A new lab based at IUPUI seeks to give business owners and individuals alike the tools to make their organizations more sustainable.
Professor Amrou Awaysheh is the founder and executive director of the IU Business Sustainability and Innovation Lab. By offering research and on-the-ground business experience, he says the lab’s goal is to help Midwest companies better understand the business case for sustainability.
“Companies can do so much beyond basic philanthropy to help improve their impact on the environment and society, which is more important now than ever,” said Awaysheh, an assistant professor of operations management at the IU Kelley School of Business at IUPUI. He is also the founding director of the IU IoT Energy Efficiency Lab and a research fellow at the Center for Excellence in Manufacturing, also at the Kelley School.
“Much of my research now focuses on what companies can do to reduce their energy consumption and impact while still making a profit, and I want to share that knowledge with as many businesses as I can, to formulate sustainability strategies that will give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
Since 2008, Awaysheh has managed and participated in more than 60 global corporate social responsibility initiatives with Fortune 500 firms. The cumulative impact of these projects resulted in savings of over $2.1 billion and revenue increases of over $1.3 billion.
Awaysheh says the lab also works to educate Hoosiers to better understand sustainability in general, which is imperative for jobs for the 21st century, because all jobs contain some element of sustainability.
This is just one example of IUPUI’s larger initiative to embed sustainability in the future of business practice, Awaysheh explains: By following the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, which are a universal call-to-action.
To find out more about the IU Business Sustainability and Innovation Lab and how it can help your business, head here. To continue the conversation, watch professor Awaysheh’s YouTube channel on sustainability here.
Posted By: Teresa Mackin, tmackin@iu.edu