•	 Improving understanding and quantification of 

natural carrying capacity under various environmental 

conditions and human activity patterns (forecasting). 

•	 Developing early warning signs of critical system 

overloads beyond natural variability (forecasting). 

•	 Identifying trends that have been and are expected to 

continue affecting ecological processes that sustain 

ecosystems (forecasting). 

•	 Developing future regional scenarios and models 

integrating land, water, and ecosystems to assess 

impact on ecosystem services (forecasting). 

31 See Conference Report on “Toward Sustainable Systems.” Ohio State 

University, March 2-3, 2006. 

32  See http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/2007/2007_biodiversity_health.html
. Non-Renewable Resource 

Conservation (Energy and Materials) 

Each phase of non-renewable energy production 

(exploration, extraction, refining, transporting, and storing) 

and manufacturing affects the quality of air, the quality 

and availability of water, global climate, short- and longterm use of land, and resiliency of ecosystems. For these 

resources and processes, sustainability requires greater 

focus on conservation and enhanced use of renewable 

energy, greater emphasis on managing materials 

rather than disposing of waste products, and finding 

substitutes for toxic and dangerous materials. The historic 

consequences of unsustainable non-renewable resource 

management are evident in landscape modification, 

growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and 

climate change. Fossil fuel use, with its potential effects 

on climate change and environmental and human 

health, constitutes a vital long-term global sustainability 

issue. EPA’s role in addressing climate change is 

prescribed by the interagency U.S. Global Change 

Research Program.33 Complementing this interagency 

program, the Sustainability Research Strategy will 

promote more sustainable management of nonrewable 

resource operations and enhance a shift to greater use of 

renewable resources. 

A new vision of how to sustainably manage nonrenewable 

resources is needed. The 1997 National Academy 

of Engineering report, The Industrial Implication for 

Environmental Design and Management, suggests that 

the path to sustainability “involves the creative design 

of products, processes, systems and organizations, and 

the implementation of smart management strategies 

that effectively harness technologies and ideas to 

avoid environmental problems before they arise.” In 

Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences (2001), 

the National Academy of Sciences recommended, 

“develop[ing] a quantitative understanding of the global 

budget of materials widely used by humanity and how the 

life cycles of these materials... may be modified.”34 

These concerns prompted the Office of Solid Waste 

proposal to shift its emphasis from managing waste to 

managing materials, and the Office of Pesticides and 

Toxics’ efforts to reduce toxic chemical use through green 

chemistry and other new technologies. Looking ahead, 

regulatory actions may further enhance a movement 

toward sustainable resource management. Several 

directives of the European Union that target reductions 

of hazardous materials and toxics and promote recycling 

may serve to promote additional research in use of 

alternative material, green chemistry, and life cycle 

analysis.35 

Consequently this research strategy will initially focus 

on core research methodologies, models, technology, 

and technological processes that can help to assess the 

impacts of energy and material use on the environment 

and to identify low-impact and other sustainable 

approaches to renewable resource management. 

PRIORITY RESEARCH TOPICS 

Core functions: 

•	 How can life cycle assessment be made more 

efficient, reliable, and comprehensive so that it will 

more effectively inform design decisions that lead 

to reducing or eliminating the use of non-renewable 

resources? 

•	 What innovative technologies or processes can be 

developed to improve the efficiency of non-renewable 

resource consumption (e.g., closed-loop recycling 

or energy efficiency in manufacturing and consumer 

products)? 

33 EPA’s research role in the U.S. Global Change Research Program is to 

assess the potential consequences of climate change for air and water 

quality, ecosystems, and human health. This program seeks to improve 

the scientific basis for evaluating the risks and opportunities presented 

by global change in the context of other stressors. A suite of EPA 

voluntary programs such as Climate Leaders develop industry strategies 

aimed at reducing the overall emissions of greenhouse gases. 

34 EPA Science Advisory Board, Commentary on Industrial Ecology, 

2002. www.epa.gov/sab/pdf/eecm02002.pdf. Also SAB Review of 

Science and Research Budgets for FY 2007, March 30, 2006. 

www.epa.gov/sab/pdf/sab-adv-06-003.pdf 

35 The Directives are Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive 

(RoHS), Waste Electical and Electronic Directive (WEEE), and Directive 

on Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) 

 
•	 For different sectors, what re-engineering processes 

can be designed to manage production and supply 

chains, reducing or eliminating the use of fossil fuels 

and other non-renewable resources? 

•	 How can material flow analysis and related methods 

provide better insight into opportunities for reducing 

or eliminating the use of non-renewable resources? 

•	 What tools can be used to operationalize the concept 

of industrial ecology, enabling systems-based 

understanding of energy and material flows? 

Material Balance: 

•	 What are the patterns and driving forces of societal 

use of non-renewable resources? 

•	 How can global scenarios of future industrial 

development and associated environmental 

implications be developed? 

•	 In what materials, products, places, and time scales 

can we expect significant change in material and 

energy use or their impacts? 

Energy: 

•	 What opportunities exist to replace non-renewable 

with renewable feedstocks and materials in an 

environmentally beneficial manner? 

•	 How can we ensure that societal shifts in material 

use—such as from petroleum to renewable 

feedstocks for energy and materials—do not lead to 

unforeseen and unsustainable consequences? 

•	 What tools are needed to develop, test, and measure 

the life cycle of a full suite of energy conversion 

technologies (using renewable and non-renewable 

energy sources)? 

. Long-Term Chemical and Biological 

Impacts (Using Non-Toxic Materials 

Sustainably and Protecting Human 

Health) 

The intergenerational dimension of sustainability means 

that society must be particularly mindful of the longterm threat posed by chemical and biological impacts on 

the environment. Protecting environmental and human 

health from chemical toxicity has long been central 

to EPA’s mission. The inability of the environment to 

assimilate certain chemical compounds over time has 

serious implications for sustainability. A chemical pollutant 

released to the environment at a rate greater than the 

environment’s ability to recycle, absorb, or render it 

harmless is considered to be persistent. Other chemical 

compounds have a tendency to concentrate in the tissues 

of living organisms in the process of bioaccumulation. 

Chemicals that are either persistent or bioaccumulative 

increase the potential for adverse effects on human 

health or the environment, or both, because they can 

result in high levels of exposure. Chemicals that are both 

persistent and bioaccumulative result in the highest levels 

of exposure and thus present the greatest challenge to 

sustainability. Achieving sustainable outcomes will rely 

on prudent material use and shifting to environmentally 

preferable materials in order to protect human health 

by assessing and eliminating the long-term impacts of 

harmful chemical and biological materials. 

Research on long-term chemical and biological impacts 

(complementing research on resource conservation) 

addresses two major areas: (1) assessing chemical 

and biological impacts; and (2) substituting benign 

chemicals for toxic chemicals through green chemistry, 

nanotechnology, genomics, and other new technologies. 

Achieving sustainable outcomes will be aided by the 

enhanced ability offered by these technologies to detect 

and measure chemicals in humans and animals and to 

provide new ways of designing and manipulating 

new materials. 

ORD’s work in computation toxicology—using the latest 

advances in mathematical and computer modeling and 

0 
genomics to prioritize, screen, and evaluate chemicals 

and predict potential toxicities—offers great potential 

for developing more sustainable products.36 ORD and 

other EPA researchers are also assessing the application 

of nanotechnology for developing more efficient and 

sustainable products. In a recent white paper assessing 

the risks and benefits associated with nanotechnology, 

EPA scientists recommended that the Agency “engage 

resources and expertise to support approaches that 

promote pollution prevention, sustainable resource 

use, and good product stewardship in the production 

and use of nanomaterials.”37 Important new research 

efforts in ORD and in EPA program and regional offices 

are evaluating the green production of nanomaterials, 

including a life cycle assessment of nanomaterial 

production, and are developing decision support tools for 

bench chemists to evaluate the environmental dimensions 

of new chemicals and production processes. 

Key sustainability research goals thus include further 

developing new technologies that reduce or replace 

the use of toxic chemicals and measuring the potential 

environmental effect of these new technologies. The 

research topics listed below build on ORD’s development 

of research aimed at creating new catalysts to significantly 

improve the environmental effects of chemical 

manufacturing, innovative reactors and intensification 

techniques, and novel oxidation technologies that will 

allow the pulp and paper industry to meet new emission 

regulations. 

PRIORITY RESEARCH TOPICS 

•	 Develop and apply innovative chemical 

transformations utilizing green and sustainable 

chemistry and engineering. 

•	 Improve the yield, safety, and specificity of chemical 

processes by identifying appropriate solvents, 

controlling thermal conditions and purity, and 

recovering process catalysts or byproducts. 

•	 Formulate products that reduce waste and that are 

environmentally benign. 

•	 Develop life cycle tools to compare the total 

environmental impacts of products generated from 

different processing routes and conditions. 

•	 Develop improved or accelerated methods for 

understanding the toxicology, kinetics, fate, and 

persistence of chemical substances. 

•	 Develop and implement models for the efficient 

application of life cycle analysis methods to new 

products and technologies including nanomaterials, 

green chemistry, and engineering. 

•	 Develop and implement systems-level methodologies 

and technologies for applying material flow analysis to 

complex industrial networks. 

•	 Develop improved methods for systems analysis of 

material flows that reflect the differences in health 

and environmental impacts of different substances. 

. Human-Built Systems and 

Land Use 

In the past, little or no concern was given to how humanbuilt systems might seriously impair or destroy the natural 

infrastructure and “ecosystem services” provided by the 

infrastructure, such as the ability to absorb and break 

down pollutants, cleanse air and water, and prevent 

flood and storm damage. However, the growth of urban 

populations over the last century has provided evidence 

that human-built systems can cause significant harm to 

ecosystems and to their ability to provide these critical 

services. Building on undeveloped land destroys and 

fragments habitat, displacing or eliminating wildlife 

communities. 

36 See ORD, “A Framework for Computational Toxicology.” 

EPA 600/R-03/065 November 2003. 

37 See www.epa.gov/osa/nanotech.htm 

 
The construction of impervious surfaces such as roads 

and rooftops leads to the degradation of water quality 

by increasing runoff volume, stream sedimentation and 

water acidity, altering regular stream flow and watershed 

hydrology, and reducing groundwater recharge. A oneacre parking lot produces a runoff volume almost 16 

times as great as would an undeveloped meadow of the 

same size. Achieving urban sustainability is clearly a 

challenge being addressed by many programs of EPA and 

other federal agencies. In this research strategy, research 

on urban sustainability and land use focuses on three 

key areas: building design and efficiency, urban land 

revitalization, and sustainable management of 

urban systems. 

