Importance of Sustainability

Watchman Hike in Zion National Park

I care about environmental wellbeing and the health of the planet immensely. I try to spend as much time outside as possible and to appreciate Earth's nature. Consequently, I am passionate about sustainability and overall, environmentally friendly practices.

Sustainability is important because if the way humans utilize resources does not change, people will not be able to maintain the quality of life, as well as the Earth's ecosystems, for long. There are signs that scientists and entrepreneurs need to focus on sustainability soon as we are running out of resources and changing the climate. The root of change towards a more sustainable world lies on both home and community or even worldwide levels. For me, I learned about the concept of cradle-to-cradle design and became more interested in sustainability through that.

Cradle-to-cradle design is "is a biomimetic approach to the design of products and systems that models human industry on nature's processes, where materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms." (Wikipedia) I became interested in the concept and how it could be related to materials synthesis: how could materials be engineered so as to encourage sustainability as well as efficiency? Many of the ways we currently practice sustainability in design is faulty; for example, buildings which are designed to entrap heat better result in lower air circulation and therefore higher rates of indoor pollution. So, I am interested about the deficiencies in fields I am interested in, such as battery or photovoltaic cell innovation, and how these materials could be innovated so that they are both more efficient and environmentally conscious. If we could build materials which could utilize Earth's resources better, we are looking at a possible preservation of the quality-of-life humans have become accustomed to for future generations, as well as economic benefits and benefits derived from the greater care of our ecosystems.

For these reasons, I would love to create a career in sustainable materials science and help innovate ways to utilize our resources more efficiently and in such a way that complements the idea of cradle-to-cradle design and helps preserve the world's ecosystems so that places like Zion National Park stay for centuries to come.