Comprehensive research briefs for students developing sustainable business model innovations in Prof. Andre Calmon's sustainability courses.
Each portal synthesizes research from multiple AI-generated briefs into one authoritative, data-rich reference.
Each theme site is a self-contained research portal with sidebar navigation, searchable content, expandable sections, and a key data dashboard. Use them to get up to speed on a topic, find specific statistics for your presentations, identify business opportunities for your final projects, and reference throughout the semester. Start with the executive summary, then dive into whichever section is most relevant to your current work.
AI investment hit $252B in 2024 while data center energy demand is set to double by 2030. This portal maps the tension between AI's optimization potential and its growing physical footprint, covering labor economics, Green AI, carbon-aware computing, and business models at the intersection.
The clean energy transition depends on lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and other minerals whose supply chains are geographically concentrated, environmentally destructive, and geopolitically contested. This portal covers extraction economics, recycling innovation, and supply chain strategy.
The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic with mortality risks comparable to smoking. This portal examines the social, economic, and business dimensions of connection and isolation, including technology's dual role as cause and potential remedy.
Only 7.2% of the global economy is circular. This portal covers the business case for closing material loops — from product-as-a-service models to industrial symbiosis, reverse logistics, and the policy frameworks accelerating the transition from linear to circular systems.
Cities house 56% of the world's population and generate over 70% of global CO₂ emissions. This portal examines smart city infrastructure, green building, urban mobility, climate adaptation, and the business models reshaping how cities function and grow.