Within urban communities, green building design is a 

crucial factor for sustainability since buildings account for 

65 percent of electricity consumption, 36 percent of total 

energy use, and 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. 

According to recent studies, in 2030 about half of the 

buildings in which Americans live, work, and shop will 

have been built after 2000. In 2030, there will be 106.8 

billion square feet of new development, about 46 percent 

more built space than existed in 2000—a remarkable 

amount of construction to occur within 30 years. About 

97.3 billion square feet of existing space will be replaced. 

New and replacement-related development will amount 

to 204.1 billion square feet, equal to almost 90 percent of 

the built space that existed in 2000. All of this amounts 

to about $30 trillion in total new development (including 

infrastructure) that will occur between 2000 and 2030.38 

Research in indoor environmental management underway 

in ORD’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory 

is already well positioned to help shape the design of 

future indoor engineering systems. 

Research related to Built Environment and Land 

Use, while primarily directed toward sustainable land 

management, also serves to integrate nearly all of the 

sustainability goals discussed in Chapter 2. The operation 

of numerous and diverse human-built systems (e.g., 

buildings, cities, water distribution, energy, agriculture, 

and transportation) is fundamentally dependent on 

the health of the natural systems that provide critical 

ecosystem services. 

While broad in content, this theme focuses on land 

renewal and restoration, decision support tools for 

urban land development, and life cycle assessments 

for land use and building design. Research under this 

theme complements research described previously 

under Natural Resource Protection. Key elements of the 

implementing Science and Technology for Sustainability 

Multi-Year Plan (MYP) will focus on environmental impact 

modeling, including development of new impact models 

to characterize land use and smog formation, and on 

collaborative partnerships with many government and 

non-government entities to directly apply innovative 

systems-based approaches to urban and tribal planning. 

Direct ORD-supported research can address these 

immediate research questions: 

•	 What tools can decision makers use to assess the 

potential impacts of land use, landscaping, and 

building design decisions on community well-being 

and environmental quality? 

•	 What levels and types of human activities can be 

conducted within a given spatial area (such as 

a watershed or ecosystem) without critically and 

adversely altering biogeochemical cycles and 

ecosystem functioning? 

•	 What sustainability criteria should be developed 

to guide urban land development and future 

revitalization efforts? 

•	 What core set of principles can best be used to 

guide the design, construction, and management 

of human systems (such as land use, buildings, 

and transportation systems) in a manner that 

protects natural systems (such as habitats) and their 

properties (such as biodiversity) and functions? 

38 Arthur C. Nelson, “Toward a New Metropolis: The Opportunity to 

Rebuild America.” Washington: Brookings Institution Metropolitan 

Policy Program Survey Series, 2004. See www.brookings.edu/metro/ 

pubs/20041213_rebuildamerica.htm; and Arthur C. Nelson, 2006, 

“America Circa 2030: The Boom to Come,” Architect Magazine 

(October 15, 2006): www.architectmagazine.com/industry-news. 

asp?sectionID=1006&articleID=385542 

 
•	 How do systems of land use, transportation, trade, 

and commerce contribute to the spread of invasive 

species and exotic pathogens? What actions can EPA 

take to manage this process? 

•	 What applications of new and emerging technologies 

can promote efficiencies in building design and 

restoration of contaminated sites? 

•	 What are the tradeoffs between resilience of the 

built environment (e.g., capacity to survive natural 

disasters) and ecological resilience? 

The growing enthusiasm for sustainability at state 

and local levels presents both new challenges and 

opportunities for ORD research, which has the technical, 

monitoring, and analytic capability to help decision 

makers at all levels of government choose courses of 

action that will lead to achieving sustainable outcomes.39 

For example, ORD has been working with the German 

Federal Ministry for Education and Research since 

1990 on models of land restoration and development. 

Work under this bilateral agreement is now moving 

toward development of sustainability criteria for 

revitalization activities, and has resulted in the Sustainable 

Management Approaches and Revitalization Toolselectronic (SMARTe) program. SMARTe, which is now 

in beta testing, is an open-source, Web-based decision 

support system for developing and evaluating future reuse 

scenarios for potentially contaminated land.40 SMARTe 

includes guidance and analysis tools for all aspects 

of the revitalization process, including planning and 

environmental, economic, and social concerns. 

The emphasis in this research strategy on developing 

decision support tools and helping decision makers reach 

wise decisions, challenges our scientists and engineers 

to work directly with key customers and stakeholders 

who can most benefit from ORD research capabilities. In 

many ways, ORD’s ability to identify research to inform 

stewardship solutions is intimately tied to partnering 

and collaborating with state, local, and tribal decision 

makers. An example is the Sustainable Environment for 

Quality of Life (SEQL) program, in which ORD is a key 

player, developing scientific models such as the Regional 

Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) to support sustainable 

land development. ORD’s research supports quantification 

of potential and actual impacts, including cross-sectoral 

and cross-jurisdictional analyses and analyses of “what-if” 

scenarios. 

SEQL and similar projects are successful because of the 

available suite of decision support tools and the direct 

participation by ORD scientists in community meetings 

and policy planning. This direct involvement is essential 

for applying ORD research to direct use. The BOSC review 

of the Ecological Research Program noted the successful 

use of ORD decision support tools, emphasizing that 

further applications “will require commitment of resources 

to technology transfer through both in-person and online 

training.”41 

. Economics and Human Behavior 

The sustainable management of natural and man-made 

systems is partly a question of choice and behavior. For 

this reason, economics and the behavioral sciences are 

key elements in EPA’s overall approach to implementing 

the goals of Everyday Choices and achieving sustainable 

outcomes. The Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) is requiring more and better economic analyses 

as essential components of the policy process used in 

EPA program and regional offices and in other federal 

regulatory agencies. 

39 See “Regional Summaries of State and Tribal Issues and Priorities for 

the 2006-2011 Strategic Plan Revision.” www.epa.gov/ocfopage/ 

plan/regions/index.htm 

40 See www.smarte.org/smarte/home/index.xml 

41 Board of Scientific Counselors, Review of Ecological Research Program 

Review. August 2005, pg. 18. www.epa.gov/osp/bosc/pdf/ 

eco0508rpt.pdf 

 
External reviews by the SAB and the National 

Academy of Sciences have shaped much of EPA’s 

economic and behavioral research. For example, many 

recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences 

report commissioned by EPA and the National Science 

Foundation, Decision-Making for the Environment: 

Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities, have 

been incorporated into ORD’s Environmental Economics 

Research Strategy (EERS), published in 2005. Economists 

are beginning to address the question of environmental 

sustainability and human carrying capacity as central 

factors in economic development.42 Economists and 

conservationists are also exploring ways to value 

ecosystem services and develop economic incentives 

for sustainable behavior. This is an important area for 

research since markets for ecosystem services do not 

generally exist. For example, owners of ecologically 

valuable land can generate more revenue from traditional 

land development than by providing ecological services. 

ORD-funded extramural research is also underway to 

understand why individuals, firms, and institutions behave 

as they do; what motivates them to change their behavior; 

and how government regulations, public information, 

corporate reporting, and public pressures interact to 

generate public policy. 

The Sustainability Research Strategy (SRS) and the EERS 

research strategies are complementary in approach and 

significantly contribute to EPA’s focus on stewardship 

and sustainability. The SRS presents a framework that 

highlights research areas of importance to support a 

forward-looking, integrated, and preventive approach 

to environmental protection. It guides the integration of 

relevant research across ORD and other offices, as well 

as connections outside of EPA. On the other hand, the 

EERS presents a focused analysis of Agency research 

priorities in Economics and Decision Sciences. EERS 

research priorities dovetail nicely with the SRS framework 

(see Chapter 6) and collectively can be used to address a 

number of important questions: 

•	 What factors increase or reduce motivation for 

sustainable behavior among individuals, firms, and 

organizations? How can we better integrate economic 

and ecological models to inform environmentally 

sustainable decisions? What is the relationship 

between environmental sustainability indicators and 

measures of economic value? 

•	 What are non-market ecosystem services, what is 

their value, and what ongoing factors are affecting 

their supply? To what extent can human-produced 

capital substitute for natural capital? 

•	 How can economic instruments (e.g., trading 

schemes, auctions, and taxes) be devised that 

effectively incorporate society’s concerns for 

sustainability in resource allocation decisions? 

•	 What should be the role of intergenerational 

discounting in benefit-cost analysis? 

•	 How can ecological resilience and the potential for 

major unforeseen events be incorporated in the 

selection and assessment of policy interventions? 

42 For rapporteur’s summary and presenters’ précis papers of the 

EPA-sponsored forum, “Sustainability, Well-Being, and Environment 

Protection: What’s an Agency to Do?” see www.epa.gov/ 

sustainability/econforum 

 
. Information and Decision Making 

The goal of developing sustainability metrics builds on 

the research already conducted in support of EPA’s Draft 

Report on the Environment (RoE). ORD researchers 

have played a significant role in identifying appropriate 

indicators and providing quality control in their 

development. Currently, the RoE provides snapshots of 

the existing environmental state. Metrics are defined in 

relation to clearly stated questions such as, “What are 

the conditions and current trends of surface waters?” 

and “What are the trends in the ecological processes that 

sustain the nation’s ecological systems?” As EPA moves 

toward identifying a set of clearly articulated questions 

related to sustainable outcomes—such as, “How 

sustainable are the nation’s water supplies?”—research 

can focus on identifying appropriate indicators and 

ensuring their quality. 

The establishment of an information infrastructure is a 

necessary step on the path toward sustainability. This 

includes the development of sustainability metrics and 

environmental monitoring. Our strategy is therefore 

closely applied with the Global Earth Observation 

Systems of Systems (GEOSS) program. The GEOSS 

vision is of a future in which decisions and actions are 

informed by coordinated, comprehensive, and sustained 

earth observations and information. GEOSS will “take 

the pulse of the planet” by compiling a system of all 

relevant databases (or systems), thus revolutionizing 

our understanding of how the earth works. Over time, 

GEOSS will contribute greatly to sustainability by providing 

important scientific information for sound policy and 

decision making. EPA is contributing to GEOSS through 

its leadership in both the international Group on Earth 

Observations and the U.S. Group on Earth Observations 

and has launched the FY2006 Advanced Monitoring 

Initiative (AMI). 

