Vol.4

Newsletter from GPSS-GLI

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE

The Graduate Program in Sustainabi l i ty Science -

Global Leadership Ini t iative (GPSS-GLI)

Graduate School o f Frontier Sciences , The Universi ty of Tokyo

Symposium Report &

GFE Akita

1

GFE Kashiwa & GFE

Bangkok

2

RE Tohoku & GFE

Oasis

3

Conference & Field

Research Report

4

Student Internship &

Stakeholder Collabora-

tion

5

Students Activities 6

Table of Contents

Since 2012, GPSS-GLI has organized an annual international symposium that discusses key issues related to sustaina-bility in higher education. Along these lines, the topic of the 4th GPSS-GLI In-ternational Symposium on Nov 20th 2015 was “Developing A New Evaluation Scheme for Sustainability Science Pro-grams in Higher Education.

This Symposium aimed at developing a new evaluation scheme for sustainability science programs in higher education by 1) sharing experiences in education practices among participating higher education institutions, and 2) discussing indicator concepts for evaluating sus-tainability science programs. The sympo-sium program started with two keynote

speeches to provide scientific knowledge for sustainable development; 1) Prof. Jerneck and Prof. Olsson made the speech entitled “Sustainability Science – Advancing Method-ological Awareness” with a particular focus on how Lund University runs their Sustaina-bility Science program, and 2) Prof. Yuto Kitamura from the University of Tokyo talked about “Teaching and Learning Strategies for

Sustainability Science Programs in Higher Education”, especially from a Japanese perspective. Further, there were three sessions to emphasize and exchange ideas on fieldwork-based education and social implementation of research outcomes in GPSS-GLI. Finally, the general discussion session provided a platform to exchange ideas and thoughts on evaluation schemes for sustainability science programs in higher education. The outcome of this symposium will further enhance sus-tainability science in higher education and help develop the future leaders required by and for sustainable socie-ties.

The 4th GPSS-GLI International Symposium

Developing A New Evaluation Scheme for Sustainability Science

Programs in Higher Education

Feb 2016

Global Field Exercise (GFE) Akita

Rural Sustainability in Aging Societies

Symposium’s participants, Kashiwa-no-ha Conference Center, November 20, 2015.

The first Global Field Exer-cise in Akita took place in Go-jome town in Akita prefecture from January 23rd to 30th. Seven GPSS-GLI students and three faculty members joined the unit. The unit also had participants from our local partner university, Akita Inter-national University (AIU). Helped by the ‘unexpectedly’ friendly weather and the warm reception by the resi-dents, the unit was conducted under quite favorable condi-tions.

The main theme of GFE Akita is “Rural Sustainability in Aging Societies.” The unit is designed to provide opportunities for participants to set research topics, design fieldwork, and

implement various forms of so-cial surveys. For this year’s imple-mentation, two survey groups were formed, which were Retail group, and Pride and Migration group. Both groups conducted series of interviews and ques-tionnaires to the local residents.

AIU students helped the team greatly with the communication. They provided simultaneous translation and this enabled non-Japanese language speakers to follow and join conversations.

One of the main outcomes of this year’s GFE Akita was the practical training on qualitative research methods. Both survey groups collected rich data both in quantity and quality. Unit participants needed to do struc-tural analysis of qualitative data. At the end, the team had a final presentation session to local residents. During this occasion, the Retail group illustrated the different business targets of local retail owners, whereas the Pride and Migration team point-ed out the importance of infor-mal education for the local youth to strengthen their con-nection to local areas. Shogo Kudo, Project Researcher of GPSS-GLI

Preparatory meeting at Akakura pension, Retail Group, Akita, January 23- 30, 2016.

The lectures served as effective intro-duction to the whole field exercise since the provided all of us with the basic knowledge on the effects of ur-ban environment to human health. The lectures also served as avenues for the student participants to ask pressing questions to government officials. The field visits exposed us to different facili-ties involved in minimizing different forms of pollution. In the air emissions testing center, the laboratory rooms and a demonstration of vehicle emis-sion test were shown. In Dindaeng's Wastewater Treatment Plant, the different stages of waste water treat-ment were thoroughly explained to us. Last was in Nonthaburi’s Landfill Site where we got to see the vast area of land dumped openly with unsegregated trash in what was supposed to be a sanitary landfill. The last 3 days were given to conduct a small-scale research related to urban health. We were divid-

ed into four groups, which tackled various issues covering air pollution, urban heat and solid waste management. The final outcome of GFE Bangkok was summarized and rearranged into 4 post-ers which were presented in the Honda Y-E-S Forum 2015. The Bangkok Unit was fruitful and truly served as classroom for on-the-spot education of urban sustaina-bility. GFE Bangkok team, GPSS-GLI

