Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative
As sustainability challenges intensify, their cascading effects on food, energy, water, and infrastructure increasingly threaten the well-being and dignity of people worldwide. Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative is the University’s far-reaching response to these urgent threats. Inspired by Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical Laudato si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), the Initiative brings together interdisciplinary scholars, dedicated students, and action partners from around the world to advance transformative solutions for a more just and sustainable future.
Status Update
To advance its goal to cultivate a vibrant and collaborative research and action community at Notre Dame, the JTS Initiative is launching new cross-disciplinary research collaborations, expanding opportunities for Notre Dame students and scholars, and cultivating partnerships and networks poised to translate research into action. Recently, the JTS Initiative partnered with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education to establish the Global Alliance for Laudato Si’, an international network dedicated to supporting integral ecology and global sustainability.
Please visit our new website to learn more about our work and upcoming opportunities.
Global Alliance for Laudato Si’ Launched
The University of Notre Dame’s Just Transformations to Sustainability (JTS) Initiative has partnered with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education to establish the Global Alliance for Laudato Si’, an international network dedicated to supporting integral ecology and global sustainability. The alliance will serve as a hub for connecting, amplifying and spearheading research, curriculum and action initiatives for supporting a sustainable future, as inspired by the principles articulated by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato si’ (On Care for Our Common Home) and embraced and amplified by Pope Leo XIV as he begins his papacy.
Learn about the progress we made in 2025
Through leading-edge research, holistic education, and equitable partnerships, we seek to catalyze transformative change towards a just and sustainable future, grounded in the best available science and foundational ideas of integral ecology.
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Executive Committee
View Committee MembersPartners
- College of Engineering
- College of Science
- Keough School of Global Affairs
- School of Architecture
- Environmental Change Initiative
- Eck Institute for Global Health
- Minor in Sustainability
- ND Energy
- Office of Sustainability
- Pulte Institute for Global Development
- Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values
- University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center
Additional partners will be added as work on the initiative continues in the coming months and years.
Latest News
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Media Mentions
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National Catholic Reporter
Notre Dame study links climate change to stunted child growth in Africa
June 23, 2026
The researchers analyzed climate modeling and observed temperatures alongside demographic and health survey data from 2004-2020 for 34 African countries. They determined that every 1 degree Celsius of global temperature rise associated with human activities linked directly to a 3.45% increase in childhood stunting. That equates to close to 7 million children, said Arun Agrawal, one of the study's co-authors and director of Notre Dame's Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative. “It's a significant proportion of the population being affected, and it's a significant effect on their life chances after they're born,” he told EarthBeat.
Mentions
Keough School of Global Affairs
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National Catholic Reporter
Vatican, Notre Dame launch academic alliance to find solutions to ecological crises
April 02, 2026
Amid the scenic papal gardens outside Rome in early March, the Vatican and the University of Notre Dame launched a new global sustainability initiative to apply Catholic principles to addressing climate change and other ecological threats facing the planet. Holy Cross Fr. Robert Dowd, president of the Catholic university in Indiana, said in a statement that the alliance left its inaugural meeting "with a renewed sense of purpose and hope" and that its efforts reflect "the deep connections between environmental sustainability and human dignity and flourishing." A central figure was Holy Cross Fr. Daniel Groody, vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education at the University of Notre Dame. They were later joined by Arun Agrawal, a renowned scholar of environmental politics and sustainability who in January 2025 became the founding director of Notre Dame's Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, which leads the university's efforts around food, energy, water and infrastructure.