One of the keys to promoting sustainability is defining 

and communicating a clear understanding of proposed 

outcomes. In Everyday Choices, EPA senior managers 

identified sustainable outcomes in six resource areas 

relevant to EPA’s mission (Table 4.1). The sustainability 

goals in energy, water, air, land, ecosystems, and materials 

provide an important starting point for discussion of 

appropriate sustainability goals and how they should be 

measured. A clear next step is to define these goals and 

metrics in sharper detail. 

This strategy aims to establish a new set of scientifically 

based sustainability indicators that are readily 

comprehensible at multiple scales, relevant to decision 

makers, and easily accessible to the public. 

ORD-supported research will address these 

research questions: 

•	 What are appropriate sustainability goals for energy, 

water, air, land, materials, and ecosystems? 

•	 What are the most appropriate trends, indicators, 

and metrics to measure society’s progress towards 

reaching sustainable outcomes? 

•	 What data are needed to construct sustainability 

indicators and metrics and how can the data be 

effectively and 

efficiently collected? 

These questions will be addressed in two ways. First, 

we will review metrics currently in use to determine 

where gaps exist. A number of fairly simple sustainability 

indicators currently exist, and while these measures may 

inform the public on the general notion of sustainability, 

they often lack scientific vigor. If sustainability is to play a 

significant role in future environmental policy debates, the 

process of establishing benchmark values and measuring 

progress must be vastly improved. The second track, 

in collaboration with EPA partners and customers, will 

involve research to identify new indicators and metrics and 

apply them to problems in specific geographic regions, 

ecosystems, and watersheds. This work is expected to 

result in a new set of well-defined metrics, protocols, and 

software tools that can be used by decision makers. This 

direction of research will be a major element of ORD’s new 

Science and Technology for Sustainability MYP. 

 
 
Chapter . Research Objectives 

Our research strategy has five objectives: 

•	 Systems Understanding. Understand the interconnections, resilience, and 

vulnerabilities over time of natural systems, industrial systems, the built 

environment, and human society. 

•	 Decision-Support Tools. Design and develop scientific tools and models to assist 

decision makers. 

•	 Technologies. Identify and develop inherently benign and less resource-intensive 

materials, energy sources, processes, products, and systems, particularly for 

emerging technologies. 

•	 Collaborative Decision Making. Develop an understanding of motivations for 

decision making and develop approaches to collaborative problem solving. 

•	 Metrics and Indicators. Develop metrics and indicators to measure and track 

progress toward sustainability goals, to send early warning of potential problems 

to decision makers, and to highlight opportunities for improvement. 

The logic diagram of Figure 5.1 on the following page |measure progress toward their sustainability goals. 

illustrates how these five research objectives relate to A second category of larger-scale (5b) Metrics and 

customers and collaborators, as well as to outcomes: Indicators can help in measuring and assessing overall 

(1) Systems Understanding informs the development of progress in Resource Sustainability Outcomes and 

research in (2) Decision Support Tools, (3) Technologies, Long-Term Outcomes in environmental and human 

and (4) Collaborative Decision Making. This research health. The larger-scale metrics and indicators also feed 

informs policies and programs implemented by Customers back to enable adaptive understanding and research 

and Collaborators, who can use relevant (5a) Metrics needs in Systems, Decisions, Technologies, 

and Indicators to inform their plans and decisions and and Collaborative Decision-making. 

 
Figure .. Logic Diagram Illustrating Research Approaches 

Metrics and 

Indicators 

Systems 

Understanding 

Resilience 

Vulnerabilities 

Interconnectedness 

Scale 

Trends and 

Transformations 

Links between 

Natural and Built 

Environment 

Uncertainty 

Resource 

Sustainability 

Outcomes 

Water 

Land 

Air 

Energy 

Materials 

Ecosystems 

Long-Term 

Outcomes 

Protection of 

Environmental 

and Human 

Health 

Metrics and 

Indicators 

Decision Support 

Tools 

Technologies 

Collaborative 

Decision-Making 

Customers and 

Collaborators 

Business and 

Industry 

Communities 

Government 

Individuals 

 
Table .. Research Topics Addressing Sustainability Themes and Objectives 

System 

Understanding 

Decision 

Support Tools 

Technologies 

Collaborative 

Decision Making 

Metrics and 

Indicators 

Renewable 

Natural 

Resource 

Systems 

Ecosystem 

resilience; 

Limits on 

resource 

extraction rates 

LCA; MFA; ISAs Green 

engineering 

Ecosystem 

resilience; 

Resource 

extraction rates 

Non-Renewable 

Natural 

Resource 

Systems 

LCA; MFA; ISAs Green 

engineering 

Material 

intensity 

Long-Term 

Chemical 

and Biological 

Impacts 

Chemistry 

design tools; 

Transport models 

Green chemistry 

Environmental 

accumulation of 

chemicals 

Human-Built 

Systems 

Understanding 

interactions 

between 

human-built 

systems and 

natural cycles 

Design 

principles 

Green 

buildings; 

Emerging 

technologies 

ISA, Risk 

assessment 

models 

Industrial 

sustainability 

indicators 

Economics 

and Human 

Behavior 

Agent-based 

models 

Incentives and 

trading schemes 

Information and 

Decision Making 

Limits; 

Measures of 

resilience 

LCA 

Understanding 

value of 

information 

 
Table 5.1 also relates the research objectives to the six 

research themes (defined in Chapter 4). For example, life 

cycle assessment (LCA) can inform understanding of a 

product’s consumption of renewable and non-renewable 

resources and associated emissions over the product’s 

life cycle. Material flow analysis (MFA) and integrated 

systems analysis (ISA) can be used to explore the possible 

implications of economy-wide patterns of consumption 

of renewable or non-renewable resources. ISA can also 

be used as a communication tool to enable collaborative 

decision making in the context of human-built systems. 

There are many relevant metrics and indicators in the 

theme areas, ranging from indicators of ecosystem 

resilience to sustainability indicators used by industry. The 

following sections further describe the various research 

objectives. 

Systems Understanding 

An underlying understanding of complex environmentalsocietal systems and the attributes and conditions that 

make them sustainable is the foundation of sustainability 

research. Going beyond a traditional, single-media, 

pollution-control and compliance-enforcement approach, 

this research strategy recognizes that no environmental 

problems have a single cause. Application of systems 

research has the potential to break down longstanding 

single-media approaches to environmental management, 

an issue of concern to EPA since its inception.43 

Following the 2006 Science Advisory Board review 

of the Draft Guidance on Environmental Models and 

Models Knowledge Base, EPA is committed to enhancing 

interagency coordination on modeling issues and fostering 

a more integrated approach to modeling in environmental 

management.44 Describing, representing, and designing 

sustainable systems encompasses several important 

aspects: 

•	 addressing scale in time and space, 

•	 capturing the dynamics of the system and of society’s 

points of leverage or control over those dynamics, 

•	 representing an appropriate level of complexity, 

•	 managing variability and uncertainty, 

•	 capturing the various perspectives and desired 

sustainability outcomes in important domains (e.g., 

ecological, economic, technological, legal, and 

organizational), and 

•	 understanding the vulnerability or resilience of the 

system relative to both foreseen and unforeseen 

stressors and change. 

A systems view can also strategically inform both research 

and implementation. It can identify barriers, point out 

gaps or redundancy in activity, and inform prioritization 

of existing or potential research and implementation in 

technology, decision support tools, and collaborative 

decision making. 

43 When President Nixon proposed the creation of EPA in 1970, he 

recognized the interconnectedness of the environment and the 

inherent cross-media nature of environmental protection. His plan 

to establish EPA noted that, for pollution control purposes, “the 

environment must be perceived as a single, interrelated system” (see 

www.epa.gov/history/org/origins/reorg.htm). EPA has struggled since 

then with how best to deal with the environment as an integrated 

system. At the Agency’s 15th anniversary in 1985, Administrator 

Russell Train expressed his concern with its “compartmentalized 

nature” and resulting ineffectiveness in dealing with pollutants, 

which “tend to move readily among air, water, and land.” Similarly, 

Administrator Lee Thomas stressed the need for cross-media 

reviews so that “we don’t just transfer pollutants from one medium 

to another.” (See “Views from the Former Administrators,” EPA 

Journal, November 1985, available at www.epa.gov/history/topics/ 

epa/15e.htm.) Administrator William Reilly encouraged cross-media 

approaches in the early 1990s by looking holistically at place-based 

issues, breaking down media barriers for risk assessment, providing 

cross-media training for staff, and conducting joint pilot studies with 

industry. Although EPA is today still organized along media lines, it 

recognizes the need to adequately address the cross-media nature of 

environmental problems. Sustainability concepts will help EPA break 

down barriers to its single-media-based program offices and look more 

holistically and systematically at integrated environmental challenges. 

44 See SAB report at: www.epa.gov/sab/panels/cremgacpanel.html 

0 
Figure .. Technology Continuum 

Research 

( years) 

Proof of Concept 

( year) 

Development 

( years) 

Verification 

(- years) 

Commercialization/ 

Deployment 

(- years) 

Technologies 

Technology and technological systems are central 

for achieving sustainable use of renewable and nonrenewable natural resources, as well as for developing 

alternative materials, chemicals, processes, and products 

that minimize or eliminate long-term chemical and 

biological impacts. 

The underlying scientific research, development of 

designs and applications, technology demonstration, 

and technology verification form a 10-year continuum 

as illustrated in Figure 5.2. Various advisory bodies 

have argued that commercialization and deployment 

of sustainable technologies require that the entire 

continuum be supported over time. For example, EPA’s 

National Advisory Committee for Environmental Policy 

and Technology Policy (NACEPT) has strongly endorsed 

EPA’s current technology and verification program and 

recommended that EPA “should devote more attention and 

resources to those Agency programs that incorporate and 

encourage sustainability as one of the goals or criteria for 

technology development or implementation assistance.”45 

The EPA administrator has further charged NACEPT to 

examine the issue of sustainability in more detail (in 

2006-2007) and to make additional recommendations. 

Several areas of technology research are particularly 

important. The fields of green chemistry and green 

engineering address the design of molecules, products, 

processes, and systems that (1) use safer chemicals 

and materials; (2) use materials, water, and energy 

efficiently; and/or (3) reduce the generation of waste at 

the source. Green engineering and green chemistry are 

generally applied on a product-by-product or a processby-process basis. While some of this technology research 

is supported by industry, EPA has an important role in 

supporting research that underpins general methodologies 

or addresses specific environmental problems or 

emerging issues of concern. 

