Contributions of Local Farming to Urban Sustainability in the Northeast United States.

Food consumption is an important contributor to a city's environmental impacts (carbon emissions, land occupation, water use, etc.) Urban farming (UF) has been advocated as a means to increase urban sustainability by reducing food-related transport and tapping into local resources. Taking Boston as an illustrative Northeast U.S. city, we developed a novel method to estimate sub-urban, food-borne carbon and land footprints using multiregion-input-output modeling and nutritional surveys. Computer simulations utilizing primary data explored UF's ability to reduce these footprints using select farming technologies, building on previous city-scale UF assessments which have hitherto been dependent on proxy data for UF. We found that UF generated meagre food-related carbon footprint reductions (1.1-2.9% of baseline 2211 kg CO2 equivalents/capita/annum) and land occupation increases (<1% of baseline 9000 m2 land occupation/capita/annum) under optimal production scenarios, informing future evidence-based urban design and policy crafting in the region. Notwithstanding UF's marginal environmental gains, UF could help Boston meet national nutritional guidelines for vegetable intake, generate an estimated $160 million U.S. in revenue to growers and act as a pedagogical and community building tool, though these benefits would hinge on large-scale UF proliferation, likely undergirded by environmental remediation of marginal lands in the city.

Materials for aesthetic, energy-efficient, and self-diagnostic buildings.

It has become desirable to reduce the nonrenewable content and energy footprint of the built environment and to develop "smart buildings" that allow for inexpensive monitoring and self-diagnostic capabilities. Latest-generation embedded sensors, self-healing composites, and nanoscale and responsive materials may augur a time when buildings can substantially adjust to changing environmental and functional demands. However, faced with the legal liability resulting from unknown lifetime performance, designers and engineers have had little incentive to incorporate new material technologies into building designs. As efficiency issues become more acute, the potential for improvement in performance from new materials, together with partnerships between the materials science community and those entrusted with the design and engineering of the built environment, may offer real breakthroughs for the future.