Battelle Committed to Environmental Action on Earth Day

On Earth Day, Battelle is joining the call for greater global ambition to tackle our environmental challenges. Now considered the planet’s largest civic event, Earth Day is seeking to engage a billion people to address the need for climate action.

With unprecedented strain being put on ecosystems around the world, we need a greater understanding of how our environment is changing to adapt to and mitigate these effects. These enormous challenges also present an imminent opportunity to act. At Battelle, we believe it can be done by pushing science forward. 

Understanding our Changing Ecosystems

Since 2016, Battelle has managed the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), which is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Consisting of 81 field sites across the U.S., NEON collects and shares public data to characterize and quantify how our nation’s ecosystems are changing. NEON provides high-quality, consistently generated data—free and available to all users—that will enable scientists, researchers and students to tackle critical questions and understand changes in ecosystem composition over time on an unprecedented scale. 

This data repository is empowering the next generation of ecological researchers and aims to help democratize data, which is vital in taking climate action. Managing NEON is a key part of Battelle’s mission because the program facilitates outstanding science and an understanding of the scale of ecosystem changes our nation is experiencing. The volume of consistent data gathered, and the 30-year time span of the program, will enable scientific research of our changing ecosystems over a crucial long-term period.

Improving Environmental Health

Never ones to avoid the most pressing questions, Battelle scientists are also leading the way in the development of new approaches for characterization and remediation of sites contaminated with a broad range of problematic materials. The Battelle team brings an unmatched scientific and technical expertise in remediation options, as well as a deep understanding of regulatory requirements and stakeholder concerns, to find new and innovative options to improve our environment. 

For example, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been widely used in the United States in a variety of applications, and there are concerns about widespread contamination, environmental risks and human health implications. 

Battelle is leading new discoveries that will help assess, destroy or degrade PFAS. We're at the forefront of PFAS research, conducting urgently needed investigations to better understand the fate and transport of PFAS and to minimize environmental and human health concerns. 

Our proprietary PFAS Signature technology enables researches to understand where these substances originated for potential cleanup liabilities. And as concerns mount about the human health and environmental impacts of PFAS, it’s increasingly crucial to determine where these substances are going, which Battelle’s PFAS Predict can address.  

Environmental challenges will continue to affect to the future of humanity and the ecosystems that make our world habitable. Whether examining the impacts of changing ecosystems on infrastructure or human health or identifying highly vulnerable populations to heat waves or storms, Battelle has the capacity to look holistically at the links between the environment and people, and identify the datasets, analysis and capacity-building required to boost resilience. Battelle is committed to solving the world’s most pressing challenges and delivering when others can’t.