45 National Advisory Committee for Environmental Policy and Technology 

Policy (NACEPT), Subcommittee on Environmental Technology, EPA 

Technology Programs and Intra-Agency Coordination, Washington: 

EPA 100-R-06-004, May 2006. 

 
More traditional technologies can also support progress 

towards sustainability. Technologies that provide safe 

drinking water and treat waste and storm water are prime 

examples. Aging water and wastewater infrastructure, 

together with a growing population, require the 

development of new technologies to provide cost-effective 

conveyance and treatment of drinking, waste, and storm 

water. In addition, the tightening of water supplies in 

parts of the United States and elsewhere in the world 

will require water conservation and reuse technologies to 

provide abundant, clean water for human consumption 

and the environment. To achieve this, both current and 

new technologies should be examined using a systems 

approach to assess their multimedia impacts over the long 

term to insure that they are compatible with environmental 

sustainability. 

Technology and technological systems can also be looked 

at more broadly in time and space. An economy-wide 

understanding of material flow systems, for example, 

can illuminate, and hence prioritize, opportunities for 

efficient pollution prevention and material use. This could 

be particularly important for materials that are potentially 

deleterious to the environment, used in high volumes, 

or both. 

Understanding the economic, informational, cultural, 

security-related, and other factors that can influence 

the development and adoption of new designs and 

technologies can inform research and development. 

In some cases these factors also relate to industrial 

organizational approaches, such as total quality 

management, the adoption of environmental management 

systems, or supply-chain management. 

Future scenarios can assist in envisioning potential 

implications of technological systems that are emerging 

or undergoing transformation. Such systems are affected 

by emerging technologies (such as nanotechnology), 

potential industrial transformations (such as distributed 

manufacturing), and changing consumption patterns. 

Understanding of changes such as these can inform 

research that enables the technological systems to 

support sustainability. 

Decision Making Tools 

Many types of tools and analytical models can inform 

decisions that contribute to environmental sustainability. 

While the primary stimulus for model development is 

to improve scientific understanding within the scientific 

community, tools developed from these models can 

enhance sustainability in at least two ways: (1) by 

providing credible, relevant, and timely research results 

that inform EPA policy decisions; and (2) by assisting 

individuals, businesses, communities, and government 

to better understand the potential implications of their 

decisions,46 thus enhancing the likelihood that decisions 

they make will be more environmentally sustainable. 

Environmental models may be descriptive (describing 

knowledge about specific phenomena) or prescriptive 

(informing a design or identifying a course of action). They 

necessarily rely on data and information related to a wide 

variety of human activities: 

•	 transportation, industry, agriculture, construction; 

•	 protection and consumption of resources (water, 

energy, materials, ecosystems, land, and air); 

•	 economics and characteristics of human 

behavior; and 

•	 natural phenomena such as weather patterns, and 

environmental conditions. 

46 As an example, EPA has adopted the MARKAL (for MARKet 

ALlocation) model to assess current and future energy technology 

options. This comprehensive energy/economic model simulates a 

national, regional, or state-level energy system by representing the 

interactions between resource supply, conversion processes (e.g., 

refineries and power plants), end-use technologies (e.g., classes of 

light-duty personal vehicles or heat pumps), and demand for energy 

services (e.g., projected vehicle miles traveled or space heating). ORD 

is using its MARKAL model to help the Air Quality Assessment segment 

of EPA’s Global Change Research Program develop and analyze 

scenarios of technological change in the transportation and electric 

power sectors. The research aims to understand how technological 

evolution could impact future air emissions and to develop and provide 

an in-house energy/technology assessment capacity. 

 
Important areas for research include the collection and 

synthesis of required data and information and the 

incorporation into generalized models. ORD will also assist 

other collaborators and stakeholders in implementing 

models. The following paragraphs explore several types of 

analytical models that can lead to tools that are especially 

relevant to sustainable decision making. 

Scenario models advance the understanding of 

environmental conditions over time through integrated 

systems analysis. These models allow users to 

dynamically explore the connection among choices 

over which society has some direct control (such as 

practices in transportation, energy, agriculture, and 

industry), broad societal trends (such as population and 

economic growth), and potential future environmental 

conditions.47 These types of tools and models can help 

users understand critical thresholds and explore system 

response to abrupt change. They can also help diverse 

groups communicate about the future they desire and 

develop means and strategies to achieve this future. 

Geographic-based analytical models, such as landscape 

simulators and urban growth simulators, enhance 

understanding of environmental stressors and conditions 

in space. These models are particularly useful for 

understanding the implications of land-use decisions, 

such as transportation planning, location of buildings, and 

agricultural practices. Geographic-based analytical models 

can be integrated with economic models in powerful tools 

to inform sustainable development. 

Material flow-based models, such as life cycle 

assessment and material flow analysis, can link the use 

and processing of materials to potential implications for 

human health, environmental condition, and resource 

sustainability. They can inform improvements in the use 

of materials and design of products and also highlight 

opportunities for focused policy initiatives. In this regard, 

new methods that connect environmental impact analyses 

to material flow analysis would be especially useful.48 

Material flow-based tools can also be tied to life cycle 

cost analysis or economic input-output analysis so that 

environmental issues and costs can be seen in one view.

49 

Agent-based models offer insight into the implications of 

how the actions of individuals add up to organizational 

or multi-organizational behavior. As overall organizational 

behavior may contribute to or detract from resource 

sustainability, the models can illuminate policy 

opportunities to further motivate stewardship behaviors by 

individuals, communities, industry, and government. 

The several varieties of models can be used in 

combination to develop powerful tools. All of the models 

can also be used in the context of uncertainty, such as 

through Monte Carlo simulations. 

Assessing the impacts of future scenarios on 

environmental outcomes is a key element of model 

development.50 

47 Community Scale Air Quality Modeling (CMAQ) and Stream Water 

Quality Model (QUAL2K), both developed at ORD’s National 

Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL), are good examples of the 

scenario modeling efforts that may assist in evaluating the impact of 

development patterns and industrial practices on air and water quality. 

48 ORD’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory has been 

developing a very practical life cycle assessment tool that can 

aid scientists in developing more sustainable chemicals. The 

GREENSCOPE (Gauging Reaction Effectiveness for the Environmental 

Sustainability of Chemistries) indicator model was created to evaluate 

and compare the sustainability of chemical processes. If this model 

is applied on a large scale, as in the chemical industry, it can achieve 

sustainable outcomes. 

49 ORD’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) has 

recommended that ORD examine proposed new methodologies for 

assessing environmental impacts and provide guidance on appropriate 

support tools for policy-makers. Although material flow analysis is a 

valuable tool, its primary focus is on volumes and weights of materials. 

A clearer measure of environmental impact of 3R (Reduce, Reuse, 

Recycle) programs is needed. 

50 Two widely cited examples that link models and future planning 

are the 2002 “Willamette Alternates Future Analysis” available from 

the Western Ecology Research Laboratory of ORD’s National Health 

and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (www.epa.gov/wed/ 

pages/researchprojects.htm) and the Sustainable Environment for 

Quality of Life Program (SEQL) program. ORD is a key player in SEQL, 

developing scientific models such as ReVA to support sustainable 

land development. ORD’s research supports quantification of potential 

and actual impacts, including cross-sectoral, cross-jurisdictional, and 

“what-if” analyses. SEQL and similar projects are successful because of 

the available suite of decision support tools and the direct participation 

by ORD scientists in community meetings and policy planning. 

 
EPA has begun to improve its modeling capability by 

considering scenarios including possible climate change, 

which may seriously impact future land use practices. 

Under the Integrated Climate and Land Use Scenarios 

(ICLUS) project, EPA is developing scenarios for land 

use, housing density, and impervious surface cover for 

the entire coterminous United States for each decade 

through 2100. These scenarios—which will be based 

on the social, economic, and demographic storylines of 

the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios prepared by 

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—aim 

to assess the effects of climate and land-use change 

across the United States and identify areas where climateland-use interactions may exacerbate impacts or create 

adaptation opportunities. ICLUS scenarios will also be 

included in the forthcoming version of EPA’s BASINS 

model (to be released in winter 2007), allowing users 

to consider the impact of changes in both land use and 

climate change on water quality. 

Collaborative Decision Making 

Developing effective, innovative polices that promote 

sustainability depends on having an understanding 

of the motivation for decision making by businesses, 

communities, government, and individuals. Such 

innovative policy approaches include combinations 

of incentives, market mechanisms, information and 

education, regulation, and collaborative approaches. 

In an industrial context, effective and innovative policies 

depend on an understanding of the circumstances that 

encourage or discourage green product design and green 

supply chain management, and also an understanding 

of industrial supply-chain leverage points that underlie 

potential improvements in sustainability outcomes. 

Effective and innovative policies targeting individuals 

and households depend on an understanding of the 

factors that encourage green consumption, such as 

cost, information, convenience, peer pressure, and 

regulations. Effective policies supporting sustainable 

decision making for communities and local governments 

depend on an understanding of drivers and hurdles 

relating to the layout of buildings and to the design and 

implementation of transportation and energy systems. 

Policies and approaches can be improved through better 

understanding of how social groups make innovative and 

effective decisions. 

Because moving towards sustainability often requires 

negotiation and cooperation among stakeholders, 

collaborative approaches are particularly important. 

The related concepts of collaborative problem solving, 

cooperative conservation, and stewardship encourage 

stakeholders to come together to address common 

environmental issues.51 

Scientists and scientific research can enhance and 

strengthen these collaborative approaches in two ways: 

(1) social science research can add to an understanding 

of the conditions under which collaborative approaches 

are effective; and (2) scientists and engineers can 

participate with policy makers and other decision makers 

in collaborative processes. These processes can also 

influence scientific direction by helping scientists to refine 

the scientific questions they ask and to more effectively 

communicate their research results. 

EPA supports programs designed to encourage 

environmental stewardship through collaboration at the 

community and regional levels. ORD’s Collaborative 

Science and Technology Network for Sustainability (CNS) 

(described in Chapter 6) is one of several programs that 

focus on collaboration and sustainability-related issues. 

