(59a) Collaboration Is a Natural for Advancing Sustainability

A system-wide evaluation for sustainability very often requires disparate skills to be brought to bear on the analysis. EPA's sustainability research strategy calls for cross-disciplinary and cross-program collaborations for problem analysis and decision making. Metrics to be used for analyzing ecological, urban or industrial systems originate from disciplines that no one person can reasonably master. Tools that are likewise needed to quantify the status of a system or evaluate the improvement trajectory for sustainability tend to result from consideration of factors that are rooted in various disciplines that span scientific, engineering, and socioeconomic domains. Unique synergy results from cross-fertilization of ideas emanating from specialization and results in enabling competent problem solving. Several such research projects are underway in EPA's research program, from which examples will be discussed for illustration of the benefits of collaboration. Although the problem areas that are of research interest in EPA are primarily of environmental in nature but do indeed incorporate economic and societal dimensions of sustainability.