scholarly journals Construction goes green: An interview with Kevin Surace of Serious Materials

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (12) ◽  
pp. 958-959
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Green Buildings ◽  
Materials Chemistry ◽  
National Semiconductor

Buildings are stealthy contributors to global climate change. The energy needed to heat, cool, and light buildings, as well as manufacture construction materials, contributes more than half of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. But Kevin Surace, chair and CEO of Serious Materials, has made it his mission to tackle the built environment head-on. An electrical engineer by training, he has worked at IBM, Seiko-Epson, National Semiconductor, and General Magic. He later started the companies Air Communications and Perfect Commerce. In 2002, he began to develop sound-muffling polymers as a sideline, shifting his focus to materials chemistry. Sound-dampening materials now account for much of Serious Materials' business, but the company has received most of its accolades for its energy-efficient products. We caught up with Surace at Serious Materials' headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., to talk about how materials science can help make green buildings good business.

Research in the cross-section of community psychology and global climate change: A call for action

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marci Culley ◽  
Holly Angelique ◽  
Courte Voorhees ◽  
Brian John Bishop ◽  
Peta Louise Dzidic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cross Section ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Community Psychology ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
The Cross

Impact of climate discourse on national scientific networks in energy technologies: the case of Estonian science and industry linkages

2019 ◽  
pp. 20-45
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
National Level ◽  
Incremental Innovation ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Energy Technologies ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
Research Agendas

This article examines how the global climate change discourse influences the implementation of national science policy in the area of energy technology, with a focus on industry and science collaborations and networks. We develop a set of theoretical propositions about how the issues in the global discourse are likely to influence research agendas and networks, the nature of industry-science linkages and the direction of innovation. The plausibility of these propositions is examined, using Estonia as a case study. We find that the global climate discourse has indeed led to the diversification of research agendas and networks, but the shifts in research strategies often tend to be rhetorical and opportunistic. The ambiguity of the global climate change discourse has also facilitated incremental innovation towards energy efficiency and the potentially sub-optimal lock-in of technologies. In sum, the Estonian case illustrates how the introduction of policy narratives from the global climate change discourse to the national level can shape the actual policy practices and also networks of actors in a complex and non-linear fashion, with unintended effects.

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