From July 31-August 11, 2015, Glob-al Field Exercise (GFE) Bangkok unit was held in Bangkok, Thailand. This exercise course was arranged for the graduate students of the University of Tokyo, Asian Institute of Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, and Mahidol University. The objective was to allow the participants to learn about i) various environmental risks associated with urbanization and ii) environmental management in Bangkok though the lectures, field visits and group works.

GFE Kashiwa ran from October to December 2015 under four sub-themes; 1) Health and longevity, 2) transport, 3) energy, and 4) new indus-try innovation. The Unit set to explore these sub-themes through site visits and guest presentations, for students to learn about the sustainability issues experienced in Kashiwa-no-ha region.

A large component of the study was learning about the development of the

nearby Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City. In its relatively short history, the Kashiwa-no-ha area has implemented innovative systems in the pursuit of creating an ‘environmentally symbiotic city’ that champions a new, sustainable lifestyle. After studying its unique smart energy system, sustainable transportation initia-tives, health programs and open innova-tion lab, the team created a guided tour of the Kashiwa-no-ha area and present-ed it during the Sustainability Science Symposium 2015 participants in Novem-ber 2015. At the Symposium, GFE Kashiwa students also collaborated with visiting academics and researchers from overseas institutions, and shared opin-ions regarding the Smart City concept. With the help of this outside perspec-tive, the second phase of our investiga-tion involved critically analysing the sus-tainability methodologies and tech-

niques used in Kashiwa-no-ha. Our re-search culminated with a final presenta-tion of our conclusions and possible fu-ture research topics to our peers, faculty and special guests from Kashiwa-city and Mitsui Fudosan. The general consensus amongst student groups was that the Kashiwa-no-ha Smart City was effectively a ‘living laboratory’, and an admirable start to sustainable development that we hope subsequent Smart City projects around the world can build upon

Katie Skillington, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Global Field Exercise (GFE) Kashiwa 2015

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Global Field Exercise (GFE) Bangkok

Integrated Management of Urban Environment for

Sustainable Development

Visiting researcher Henner Busch from Lund Univer-sity sharing his feedback with the GFE Kashiwa Energy team, November 19, 2015.

Field visit to Dindaeng's Wastewater Treatment Plant, August 4, 2015.

Participation to Honda Y-E-S Forum 2015, November 18, 2015

Transportation team guiding the transportation tour, November 19, 2015.

The third Tohoku Exercise on Resili-ence took place in the coastal town of Otsuchi in northern Japan, which had suffered extensive damages from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Four and half years and a pop-ulation reduction from 15,994 to 12,607 residents since the disaster (tolls as of August 2014, according to the Otsuchi town government), eight students and three faculty members from GPSS-GLI

explored ongoing challenges and oppor-tunities in the reconstruction process.

The Exercise began with a tour of the afflicted town by a volunteer town guide and representative of a tempo-rary housing compound. Information sessions with local stakeholders provid-ed institutional perspectives, comple-mented by personal narratives of busi-ness owners and residents of the tem-porary housing units. Visits to Taro, Kamaishi, and Rikuzentakata exempli-fied alternative approaches and the scope of reconstruction in nearby towns, posing fundamental questions on the various visions of sustainability in the area.

As an explorative exercise, this unit focused on the educational outputs of the field activities. Owing to the gener-ous cooperation of the community part-ners, the student group actively learned

of developments pertinent to the catas-trophe as well as of preexisting commu-nity and cultural values. Moreover, im-mersive experiences led to first-hand knowledge of core principles of sustain-ability science such as resilience, stake-holder participation and mixed-methodologies that are taught in the classroom. Students also conducted a self-analytical assessment of the learn-ing process that culminated in the pub-lication of a book chapter.

Yuki Yoshida, Doctoral student of GPSS-GLI

Global Field Exercise (GFE) Oasis

Living in the Safe Operating Space: A Sustainability

Assessment Tool for Zhangye City in Gansu Province, China

Exercise on Resilience (RE) Tohoku 2015

farmers across the city, our tool let Zhangye city planners estimate the local sustainability status and provided them with a guideline for sustainable development.

