UMass Boston

Promoting sustainability in an industry along the triple bottom line - environmental quality, social equity and economic prosperity - is a complex development effort involving numerous global and local stakeholders. Part of this process is the development and adoption of sustainability standards, certifications, and reporting across industries. SERC faculty has engaged with various industries to provide sustainability assessment, training, and benchmarking. 

Sustainable Breweries Project: In July 2022 SERC was awarded a 2-year, $350,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to provide technical assistance in implementing pollution prevention and sustainability strategies and tools to craft breweries in Massachusetts. The project's overall goal is to work with other New England states to develop a uniform program for encouraging and recognizing craft breweries' adoption of pollution prevention and sustainability practices. "This grant will enable UMass Boston to support the sustainability transition of an important and fast-growing industry in Massachusetts while training business students in pollution prevention and sustainability," said Vesela Veleva, ScD, Senior Lecturer in Management, Primary Investigator, MBA director, and co-director of SERC.

Green chemistry adoption in the pharmaceutical industry: Green chemistry involves eliminating the use of toxic chemicals, improving energy efficiency and preventing waste. SERC has been involved in a series of benchmarking research to assess and advance green chemistry adoption by the global pharmaceutical supply chain. Some of the recent publications in this area include:

Veleva, V., and B. Cue, “The role of drivers, barriers and opportunities of green chemistry adoption in the major world markets,” Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry, Volume 19, October 2019, Pages 30-36, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452223619300045.

Veleva, V., Cue, B., Todorova, S., Mehta, N., Thakor, H., Padia, K., “Benchmarking Green Chemistry Adoption by the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry”, Green Chemistry Letters & Reviews, 2018, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17518253.2018.1530802.

Veleva V., B. Cue Jr. and S. Todorova, 2017, “Benchmarking green chemistry adoption by the global pharmaceutical supply chain”, ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, November 2017, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b02277.

Veleva, V. and B. Cue Jr., "Benchmarking green chemistry adoption by “big pharma” and generics manufacturers", Benchmarking: An International Journal, 24 (6), June 2017, http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/BIJ-01-2016-0003.

Veleva V. and M. Sarkar, “Pfizer: Environmental and Business Benefits of Green Chemistry”, Case # 9B15M043, Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, Canada, June 2015.