51 All three concepts rely on strong scientific input to help decisionmaking achieve measurable and sustainable outcomes. Former 

EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt and current Administrator Steve 

Johnson have made collaborating problem solving an important 

element of EPA’s governance agenda. Similarly, the concept of 

collaborative conservation as outlined in the Executive Order of August 

26, 2004 requires EPA and four other agencies to actively engage all 

stakeholders when implementing conservation and environmental 

projects. Finally, EPA is promoting environmental stewardship— 

defined as shared values and responsibilities among stakeholders for 

environmental protection. 

 
Metrics and Indicators 

Metrics and indicators enable EPA, other government 

agencies, businesses, communities, and individuals to 

understand the nature and degree of progress being 

made toward environmental sustainability. Metrics and 

indicators enable us to measure and track progress 

toward societal sustainability goals, send early warning 

of potential problems to decision makers, and highlight 

opportunities for improvement at local, regional, and 

global scales. Effective metrics and indicators require 

collecting, synthesizing, and communicating appropriate 

data and information—which requires understanding both 

what to measure and how to measure it. 

Understanding what to measure draws on an analysis 

of the flows, stressors, and changes over which decision 

makers have control. These flows, stressors, and 

changes can also be linked to resilience, vulnerability, 

warning signals, and limits to resource sustainability. 

Understanding how to measure can require research 

in sensors and sensor systems, statistical approaches 

to guide data collection and preliminary analysis, data 

mining, and other information technology approaches. 

Metrics and indicators are applicable at different scales. 

At the smallest scale are indicators with a feedback rate 

that can enable real-time adjustment of consumption, 

such as of electricity, gasoline, or water for a household or 

industrial facility. At the largest scale, indicators describe 

the condition of the national or global environment. A 

system of connected indicators that collectively describe 

the condition of the overall system at a local, regional, or 

global scale can inform effective decisions and strategies 

for moving toward sustainability. 

To begin to develop this multi-scaled system of connected 

indicators, this research strategy tentatively adopts the six 

proposed resource sustainability outcomes identified and 

defined by senior EPA managers in Everyday Choices: 

Opportunities for Environmental Stewardship and listed in 

Chapter 2 of this document: 

•	 Energy: Generate clean energy and use it efficiently. 

•	 Air: Sustain clean and healthy air. 

•	 Water: Sustain water resources of quality and 

availability for desired use. 

•	 Land: Support ecologically sensitive land 

management and development. 

•	 Materials: Use materials carefully and shift to 

environmentally preferable materials. 

•	 Ecosystems: Protect and restore ecosystems 

functions, goods, and services.52 

These outcomes are a starting point for discussing and 

refining a set of sustainability outcomes and organizing 

sustainability indicators. ORD is leading a cross-Agency 

process that aims to refine and sharpen these desired 

outcomes at multiple scales and to assess whether 

currently available data and indicators are scientifically 

valid, useful, and sufficient. 

The indicators will build on and connect to the Draft 

Report on the Environment, which employed indicators 

that are fundamental measures of environmental 

conditions. The indicators being developed seek to go 

beyond the Draft RoE indicators in four ways: 

•	 An expansion from media and ecosystems, to include 

resources such as materials and energy, contributes 

to an increased understanding of the interactions 

between society and the environment. 

•	 An increased focus on causal connections and 

correlations among indicators will enable better 

understanding of systems and will highlight 

opportunities for improvement. 

•	 A significant focus will be given to indicators that 

can inform decision making, particularly at local and 

regional scales. 

•	 The developed indicators may expand beyond the 

environment to social and economic dimensions. 

52 www.epa.gov/epainnov/pdf/rpt2admin.pdf. The outcomes are 

described more fully in Appendix D of the Technical Report for 

Everyday Choices at www.epa.gov/innovation/pdf/techrpt.pdf 

 
 
Chapter . Roadmap for Implementation

 This research strategy will be implemented in several steps: 

•	 Demonstrate the value of sustainability research by identifying key priority 

national issues where application of sustainability approaches can be most 

effective in promoting sound and sustainable economic growth. 

•	 Transition the current Pollution Prevention and New Technologies Research 

Program into the Science and Technology for Sustainability (STS) 

Research Program. 

•	 Coordinate and integrate research across ORD that builds a critical knowledge 

base for sustainability, such as by identifying synergies, gaps to be filled, and 

high-priority emerging areas among existing research strategies. 

•	 Initiate and strengthen collaborations and partnerships—with EPA program 

and regional offices, other federal agencies, state and local governments, 

communities, industry, nonprofit organizations, universities, and international 

partners—that address critical sustainability issues and stimulate broader 

progress towards sustainability in both research and implementation. 

ORD Organization and Multi-Year Plans performance goals (APGs), and associated annual 

performance measures (APMs) for a 5-year period. MYPs 

While the sustainability research focus is new for EPA, it are intended to be living documents and are updated 

complements ORD’s traditional focus on risk assessment as needed to reflect the current state of the science, 

and risk management. ORD organizes its research into resource availability, and Agency priorities. In ORD, MYPs 

a number of media and cross-media MYPs, as shown in are administered by national program directors (NPDs) 

Table 6.1. MYPs identify long-term goals (LTGs), annual who serve as ORD scientific leads for each subject area. 

 
Table .. ORD Multi-Year Research Plans Organized by EPA Strategic Goals 

EPA Strategic Goals ORD Multi-Year Research Plans 

Goal : Air Clean Air 

Goal : Water 

Drinking Water 

Water Quality 

Goal : Land Land Preservation and Restoration 

Goal : Communities and Ecosystems 

Ecological Research 

Human Health 

Human Health Risk Assessment 

Global Change 

Mercury 

Endocrine Disruptors 

Safe Pesticides/Safe Products 

Goal : Compliance and Environmental Stewardship 

Science and Technology for Sustainability 

Economics and Decision Science 

 
This research strategy is designed to guide all ORD 

research programs and MYPs toward achieving 

measurable sustainable outcomes. Building on the vision 

of environmental stewardship, this strategy will engage 

in research activities that will study the sustainability of 

systems (e.g., ecological, technological, and humanbuilt) from a life cycle perspective. The results of this 

effort can be adopted by EPA stakeholders and partners: 

(1) individuals (via consumer choices), (2) communities 

(via ecosystem protection and infrastructure planning 

and management), (3) government (via facility planning 

and management, technology demonstrations, policies 

and regulations), and (4) companies (via product 

design, supply chain management, facility design, 

and management). ORD leadership on sustainability 

complements and supports shifts by EPA program offices 

toward material management and urban revitalization 

(Office of Solid Waster and Emergency Response), green 

chemistry (Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic 

Substances), low-impact urban development (Office of 

Policy, Economics, and Innovation), and sustainable water 

infrastructure and ecosystem and watershed management 

(Office of Water). 

Setting Priorities: Addressing 

National Issues 

Addressing research prioritization within a broad subject 

area such as sustainability is challenging. Because this 

research strategy lays out a new research approach 

for ORD, prioritization is especially difficult. In order to 

give ORD research planners in the various MYPs more 

flexibility and autonomy in selecting priority research 

areas, this strategy identifies guiding factors for selecting 

research priorities, rather than directly identifying the 

priority areas. The individual MYPs and their NPDs 

will more specifically identify their priority sustainability 

research areas. 

The report of the augmented SAB committee reviewing 

this research strategy made several recommendations on 

focus and priority: 

Recognizing that the Agency is poised to assume 

a global leadership role in sustainability research, 

the committee strongly recommends that, in light 

of ORD’s limited budget, the following parallel 

activities be conducted immediately: 

1. Conduct core research on sustainability 

focusing on the development of defensible 

sustainability metrics, and 

2. Implement a small number of Agencysponsored technology demonstration projects 

that provide ORD with the opportunity 

to achieve significant visibility within the 

sustainability research arena. 

It is important that these demonstration projects 

move away from waste/end-of-pipe approaches 

towards a broader, system-based perspective.53 

Five factors can guide selection of topics and design of 

programs under the MYPs: 

•	 High impact. The MYPs must pursue research with 

high scientific impact that addresses important 

national issues relevant to achieving sustainable 

outcomes. The development of knowledge in the 

theme areas discussed in Chapters 3 and 4 must 

enable the long-term and large-scale sustainability 

outcomes of the resource systems discussed in 

Chapter 2. Investing early to avoid or prevent 

problems is preferred. 

53 The SAB Committee proposed examples: “Examples of such projects 

might include an assessment from a sustainability perspective of: 

(1) biofuels policies and options, which are topical and encompass 

a broad range of issues and potential impacts on emissions of 

greenhouse gases, agriculture, dependence on imports of fossil fuels, 

etc. and may imply a variety of economic incentives; (2) a study of the 

hypoxic environment in the |Gulf of Mexico or the Chesapeake Bay, 

and (3) wastewater practices and infrastructure needs in regions and 

cities with accelerated population growth.” 

www.epa.gov/sab/pdf/sab-07-007.pdf 

 
•	 True to EPA’s intramural and extramural research 

capabilities. ORD intramural research capabilities 

serve a dual purpose of directly meeting program and 

regional office research needs and building capability 

for solving longer-term problems. Intramural 

programs can also serve as focal points for scientific 

and technical assistance centers to assist a variety 

of government and non-government stakeholders. 

ORD extramural research programs, such as the 

Science To Achieve Results (STAR) research grant 

program, can be used to explore new topical areas 

or research approaches and also to catalyze change 

in the broader national research communities. All of 

these capabilities can and should be drawn upon in 

an effective MYP. 

•	 True to EPA’s role. ORD should focus sustainability 

research in areas that are central to EPA’s mission, 

while collaborating with other agencies and 

organizations in areas where missions intersect. 

For example, EPA has a central research role of 

informing the long-term protection of water quality 

in watersheds, and it can collaborate with the 

Department of Energy to advance understanding of 

the environmental implications of emerging energy 

technologies. An effective MYP will address both 

types of research. 

•	 Leveraging results. Research that ultimately 

influences design, decision making, or policies 

leading to resource sustainability on a sufficiently 

large scale is preferred. Leverage can occur through 

partnering in initial research or through transfer 

and diffusion of knowledge, methodologies, and 

approaches. 

•	 In a systems context. Research should be within a 

systems context. This is true for research leading to 

systems understanding but also for research leading, 

for example, to a decision-making tool that considers 

multimedia interactions within a geographic area, or 

to a technology that enables reduction of life cycle 

energy use for a class of products (see Figure 5.1). 

Balancing Research Needs 

In general, research needs far exceed available resources. 

Declining federal budgets for research and development 

require ORD to address conflicting needs and priorities 

and to establish a balance across research portfolios. 