The team spent five days conducting interviews around Heihe River, the chief water source of the city. During the interviews, GPSS-GLI students were joined by two local students at the Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to make the conversations with the farmers

smooth. With their help, we were able to meet about sixty households from more than twenty villages around Zhangye City. We then analyzed the data and presented our findings in front of the city government officials. The analysis is now under a more compre-hensive process, and an academic arti-cle that fully reports what we learned from the field work and related re-search will be published soon.

Norrie Furukawa, Mater student of GPSS-GLI

A safe operating space is defined as the capacity in which human socioeco-nomic development can continue with-out sacrificing ecological sustainability in a given society. In order to develop an assessment tool for capturing the current sustainability status of Zhangye, we examined five regional ecological boundaries in the middle reach of Hei-he River Basin: freshwater use, biogeo-chemical flow, air pollution, land-use change, and novel entities. Based on the economic data related to the City’s 5-Year Plan and information gained from interviews to nearly sixty

PAGE 3 NEWSLETTER FROM GPSS -GLI:GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIAT IVE VOL.4

GPSS-GLI members were welcomed by residents of a temporary housing unit in Otsuchi town that kindly shared their views and experiences, Otsuchi town, Iwate prefecture, September 7-14, 2015

Students maximized the use of their time through daily workshops to analyze and reor-ganize their collective learnings in the field, September 7-14, 2015 .

In November 2016, three doctoral students of GPSS-GLI attended the 6th International Conference on Sustaina-ble Future for Human Security held in Bali, Indonesia. With the guidance of Prof. Miguel Esteban, who was also one of the main organizers of the confer-ence, the students delivered oral presentations of their research work.

During the session on Energy and social research, Warathida Chaiyapa dis-cussed the role of the oil and gas indus-try of Thailand in the country’s policy regarding renewable and alternative energy development. Further, Ma. Lau-rice Jamero presented her work on human adaptation strategies to relative sea-level rise during the Disaster man-agement session. Finally, Alexander Sjoegren explored the human dimen-sions of wildlife conflict in Northern Sweden during the Human security

session.

Laurice and Alexander also submitted full papers that are now undergoing the review process of the peer-reviewed journal, the International Journal for Sustainable Future of Human Security. Alex garnered the Best Paper Award at the conference.

Utilizing the training they received on facilitating discussions from the pro-gram’s weekly seminars, our doctoral students also moderated sessions out-side their own during the conference. Warathida moderated the Geodisaster session, while Laurice and Alexander moderated the Sustainable develop-ment session and the Food production and postharvest session, respectively.

The conference was attended by many research students and professors, espe-

cially from major universities in Japan and Indonesia. This provided an excel-lent opportunity for our doctoral stu-dents to build networks with scholars pursuing research on Human Security, which covers the human aspect of Sus-tainability Science.

Ma. Laurice Jamero, Warathida Chaiyapa, and Alexander Sjoegren, Doctoral student of GPSS-GLI

Field Research Report

Improving Mental Healthcare Post-Disaster: A Case Study

of Tacloban City, Philippines

Conference Report

Sustainable Future for Human Security

nity-based mental health services ren-dered in the city. The WHO started a program called Mental Health Gap Ac-tion Program wherein they trained 70 health professionals and almost 300 community workers to link primary care with mental healthcare. However, al-most the same patients before and after Typhoon Haiyan avail of these free services from health centers despite the increased number of persons reported to be mentally ill.

For this, Dr. Angeli Guadalupe conduct-ed key person interviews and adminis-tered questionnaire survey to assess disaster mental healthcare in Tacloban City to determine the factors that affected the health-seeking behavior of Typhoon Haiyan survivors. It was deter-mined that the most significant factor to their health-seeking behavior is the attitudinal barrier of wanting to handle the problem on their own. This was

followed by structural barriers, e.g. lack of doctors, poor quality facilities, dis-tance from facilities, limited finances and lack of time. Stigma was the lowest reported barrier. Most used the services availed from non-governmental organi-zations and not health centers. Lastly, 79% of the respondents have only heard about the existence of the ser-vices but not the details about them per se. These findings suggest that in-creased information dissemination might improve access to disaster men-tal healthcare in Tacloban City, Philip-pines.

