About
A center built around a word it had to invent
The Center for Sustainable Systems has its roots in the National Pollution Prevention Center, created in 1991. Six years later it coined the term that now describes an entire field.
The Center launched in 1991 through a three-year competitive grant from the U.S. EPA, growing out of the National Pollution Prevention Center. What began as a focus on preventing pollution widened into something more structural: analyzing the systems that produce it.
In 1997 the Center coined the term “sustainable systems” — one of several firsts it can claim. The name set the agenda. Rather than optimizing single products or single policies, the Center develops methods, models and metrics that describe how energy, mobility, cities, food and water behave together.
Today the Center is part of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability, working with graduate students, policymakers, industry and the public to make systems evidence usable.
On the record
Verified milestones
- 1991
- Launched through a three-year competitive grant from the U.S. EPA
- 1997
- Coined the term “sustainable systems”
- 1,000+
- Publications produced by the Center
- 300
- Research projects conducted at the Center
Leadership