Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability, BUTLER UNIVERSITY

The Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability (CUES) strives to connect students, faculty, and community in a common effort to research, educate, and empower change to inform and inspire a more sustainable future on Butler University’s campus, in Indianapolis, and globally. The CUES operates from two theoretical frameworks: the traditional ecological understanding of the interactions between and among organisms and their urban environment (ecology "in" the city) and a systems ecology perspective where the city itself is viewed as an ecosystem (ecology "of" the city). Through these dual lenses, we work to solve real-world sustainability problems facing today’s cities, or ecology "for" the city.

Because we recognize the importance and complexity that humans bring to the system, we aspire to connect disciplines-from biology to business and beyond-in the topic areas of zero waste, the built environment, food systems, social change, and ecological systems in order to establish best practices for a more sustainable society.