Each MYP should consider each of the following criteria in 

its research portfolio: 

•	 As frequently emphasized by EPA’s SAB, there 

should be a balance between known and emerging 

issues and problems. For example, because it is well 

known that energy and the environment will continue 

to be interconnected and linked to sustainability, it 

is important that ORD continue to support research 

at the nexus of energy and the environment. 

Nanotechnology, with its environmental implications 

and applications, is an example of an issue that EPA 

and ORD correctly identified as an emerging issue 

several years ago. 

•	 A balance among short- and long-term projects is 

also necessary. Investing in shorter-term projects 

permits more immediate demonstration of results, 

while wisely selected longer-term projects can 

represent valuable investments for the future. 

0 
•	 A balance is required between projects that are 

central to EPA’s domain (such as watershed 

protection) and those that reside at the boundaries, 

such as the interplay between agriculture and 

the health of aquatic ecosystems. In the case of 

issues near the boundaries of EPA’s responsibilities, 

collaboration with other government agencies or 

private-sector organizations is particularly important. 

•	 A balance is needed between research that supports 

decision making within EPA program and regional 

offices and research that supports decision making in 

other local, state, or federal government organizations 

and in industry. 

•	 Finally, there should be a balance between projects 

that directly solve problems and those that aim to 

stimulate others by catalyzing or leading them. An 

example of the latter is investing in new branches 

of academic disciplines, such as investing in green 

chemistry through an extramural research program. 

The Sustainability Research Roadmap 

. TRANSITION FROM POLLUTION PREVENTION 

TO SUSTAINABILITY 

The first element in ORD’s roadmap toward sustainability 

is the transition of the existing Pollution Prevention and 

New Technology MYP to a new Science and Technology 

for Sustainability (STS) MYP. The restructured program 

gives greater emphasis to key elements of sustainability 

research, including green chemistry and green 

engineering, systems studies, life cycle assessment, and 

technology verification. 

The long-term goals (LTGs) of the new STS MYP are 

outcome-oriented, providing technical support to broader 

regional and national sustainability policies and initiatives 

(Figure 6.1). 

 
Figure .. Long-Term Goals of Science and Technology for Sustainability MYP 

LTG 1: Decision makers adopt 

ORD-identified and developed 

metrics to quantitatively 

assess environmental systems 

for sustainability 

LTG 2: Decision makers adopt 

ORD-developed decision support tools and methodologies to 

promote environmental stewardship and sustainable environmental management practices 

LTG 3: Decision makers adopt 

innovative technologies 

developed or verified by ORD to 

solve environmental problems, 

contributing to sustainable 

outcomes 

Conducting 

qualitative 

assessments of 

current trends 

and future 

scenarios 

Provide support 

to regional 

and national 

sustainability 

policies and 

initiatives 

 
To accomplish these goals, regular and continuous 

assessment of environmental trends is needed, as well 

as thoughtful consideration of likely alternative future 

scenarios. Together, these considerations will inform the 

development of sustainability metrics (LTG 1) that will not 

only provide baseline information on the sustainability 

of systems, but will also allow the measurement and 

tracking of progress in achieving sustainable outcomes. 

Information gathered during the assessment of conditions 

and the development of metrics will provide researchers 

with information critical for developing and implementing 

decision-support tools (LTG 2) and innovative technologies 

(LTG 3) that will promote sustainable outcomes. 

Supporting the central theme of helping decision makers 

make better and more sustainable decisions, the STS 

includes two grant programs aimed at stimulating 

technology development and putting existing sustainability 

ideas into practice. 

The People, Prosperity, and Planet (P3) student 

sustainability design competition inspires and educates 

the next generation to research, design, and develop 

solutions to sustainability challenges in areas such as 

agriculture, materials and chemicals, energy, information 

technology, water, and the built environment. P3 students 

and their faculty advisors quantify the benefits of their 

projects in the environmental, economic, and social 

dimensions and advisors integrate the projects into their 

educational syllabi. Through the P3 program, students 

learn to work in a multidisciplinary environment and 

to make collaborative, interdisciplinary decisions. By 

integrating sustainability concepts into higher education, 

P3 is helping to create a future work force with an 

awareness of the impact of its work on the environment, 

economy, and society. 

The Collaborative Science and Technology Network 

for Sustainability (CNS) program supports consortia of 

government and non-government organizations on highimpact regional projects that explore and provide learning 

opportunities for new approaches to environmental 

protection that are systems-oriented, forward-looking, and 

preventive. The CNS program is described in more detail 

later in this section. 

. COORDINATING AND INTEGRATING PRIORITY 

RESEARCH ACROSS ORD AND EPA 

The next element of the Sustainability Research Roadmap 

is coordinating and connecting existing ORD research 

programs. The resulting research portfolio is more 

integrated, will inform policy and decision making, and 

will illuminate further research priorities across ORD and 

the rest of EPA. The first step in this process is identifying 

the synergies and potential coordination among the other 

research strategies and MYPs (shown in Table 4.2) that 

will enhance EPA’s research contribution to sustainability. 

A model of synergies between the Sustainability Research 

Strategy (SRS) and the Environmental Economics 

Research Strategy (EERS) is shown in Figure 6.2. 

The EERS presents a focused analysis of Agency research 

priorities in economics and decision sciences, which are 

supported through the Economics and Decision Sciences 

(EDS) extramural research program. As shown, the 

identified EERS research priorities dovetail nicely with the 

SRS integrated framework as outlined in Chapter 4. 

The general intersection of behavioral science research 

and sustainability gives rise to the last two of the six SRS 

themes described in Chapter 4: Economics and Human 

Behavior and Information and Decision Making. These 

themes include five high-priority EDS research topics 

presented in the EERS consultation process: Health 

Benefits Valuation, Ecological Benefits Valuation, Market 

Mechanisms and Incentives, Environmental Behavior and 

Decision Making, and Benefits of Information Disclosure. 

These five EERS topics will in turn provide critical input 

into the SRS research objectives described in Chapter 

5. The penultimate goal of this research coordination is 

to provide the behavioral science research necessary 

for developing environmental policies that support 

sustainability outcomes and are cost-efficient over the 

long term. 

 
Figure .. Integrating the Environmental Economics Research Strategy (EERS) 

and Sustainability Research Strategy (SRS) 

 

Behavioral Sciences Research and Sustainability 

How individual, firm and institutional behavior enables and/or prevents sustainable outcomes 

Economics and Human Behavior Information and Decision-Making 

Health Benefits Valuation: Value 

of mortality and morbidity risks 

associated with pollution 

Ecological Benfits Valuation: 

Ecosystem services value 

Market Mechanisms and Incentives: 

Effectiveness and potential of 

trading programs 

Environmental Behavior and 

Decision-Making: How consumers 

and producers meet their 

environmental obligations under 

mandatory and voluntary initiatives 

Benefits of Environmental Information 

Disclosure: How information disclosure 

improves efficiency of decision-making 

. Economic Instruments: Trading 

schemes and taxes 

. Systems understanding through 

integrated ecological-economic 

models 

. Economic sustainability metrics for 

individuals, business, policy makers to: 

• Make sustainable 

consumption decisions 

• Determine the business case 

for sustainability 

• Regulatory analysis 

(cost-benefit, 

cost-effectiveness analysis) 

. Decision-support tools to help 

policy maker, corporate officials, 

engineers, local/regional planners 

identify and implement 

sustainable options 

. Collaborative decision-making 

SRS Themes 

EERS Topics 

SRS Objectives 

Cost-efficient environmental policies and outcomes for U.S. business and consumers 
The behavioral science and sustainability programs 

cooperated to organize a December 2005 workshop that 

examined economic aspects of sustainability, and plan to 

cooperate in developing future CNS, Market Mechanisms, 

and Environmental Behavior solicitations. In addition, the 

programs will coordinate with each other in synthesizing 

and communicating research results to support regional 

decision making as part of this collaborative element of 

the roadmap. Finally, the EDS program will contribute 

knowledge and insight on organizational behavior in 

the private sector that will inform EPA interaction with 

businesses on sustainability, part of this roadmap 

element. 

These examples illustrate collaboration that can be 

applied to other research strategies as well. The 

coordination and integration across research strategies 

will enable ORD and the rest of the Agency to identify 

knowledge gaps and to more effectively identify emerging 

priorities. This process will be ongoing, proceeding from 

the prioritization factors discussed earlier in this chapter. 

. INITIATING AND STRENGTHENING 

COLLABORATIONS AND PARTNERSHIPS 

The third element in ORD’s roadmap toward sustainability 

involves teamwork with a wide range of collaborators 

and partners: EPA program and regional offices, states, 

local governments; other federal agencies, universities, 

the business communities, and international agencies 

and organizations. After some general considerations, 

this section will explore each of these areas for ORD 

collaboration. 

ORD is in a unique position to lead in sustainability 

research and its connection to policy and decision 

making. As a science-based organization within a 

regulatory agency, ORD can provide leadership in the 

following ways: (1) provide integrated multimedia scientific 

information reflecting considerations beyond single media 

for more sustainable policies; (2) provide strong input into 

Agency indicators of environmental sustainability; and 

(3) collaborate with universities, nonprofit organizations, 

businesses, and research organizations in other countries, 

to better understand sustainability and to identify 

knowledge gaps and emerging priorities. 

A draft report to assist meeting deliberations for the SAB 

review of this research strategy called for EPA leadership 

in sustainability: 

There is a need for, and EPA should provide, 

leadership both internal to the Agency and 

external among the federal agency family and 

other organizations. ... EPA has an opportunity 

to coordinate and lead in the definition of 

environmental sustainability and in the use of 

related research products that will influence how 

other federal agencies and organizations move 

forward with their sustainability programs.54 

54 www.epa.gov/sab/pdf/sustainability_for_chartered_ 

board_jan_18_07.pdf 

 
In implementing this research strategy, external 

collaboration and partnering with stakeholders and 

customers will be a key element of ORD’s management 

approaches. 

As a science-based organization, ORD faces the 

critical challenge of finding effective ways to deliver its 

research products to decision makers and to work with 

them to translate research into practical outcomes. 

ORD initiated its Collaborative Science and Technology 

Network for Sustainability (CNS) program on the premise 

that sustainable outcomes would best be achieved 

by collaborative problem solving in which scientists 

and decision makers together assess and understand 

implications of policy choices. In achieving sustainability, 

ORD scientists must strive to be both good scientists and 

good communicators. 

