Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy (Oct 2005)
Community Essay: EPA's P3 - People, Prosperity, and Planet - Award
Abstract
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has launched a unique grant program called P3 (People, Prosperity and the Planet), to foster future generations of scientists, engineers, and technology workers who can advance the principles of sustainability through technology innovation. Unique in the federal government, this program awards grants to teams of undergraduate and graduate students, along with their faculty advisors, to design and develop sustainability projects and support the integration of sustainability into higher education curricula. The teams also compete for additional funding to move their ideas to the marketplace. In its first year, the P3 program involved over 65 teams and 400 students from colleges and universities across the country and has already resulted in three small businesses. The program was launched and implemented in less than eighteen months and has been such a great success that the USEPA hopes to fund it annually.