Angeli Guadalupe, Master student of GPSS-GLI

“Disaster Mental Health: A Mixed Method Exploratory Study on Typhoon Haiyan Survivors in Tacloban City, Phil-ippines”

In 2013, a Category 5 supertyphoon named Haiyan struck Tacloban City causing Php 89 billion in damage and killing at least 6,300 people. After this tragedy, it is reported that at least one in ten survivors was advancing into de-pression. Sadly, there were no commu-

PAGE 4 NEWSLETTER FROM GPSS -GLI:GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIAT IVE VOL.4

Guadalupe with enumerators from International Relief Emergency and Development (IEDA) Relief- Philippines, August 19-23, 2015.

The 6th International Conference on Sustainable Future for Human Security Bali, Indonesia, Novem-ber 17-19, 2015.

Jiaqi Liu did his internship with the UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development (UNEP-IESD), an institution jointly established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Tongji Universi-ty (Tongji). UNEP-IESD aims at main-streaming sustainable development into higher education, promoting edu-cation reform, and facilitating the re-form of higher education system by incorporating the concepts and practic-

es of sustainable development

My internship focused on supporting UNEP-IESD’s preparation and coordina-tion of an annual international training programme: 2015 Asia Pacific Leadership Programme on Environment for Sustaina-ble Development (APLP 2015). The tasks of this internship included: designing Course Book and Logistical Info Booklet for APLP 2015; coordinating poster exhi-bition, registration, photographing, re-cording and material printing; supporting communication with participants and resource persons from governmental organizations, international organiza-tions, NGOs and the private sector; as-sisting in logistics for events, such as workshops, lectures, tours and meetings.

As one short-term intern member of the UNEP-IESD Office team, I gained experi-ence on coordinating international sus-

tainable educational events, which wid-ened my insights on sustainable develop-ment by communicating with interna-tional governments, NGOs and scholars as well. Learning from the preparation work and during hosting the programme, I understood what details should be paid attention to in order to make an effective and enjoyable conference. Overall, great appreciation to UNEP-IESD and GPSS for supporting and providing this fruitful internship opportunity.

Jiaqi Liu, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Stakeholder Collaboration

Sustainability Science Assembly

Student Internship

Internship at UNEP-IESD

tering human resources for sustainabil-ity science by strengthening interna-tional research/education networks, creating stakeholder collaboration and developing experimental educational activity. The Kashiwa-no-ha Area is con-sidered as a model city to solve serious sustainability problems such as "resource and energy", "health and super aging society", and "economic recovery" through city development. Under the theme of “Future sustainable lifestyle of Kashiwa-no-ha Area, Kashiwa City, Japan”, participants in-cluding graduate and undergraduate students from various academic disci-pline and from various research institu-tions all over the world and several stakeholders in the society discussed about “how to develop and transit to a future sustainable lifestyle in a subur-ban area of developed countries in shrinking, depopulating and aging soci-ety” focusing on four sub-themes, 1) New Industry Creation, 2) Health and longevity, 3) Energy, and 4) Transporta-tion systems. The session involved, i)

guided tour to Kashiwa-no-ha Area, ii) participants’ group discussions and iii) Round table discussion on sustainability education and networking. As an out-come, the participants shared their research topics from the viewpoint of sustainability and discussed possible research collaboration in general and possible contribution to “future sustain-able lifestyle in Kashiwa-no-ha Area”.

Emmanuel Mutisya, Project Assistant Professor of GPSS-GLI

“Sustainability Science has promoted research and education based on field-works and case studies at domestic and international levels. In order to tackle with such real world challenges, collab-oration among different academic disci-plines, different region in the world (international research networks) and different stakeholders in the society (including not only academia but also private sector, public sector, NGO/NPO) is necessary.

The Sustainability Science Assembly 2015 to place on November 19, 2015 in Kashiwa-no-ha Area and aimed at es-tablishing an education system for fos-

PAGE 5 NEWSLETTER FROM GPSS -GLI:GLOBAL LEADERSHIP INITIAT IVE VOL.4

Field visit to Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, September 24, 2015.

Field visit to Shanghai Expo Park, Septem-ber 24, 2015.

Participants’ group discussions, November 19, 2015.

Round table discussion on sustainability education and networking, November 19, 2015.

