The Climate, Health, and Energy Equity Lab (CHEEL Lab) combines research, practice, and teaching to advance socially just approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation. Students working on CHEEL projects will collaborate with each other, and with faculty, external experts, and community stakeholders to:
     - Map corporate & institutional awareness on the equity implications of climate mitigation pledges & actions
     - Develop conceptual and strategic approaches for pursuing climate mitigation in ways that alleviate specific
        economic, environmental and health inequities
     - Design strategies that simultaneously 1) advance climate mitigation and 2) advance health, energy,
        environmental, and economic equity

The CHEEL Lab is co-founded by Dr. Carol Ziegler (Vanderbilt University School of Nursing) and Dr. Zdravka Tzankova (Vanderbilt University Climate Studies), and Dr. James Muchira (Vanderbilt University School of Nursing).

The lab’s first cohort of 10-15 immersion students will help quantify carbon emissions avoided through
low-income patients’ low-energy and low-consumption habits, as well as the carbon emissions avoided through holistic-care-driven improvements in patient health. Students will then work on translating avoided emissions into measurable, trackable, and tradable carbon offsets. This work will culminate in the development of a carbon offsetting tool – an equity-first tool designed to provide low-income patients with a financial credit for their avoided carbon emissions. In sum, the first project of the Climate, Health, and Energy Equity Lab will develop a new tool that helps improve the health outcomes of low-income patients by creating a new path to improving patients’ access to appropriate nutrition, amenities, care, etc.

If you want to be part of this work during Fall 2022 and Spring 2023, answer the questions below no later than Aug. 23, 2022.