Sustainable Energy Dialogue in Brazil 2018

Today we visited Renova Green and RAC Engineering and Construction and learned how they have a unique model to help lower income people access to solar electricity.  We also got to tour their LEED platinum facility and office building!

We visit Curitiba's City Hall and learned about their sustainable initiatives for their public transport system and their bus system. We also learned about their passion for sustainability policy and education.

We arrived in Curitiba!! We took a city tour to see the highlights of the city and got to see many of its sustainable policies in action!

We had an eventful weekend, starting with presentations with the Mackenzie University students proposing sustainable energy solutions in Boston and Sao Paulo.  We enjoyed our last few days in Sao Paulo before heading out to Curitiba.

We visited the Ethanol plant, Usina Granelli. It was great to see how Ethanol and Sugar is produced from sugarcane. In the afternoon was visited Embrapa, a federally funded company that does research on how to implement Carbon credits into the Brazilian market.

Today we went to visit University of São Paulo (USP) and heard from the Sustainable Energy Research center about their exciting research in advancing biofuel technologies in Brazil. In the evening we went to a futebol (soccer) game of a famous Brazilian team, Corinthians, against a Columbian team, the Millonarios.

We visited the Green Building Council today. They showed us two green office buildings in Sao Paulo. The first was LEED Gold certified and the second building was LEED Platnium (the highest level for sustainable buildings). We had an amazing time learning about ways buildings can be energy efficient and sustainable.

Today we got to visit the Ipirapuera Park and went to the Museu Afro-Brasil, a museum on African-Brazilian history. In the evening, we met Northeastern Alumni that live in Sao Paulo. It was great to talk with Northeastern Alumni and hear their stories about their time at Northeastern and Brazil. We made many great connections!

Today we visited the Minister of Energy and Mining of Sao Paulo. He discussed the past, present, and future of sustainable energies in the state of Sao Paulo. We learned a great deal of the many technologies and policies that the state has implemented to become more sustainable over the years and where it plans to improve for the future.  We then visited the largest market in Sao Paulo called Mercadao. We were able to sample many fruits that are native to Brazil (but very foreign to us).

We worked with Litro de Luz on a service project to build hand lamps for needy neighborhoods in the Amazon.  We were happy to meet everyone at this great organization and help them with their valuable cause.