.a. Collaboration with EPA Program and Regional 

Offices, States, and Local Governments 

Program Offices: ORD research has traditionally served 

to address specific issues raised by EPA program offices. 

ORD NPDs are responsible for coordinating with program 

offices to identify critical research gaps. EPA program 

offices have identified a number of sustainability-related 

research questions that are reflected in existing MYPs and 

in the new Science and Technology for Sustainability MYP. 

Many of these program office activities reflect applications 

of sustainability research supported by ORD and defined 

in this strategy. These activities include a focus on 

systems or multimedia approaches, sustainable design, 

system resilience, and collaborative and communitybased problem solving. 

The challenge ahead is to coordinate research that 

may involve several program offices and NPDs. One 

example illustrates how the common goal of sustainability 

is reflected in program offices and MYPs around the 

research theme of urban sustainability (human-built 

systems and land use). Table 6.2 identifies a number of 

key Agency programs related to the common goal 

of a sustainable built environment. 

 
Table .. EPA Programs Related to the Built Environment 

Media, EPA Programs, and Program Offices55 Program Objectives 

Land: Smart Growth (OPEI) Help design low-impact and green communities through sharing 

best practices and promoting 10 development principles. 

Land: SMARTe (ORD) 

With Web-based decision-support tool, help developers evaluate 

future reuse options for a site or area. 

Land: Brownfield Revitalization (OSWER) Revitalize contaminated sites to be economically productive. 

Land: Environmentally Responsible 

Redevelopment and Reuse (ER3) (OECA) 

Use enforcement and incentives to promote sustainable 

development of contaminated sites. 

Water: Sustainable Water Infrastructure (OW) Better manage utilities, full-cost pricing, efficient water use, and 

watershed approaches. 

Water: WaterSense (OW) 

Help conserve water for future generations by providing 

information on products and programs that save water without 

sacrificing performance. 

Water: National Pollution Discharge 

Elimination System (OW) 

Control water pollution by green infrastructure and regulating point 

sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. 

Energy Use: Energy Star (OAR) 

Evaluate and test energy efficiency of products in more than 50 

categories; provide information on green building design and 

energy efficiency. 

Air: Air Toxics Strategy (OAR) Identify and monitor urban air toxics from stationary, mobile, and 

indoor sources. 

Air: Community-Based Air Quality 

Programs (OAR) 

Support air toxics projects in about 30 communities across the 

nation, helping inform and empower citizens to make local 

decisions concerning the health of their communities. 

Indoor Air: Indoor Environment 

Management Research (ORD) 

Develop better understanding of the relationship among indoor 

air quality and emissions sources, heating, ventilating, and 

air-conditioning systems, and air-cleaning devices. 

Climate: Climate Impact Assessment 

Research (ORD) 

Integrate remote and ground-based data and dozens of models to 

assess potential impacts of climate change. 

55 OPEI: Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation; ORD: Office of Research and Development; OSWER: Office of Solid Waste and Emergency 

Response; OECA: Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance; OW: Office of Water; OAR: Office of Air and Radiation. 

 
Achieving sustainability in the built environment is clearly 

a national challenge that is being addressed by many EPA 

programs that cut across program offices and strategic 

goals. These programs include building design and 

energy efficiency, urban land revitalization, smart growth, 

management of urban systems and water infrastructure, 

and improving air quality. ORD’s challenge is to help 

define the underlying research needed to support these 

programs and work to provide the integration across 

program offices and MYPs. 

ORD has also begun working with program and regional 

offices to identify indicators that define and measure 

trends related to the sustainability outcomes identified in 

Chapter 2. The emergence of the focus on sustainability 

outcomes reflects the evolution of thought in EPA on how 

best to address mission responsibilities. This new effort is 

linked to EPA’s Report on the Environment and its Draft 

Strategic Plan 2007-2012. 

Regional Offices: Because ORD is committed to working 

closely with EPA regional offices, ORD has created the 

positions of regional science liaisons in each region. 

Many regional offices have identified sustainability-related 

issues as major priorities. The existing Regional Applied 

Research Effort (RARE) program provides the regions 

with near-term research on priority region-specific science 

needs, and improves collaboration among regions and 

ORD laboratories and centers. Each year, ORD provides 

funding for each region to develop a research topic, which 

is then submitted to a specific ORD laboratory or center 

as an extramural research proposal. Once approved, 

the research is conducted as a joint effort, with ORD 

researchers and regional staff working together to meet 

region-specific needs. 

RARE provides a means to address a number of 

sustainability issues. Past RARE research topics have 

touched upon all aspects of environmental sciences, from 

human health concerns to ecological effects of various 

pollutants. The RARE program also supports Regional 

Science Topic Workshops, which aim to improve crossAgency understanding of science issues and develop 

a network of EPA scientists working on selected topics. 

These programs provide sound foundations for those who 

will continue to exchange information on science topics 

as the Agency moves forward in planning education, 

research, and risk management programs. 

Several national issues relevant to all EPA regions offer 

special potential for ORD cooperation with regional 

offices. Two of the most often cited national issues that 

 
affect regions in different ways are energy generation 

and use, and ecosystem management. National attention 

to issues like geochemical life cycles (e.g., nitrates) 

involves complex interactions across regions. ORD’s 

implementation of the Sustainability Research Strategy 

points to a need for stronger coordination across EPA 

regions on key national issues. 

State and Local Governments: ORD recognizes that many 

critical decisions on sustainability—such as urban growth 

and development, ecosystem protection, water and energy 

use, and human health—are made at state and local 

levels. In addressing these areas, decision makers must 

anticipate potential social and environmental conditions 

(future scenarios) and work to integrate media (air, water, 

and land) impacts through a systems approach. 

To better understand such high-priority regional 

sustainability issues, ORD and the Office of Policy, 

Economics, and Innovation (OPEI) have initiated outreach 

to state, local, and tribal governments. This interaction 

will enable ORD to contribute to the identification and 

scientific understanding of the longer-term societal 

issues that will likely affect EPA’s mission responsibilities 

at regional and national levels. ORD will also be able to 

contribute possible solutions and management options 

in the form of technologies, decision-making tools, and 

collaborative problem solving. 

The CNS program is a significant part of ORD’s strategy 

to support the application of science to local and regional 

decision making in pursuit of sustainability. Table 6.3 

shows the projects and collaborators funded through the 

first CNS solicitation. 

 
Table .. Projects and Partners of the Collaborative Science and Technology Network for 

Sustainability 

Project Grantee Partners and Collaborators 

Moving Toward Sustainable 

Manufacturing Through Efficient 

Materials and Energy Use 

Northeast Waste 

Management Officials’ 

Association 

Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

Multi-Objective Decision Model for 

Urban Water Use: Planning for a 

Regional Water Reuse Ordinance 

Illinois Institute of 

Technology 

State of Illinois, City of Chicago, Fox Metro Water 

Reclamation District 

Ecological Sustainability in Rapidly 

Urbanizing Watersheds: Evaluating 

Strategies Designed to Mitigate 

Impacts on Stream Ecosystems 

University of Maryland 

- College Park 

Montgomery County, U.S. Geologic Survey 

Using Market Forces to Implement 

Sustainable Stormwater Management 

City of Portland, 

Energy Office 

Portland State University, University of Oregon, 

Willamette Partnership 

Sustainable Sandhills: Development a 

Plan for Regional Sustainability Sustainable Sandhills 

State of North Carolina, Sandhills Area Land Trust, 

Base Closure and Realignment Regional Task Force, 

Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and 

Sustainability, National Association of Counties 

Sustainability of Land Use in 

Puerto Rico 

Universidad 

Metropolitana 

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, US Forest Service, 

Puerto Rico Planning Society 

Transforming Office Parks Into 

Transit Villages 

The San Francisco 

Foundation Community 

Initiative Funds 

Hacienda Business Parks Owners Association, 

Cambridge Systematics, Inc., Oracle 

Industrial Ecology, Pollution Prevention 

and the New York/New Jersey Harbor 

New York Academy of 

Sciences 

Rutgers University, Manhattan College, General 

Electric, State of New Jersey, State of New York, 

Columbia University, Port Authority of New York and 

New Jersey, New York City, Natural Resources Defense 

Council, Hudson River Foundation 

Harnessing the Hydrologic 

Disturbance Regime: Sustaining 

Multiple Benefits in Large River 

Floodplains in the Pacific Northwest 

Oregon State University 

University of Oregon, Willamette Partnership, State 

of Oregon, City of Eugene, City of Corvallis, City of 

Albany, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service 

Bringing Global Thinking to Local Sustainability Efforts: A Collaborative Project 

for the Boston Metropolitan Region 

Tellus Institute 

(Boston) Metropolitan Area Planning Council, 

The Boston Foundation, Commonwealth of 

Massachusetts 

Integrating Water Supply 

Management and Ecological 

Flow Water Requirements 

The Nature 

Conservancy Tellus Institute, Tufts University, State of Connecticut 

Cuyahoga Sustainability Network University of Maryland 

Baltimore County 

Cleveland State University, University of Iowa, Kent State 

University, Chagrin River Watershed Partners, Euclid 

Creek Watershed Council, West Creek 

Preservation Committee 

Framework for Sustainable 

Watershed Management 

Delaware River Basin 

Commission 

Monroe County, State of Pennsylvania, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Brodhead Watershed Association 

0 
CNS grantees draw on decision-making tools derived 

from analytical models and on collaborative approaches 

to practical problem solving that support progress at 

a regional scale toward the sustainability outcomes 

identified in Chapter 2. 

The CNS-supported Sustainable Sandhills project in North 

Carolina is a model of such integrated decision making for 

sustainable outcomes. A non-profit institution (Sustainable 

Sandhills) is serving as a convener for the U.S. Army, 

the state of North Carolina, and dozens of local and state 

communities. EPA’s Region 4 is collaborating with ORD 

ecologists and state of North Carolina scientists to develop 

a set of analytical decision support tools derived from 

geographic information linked to ecological models and 

future scenarios. The goal is an effective regional plan that 

meets long-term community goals and is cost-effective, 

environmentally sound, and sustainable. 

The Sustainable Sandhills example reflects a general 

strategy of integrating and synthesizing knowledge 

generated across various research programs inside and 

outside of EPA to more effectively address sustainabilityrelated questions at the regional level. This example 

illustrates how regional projects can serve as integrating 

mechanisms for ORD research strategies. Sustainable 

Sandhills and other regional projects may assist ORD in 

identifying additional important core research questions 

and prioritizing needs in the development of fundamental 

research methods. 

