Seminar Leader Reto Gieré Featured in Penn Today for Research on Charcoal November 17, 2022 – Posted in: Uncategorized

Reto Gieré, fall 2022 seminar leader, was just featured in Penn Today for his research on the charcoal supply chain and how it can be made more sustainable. At TIP, Gieré, Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, taught a seminar titled “Global Environmental Challenges and Potential Solutions.” In this course, participants analyzed current global waste streams and ways they can help diminish environmental and climate impacts of daily life, agriculture, manufacturing, and electricity generation. These actions included lowering consumption of resources, reducing carbon emissions, and using waste as secondary raw materials. To learn more about Giere’s Fall 2022 seminar, visit the TIP seminars page.

In Penn Today, Gieré was featured for his work on the current state of global charcoal production with his former student, Catherine Nabukalu, graduate of the Masters of Environmental Studies Program. In their project, Gieré and Nabukalu emphasize charcoal is “both a problem and a solution.” They note that the charcoal supply chain is shaped by carbon tax systems that negatively affect fossil fuel emissions and carbon credit systems. Fortunately, they claim through policy changes, these carbon credit systems can be more well intentioned by replanting trees and introducing biodiversity instead of using freshly cut trees as sources for charcoal. Learn more about Gieré’s research on Penn Today!