Editorial Note Graduate Program in Sustainability Science-Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI),

Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Japan

http://www.sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

Student Initiative Activities- Sustain Cafe

WWF Japan

GPSS-GLI Symposium Best Poster Awards

The Sustain Cafe, Sustainability Management for Biodiversity and Footprint Goals, was organized as a student initiative to encourage the discussion of Biodiversity Conserva-tion as a strategy to achieve the sus-tainability of natural resources. We had the opportunity to interact with four researchers from the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) not only to discuss the importance of conservation activities for local and global sustainability, but also to talk about achievements and challenges in the WWF Japan’s on-the ground ac-

tivities developed in Russia, the Yellow Sea, Indonesia and the disaster- stricken area of Eastern Japan.

Mr. Shigeki Yasumura (Yellow Sea Ecore-gion Project Leader), Mr. Satoshi Maekawa (Fishery and Seafood project officer), Mr. Shinichi Kawae (Amur / Sumatra Project Officer), and Mr. Shunsuke Kobayashi (Heart of Borneo Project Manager) were the researchers who shared with us their project goals and experiences about how biodiversity conservation activities go be-yond the delimitation of Protected Areas to include activities with multiples stake holders, in order to achieve the sustaina-bility of natural resources through differ-ent process, i.e. ecolabel certification of fisheries.

The discussion was followed by a work-shop in which they showed how the pres-sures over natural resources are related to both rapid population growth and increas-

ing food demands by inhabitants of im-poverished areas. These pressures over natural resources are derived from the demand by global markets, as well as from weaknesses in the institutional structure of control and conservation.

The Sustain Cafe encouraged us as Sus-tainability Science students to look into different stages of biodiversity conserva-tion as key component for achieving glob-al sustainability. In the near future, we hope to continue collaborating with WWF Japan, giving continuity to the biodiversity conservation studies. Reported by Orlando

Vargas Rayo, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Developing a sustainable priori-ty evaluation of renewing aging water supply pipelines - A case study of Kashiwa City

Aging society is one of the main threats to sustainability of rural and urban com-munities around world, especially in de-veloped countries. My research topic fo-cuses on “Efficiency Assessment of Re-newing Aging Water Supply Pipelines Based on Physical Property and Demo-graphic Changes”, by taking Kashiwa City as a case study. In Japan, with the current situation of population shrinking, many water supply managers fails to respond to the needs of water supply services, which lead to inefficient use of public funds and difficult to maintain this system as a whole. Thus, the objectives of my current research is to prioritize the reconstruction list of renewing water supply pipelines based on dynamic model by considering population changes overtime.

Zhao Sijia, Master student of GPSS-GLI

Students and WWF Japan researchers shared their visions on the strategies of conservation for achieving sustainabil-ity, November 25, 2015.

Lists of GPSS-GLI Up-coming Events

1. Graduation Ceremony, March 24, 2016.

2. GPSS GLI students will participate at the 6th International Conference on Sustainability Science (ICSS 2016) in South Africa on March 2-3, 2016.

3. South Africa Next Generation Workshop, March 4-7, 2017.

4. GPSS-GLI New Students Guid-ance, April 4, 2016.

5. GPSS-GLI Progress Report Session (PRS), April 7-8, 2016.

The purpose of the SUSTAIN.CAFE is to provide an opportunity for casual & infor-mal discussion on sustainability. This means that emphasis is placed not on the academ-ic accuracy of the discussion but on sharing the personal opinions & feelings we each have. The latest SUSTAIN.CAFE was held on November 25, 2015.

GPSS-GLI Program provides the

training that enables future global leaders

to make a profound impact on

sustainability science and sustainable

development. Students can: (i) develop

the skills necessary for global leadership,

(ii) acquire a broad perspective and

problem solving capabilities, and (iii) learn

to apply the concept of "resilience" both

theoretically and practically.

Assessing adaptive capacity to climate change and agricultural productivity of farming house-holds

Climate change is one of the global chal-lenges with long-term implications to the sustainable development of many countries today. The ability of a community to cope or adjust to climate change impact deter-mines its vulnerability since a small change may mean a dramatic change in the adap-tive capacity of that community and the strategies it used to apply may not be ap-propriate for the new challenge. Currently, the negative impacts of climate change are more visible especially in Sub-Saharan Afri-ca, with many rural communities being more vulnerable to the impacts since they are farmers who rely on rain fed agriculture for their livelihood. My research focuses on assessing adaptive capacity to climate change at farm level to enhance agricultural productivity for sustainable livelihood. This research will provide recommendations to policymakers to design and implement ap-propriate programs and services to farming households for adaptive capacity and im-

proved agricultural productivity.

Lilian M. Muasa, Master student of GPSS-GLI