Lessons learned from the CNS program will be shared 

with regions and communities that work with EPA 

through other programs, such as Community Action for 

a Renewed Environment (CARE), Environmental Justice 

Collaborative Grants, Targeted Watershed Grants, and 

Brownfields Technical Assistance. 

.b. Interagency Collaboration 

While EPA is the lead federal agency in environmental 

compliance and enforcement, its overall and 

environmental research budgets are small relative to the 

federal government as a whole. In energy, transportation, 

agricultural management, and other areas, EPA supports 

and complements other federal lead agencies. A national 

goal of sustainable development can only be achieved 

through integrated and coherent polices across federal 

agencies. 

In implementing this research strategy, ORD will build 

on existing partnerships and seek new collaborations 

with other federal agencies.56 In 2004, ORD partnered 

with the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive 

(OFEE) to organize a sustainability workshop among 

federal agencies. The workshop revealed a wealth of 

federal activities but a paucity of coordination and policy 

coherence among the activities. This led to the creation 

of a Stewardship and Sustainability Council organized by 

OFEE and EPA. ORD intends to continue working with 

OFEE to coordinate and integrate sustainability efforts 

with other federal agencies and to pursue interagency 

collaboration that links research and application. 

Areas of mission focus and supported research among 

federal agencies corresponding to the six sustainability 

outcomes from Chapter 2 are shown in Table 6.4, which 

highlights opportunities for interagency collaboration and 

coordination. 

56 The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which 

coordinates science and technology in federal agencies, has focused 

on a number of macro research and technology issues including 

industrial innovation, competitiveness, and nanotechnology. Extensive 

interagency coordination also focuses on climate change assessment 

and research, earth observations and GOESS, and ocean sciences. 

Water availability and quality and ecosystem services are emerging 

issues under interagency discussion. 

 
Table .. Opportunities for Research or Program Collaboration across Agencies, 

by Sustainability Resource Area 

l - Some Opportunity l l - Strong Opportunity 

Agency 57 Air Ecosystems Energy Land Materials Water 

DOD l l l l l 

DOE l l l 

DOI l l l l l l l l 

DOT l l l l l 

EPA l l l l l l l l l l 

NASA l l 

NOAA l l l l 

NSF l l l l l l l l l 

USDA l l l l 

57	 DOD: Department of Defense; DOE: Department of Energy; DOI: Department of the Interior; DOT: Department of Transportation; NASA: National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration; NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; NSF: National Science Foundation; USDA: U.S. 

Department of Agriculture. 

 
One example of federal interagency cooperation is 

the emergence of partnerships on sustainable land 

management. USDA and DOI’s U.S. Geological Survey 

each support research related to land management 

and development. DOD’s Department of the Army is 

increasingly focusing on its stewardship of land on and 

around military bases. DOI and USDA’s Forest Service 

are partnering in activities related to healthy forests, 

ecological services, and management. New partnerships 

are also emerging around the issue of biofuels and 

energy conversion. DOE and USDA co-chair the Biomass 

Research and Development Board (which also includes 

DOI, DOT, EPA, OSTP, and OFEE) mandated by the 

Energy Policy Act of 2005. DOE and USDA are also 

leading efforts to develop a comprehensive Federal 

Biofuels Work Plan that will define an overall interagency 

biomass strategy incorporating topics such as feedstock, 

conversion technology, biofuel infrastructure, and 

communication, education and outreach. Sustainabilityrelated objectives are emphasized in the Energy Policy 

Act, which directs the secretaries of Agriculture and 

Energy, in consultation with the EPA administrator and 

heads of other appropriate departments and agencies, to 

direct research and development toward “a diversity of 

sustainable domestic sources of biomass for conversion to 

biobased fuels and biobased products” and “to maximize 

the environmental, economic, and social benefits of 

production of biobased fuels and biobased products on a 

large scale through life-cycle economic and environmental 

analysis and other means.” 

.c. University Collaboration 

University communities are embracing sustainability 

in facility operations, community development, and 

academic programs. With endowments and local funds, 

many universities have created new academic centers for 

sustainability systems sciences, resilience, green design, 

and green chemistry. Many joint programs exist between 

business schools and environmental programs. 

ORD has developed strong ties with the university 

community through its extramural STAR research 

grants (including CNS) and fellowship programs. ORD’s 

P3 student sustainability design competition and its 

engineering curriculum benchmarking project are 

catalyzing leadership within academia. Going beyond 

these grant-related activities, ORD aims to foster closer 

ties among universities, ORD laboratories, and other 

EPA program and regional offices to boost research 

on current environmental problems, potential future 

problems, and sustainable solutions. Toward this goal, 

ORD began in 2006 to conduct visits to major university 

sustainability research centers to discuss coordination 

and collaboration on emerging research issues. ORD aims 

to partner with many more academic centers to ensure 

that scientific advances are translated into practical 

management approaches. By interacting with universities 

and investing in research and education, EPA can support 

the development and refinement of academic fields that 

contribute to sustainability.

58 

58 EPA’s Smart Growth Program has made the greening of universities 

and their surrounding communities a priority issue. 

 
.d. Collaboration with the Business Community 

Recognizing that business leadership and decisions 

taken by industry have a strong influence on progress 

towards sustainability, ORD is pursing a two-fold strategy 

with private industry: (1) EPA engages in a broad 

conversation with the business community to collectively 

and strategically identify and address sustainabilityrelated problems; and (2) Drawing on knowledge gained 

from the EDS research program, EPA will analyze and 

document the business case for sustainability, bringing 

a better understanding of short- and long-term business 

motivation to inform EPA programs.59 

.e. International Collaboration60 

Five years after the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable 

Development (WSSD), many developed and developing 

nations, United Nations agencies, and non-government 

organizations are aggressively pursuing sustainable 

development objectives. The WSSD launched hundreds 

of Partnerships for Sustainability among governments 

and non-government organizations to address a broad 

range of sustainability issues. Significant science and 

technology cooperation and agreements are underway 

within the OECD and among the G8 nations. The G8 2003 

Science and Technology for Sustainable Development 

Action Plan focuses on areas that are central to EPA: 

coordination of global observation systems through the 

Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS); 

cleaner, more efficient, and sustainable energy use; 

agricultural productivity and sustainability; and biodiversity 

conservation. 

Several European Union member countries have also 

developed their own sustainability research strategies. 

The European Union’s newly launched 7th Research 

Framework (2007-2013) supports basic research 

in several areas related to sustainable development 

including sustainable health care, sustainable production 

and management of biological resources, sustainable 

production and consumption patterns, sustainable 

transport and energy systems, sustainable greenhouse 

gas reductions, and technology development and 

verification. 

ORD intends to take advantage of the increasing 

global interest in sustainability to pursue international 

partnerships to support sustainability research and the 

achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. ORD 

has begun to expand its collaboration with the European 

Commission in areas that support the research identified 

in Chapter 4. These areas include environmental and 

sustainability indicators, uncertainty in environmental 

models, development of decision-support tools and 

environmental technologies, nanotechnology uses, and 

sustainable chemistry. In October 2006, EPA signed 

an agreement for research collaboration with China. 

A February 2007 agreement signed by EPA and the 

European Union director general for research has 

launched a cooperative research and eco-informatics 

program that provides a new framework for cooperation 

between the EPA and several European Commission 

directorates. 

59	 These ORD activities complement EPA’s traditional regulatory 

and voluntary programs. The Agency has more than 65 voluntary 

programs that encourage business to move beyond complying with 

environmental laws to implement sustainable operations. Programs 

such as Performance Track operate at the facility level while others, 

such as the Sectors Program, work across whole industrial sectors. 

EPA’s Climate Leadership program aims at voluntary reduction of 

greenhouse gas emissions. The High Production Volume Challenge 

Program aims to provide the public with information on many 

high-volume chemicals. These and many other programs are part 

of EPA’s efforts to advance environmental stewardship and 

sustainable outcomes. 

60	 Links to many of these international programs and research strategies 

are available at EPA’s Sustainability Web site: www.epa.gov/ 

sustainability/international.htm 

 
Implementing the Sustainability 

Research Strategy for a Sustainable 

Future 

Advances in science and technology form a foundation 

that can lead to a wide array of opportunities for 

advancing toward 

a sustainable future: 

•	 Science and technology can enable communities, 

nations, and industries to measure, monitor, and 

characterize pollutants and environmental conditions. 

•	 Models and data analysis techniques—ranging 

from chemical design tools based on computational 

toxicology to material flow analysis—can help society 

to better understand environmental conditions, their 

underlying social and economic causes, and their 

effects on human health. 

•	 Technological advances—such as those achieved in 

green chemistry and engineering—can enable society 

to use resources more efficiently and to prevent or 

reduce pollution and the associated risks to human 

health and the environment. 

•	 Futures analysis can assist society in better 

anticipating and preparing for potential social and 

economic changes—such as the predicted industrial 

transformation growing out of the convergence of 

nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information 

technology—and resulting environmental changes. 

•	 Finally, science and technology can help to develop 

tools for supporting decision making that advances 

the protection of human health and the natural 

environment now and for future generations. 

In short, this Sustainability Research Strategy serves 

our society’s environmental needs in ways that also 

support our economy and society. The potential long-term 

national benefits of pursuing the research identified in the 

Sustainability Research Strategy are clear and compelling: 

•	 It will enable communities and regions to 

envision, plan, and manage their natural and 

built environments so that materials and energy 

are conserved and the quality of air and water is 

protected while economic and social needs are met. 

•	 It will enable industry and consumers to benefit from 

advances in scientific understanding and technology 

so that resources are conserved and the environment 

and public health are protected while economic and 

social objectives are met. 

•	 It will give EPA and the nation more options to 

protect human health and the environment for future 

generations, informed by an improved understanding 

of systems in the natural and built environments. 

 
For more information on 


the ORD Sustainability 


Research Strategy, 


please contact:


Sustainability Program


Office of Research and Development


Mail Code 8101R


U.S. Environmental Protection Agency


1200 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.


Washington, D.C 20460


Printed on 100% recycled/recyclable paper 

with a minimum 50% post-consumer 

fiber using vegetable-based ink. 

PRESORTED STANDARD


POSTAGE & FEES PAID


EPA


PERMIT NO. G-35


Office of Research and Development (8101R) 

Washington, DC 20460 

Official Business 

Penalty for Private Use 

$300