About This Event

Are our buildings ethically sourced, as well as sustainably designed? This is the question at the core of Design for Freedom, the movement led by Grace Farms to eliminate forced and child labor from the building materials supply chain. As we confront the climate crisis, we must approach sustainable solutions that address the human suffering endured in the making of building materials, as well as the damage being done to the environment in the process.

This event explores ways in which companies and communities can work together to drive human rights-respecting market transformation and address the challenges and opportunities of ethical decarbonization in the construction sector.

Reception

Following the event, please join us for a catered reception in the Dodd Lounge.

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Our Speakers

Sharon Prince is the CEO and Founder of Grace Farms Foundation. Prince commissioned Pritzker Prize-winning SANAA architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa to design Grace Farms, which has become widely known as a global humanitarian and cultural center located in New Canaan, Connecticut.

The Foundation’s interdisciplinary humanitarian mission is to pursue peace through nature, arts, justice, community, faith, and Design for Freedom, a new movement to eliminate forced labor from the building materials supply chain.

Since opening, Grace Farms has garnered numerous prestigious awards for contributions to architecture, environmental sustainability, and social good, including the AIA National 2017 Architecture Honor Award and the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize.

For her work launching Design for Freedom, Prince was recognized by Fast Company as one of the Most Creative People in Business 2022 for “cleaning up construction” and the AIA NY and Center for Architecture recognized her with the NYC Visionary Award.

Nora Rizzo is the first Ethical Materials Director of Grace Farms Foundation, focusing on the Design for Freedom movement. She serves as Ethical Material Advisor on Design for Freedom Pilot Projects and led the development of the Design for Freedom Toolkit.

She previously spent over a decade as Director of Sustainability for Fusco Corporation and has dedicated more than 15 years to creating change in the built environment through her sustainability and social equity work. She is on the Board of Directors for mindful MATERIALS and the CT Green Building Council.

Anna Dyson is the Hines Professor of Architecture, with an appointment in the School of Environment (YSE) at Yale University. She teaches design, technology, and theory at the School of Architecture. At Yale, Anna has also founded a new research entity titled CEA - Center for Ecosystems in Architecture. CEA is a joint initiative between the Yale Schools of Architecture, Forestry & Environmental Studies to unite researchers across multiple fields to develop transformative systems for the Built Environment. CEA supports Masters and PhD level students as well as professional researchers towards the invention and development of building systems that metabolize energy, water and materials while supporting biodiverse ecosystems. CEA has its central think tank within the heart of Yale University in New Haven. Dyson was previously the Founding Director of CASE, The Center for Architecture, Science and Ecology (CASE) in 2007 which hosts the Graduate Program in Architectural Sciences / Built Ecologies. 

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Sponsors

This event is supported by the Business & Human Rights Initiative, Economic & Social Rights Program, and Engineering for Human Rights Initiative at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, as well as the Grace Farms Foundation.

Over the last 75 years, debates in the human rights field have largely focused on specifying the content and legal implication of rights. This talk will suggest that, in the next 75 years, scholars and practitioners will be debating the other component of the term: What does it mean to be a human –or, more broadly, a legal person? In other words, the question about the who will be as important as question about the what of human rights. Based on research and advocacy on rights of nature around the world, Rodríguez-Garavito proposes the idea of “more-than-human (MOTH) rights” in order to capture the ongoing ecocentric turn in the field and the growing interest in extending rights to the more-than-human world.

About the Speaker

César Rodríguez-Garavito is Professor of Clinical Law and Chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Open Global Rights, and the Founding Director of the More-Than-Human Rights and the Future of Rights and Governance (FORGE) programs at NYU Law. He has published widely on international human rights, climate litigation, comparative constitutionalism, and Indigenous rights. His most recent book is “Litigating the Climate Emergency: How Courts, Human Rights, and Legal Mobilization Can Bolster Climate Action” (ed., Cambridge University Press, 2022).

This is an Honors Event. See tags below for categories. #UHLevent10824

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Sponsors

This event is sponsored by the Connecticut / Baden-Württemberg Human Rights Research Consortium (HRRC), a collaborative group that provides an international, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional platform to promote and support academic collaboration between researchers and research groups at universities and other research institutions in the State of Connecticut (USA) and the Land Baden-Württemberg (Germany).

HRRC is supported by the Office of Global Affairs and the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut, as well as the Ministry of Science, Research, and Arts for the state of Baden-Württemberg.

Have fun meeting students from all across campus while engaging in a variety of farming activities including planting seeds, weeding, and harvesting fresh healthy food for our UConn community. This is a great way to earn community service hours! No previous experience is necessary. Remember to dress for outdoor conditions including warm water-repellant footwear.

Transportation: You can find us at 104 Spring Manor Road, Mansfield, CT, 06268 just off Route 32. Carpool, bike, or sign up for the free Community Outreach shuttle—please sign up for the Farm Friday you plan to attend here: https://uconntact.uconn.edu/organization/cocsd/events.

Read more about the farm on our website: https://dining.uconn.edu/spring-valley-farm/. You can also follow us on Instagram @springvalleystudentfarm.

We look forward to seeing you at the farm!

Have fun meeting students from all across campus while engaging in a variety of farming activities including planting seeds, weeding, and harvesting fresh healthy food for our UConn community. This is a great way to earn community service hours! No previous experience is necessary. Remember to dress for outdoor conditions including warm water-repellant footwear.

Transportation: You can find us at 104 Spring Manor Road, Mansfield, CT, 06268 just off Route 32. Carpool, bike, or sign up for the free Community Outreach shuttle—please sign up for the Farm Friday you plan to attend here: https://uconntact.uconn.edu/organization/cocsd/events.

Read more about the farm on our website: https://dining.uconn.edu/spring-valley-farm/. You can also follow us on Instagram @springvalleystudentfarm.

We look forward to seeing you at the farm!

Earth Day Spring Fling is an annual celebration of sustainability co-sponsored by UConn’s Office of Sustainability and the Department of Dining Services. Established in 2008, the festival features vendors of sustainable and hand-crafted goods, organic and local foods, environmental organizations, and student groups that come together to produce the greatest day of environmental awareness all year! Coinciding with the event is UConn’s annual Arbor Day celebration.

Additional details can be found on the OS website. https://sustainability.uconn.edu/earth-day-spring-fling/

Have fun meeting students from all across campus while engaging in a variety of farming activities including planting seeds, weeding, and harvesting fresh healthy food for our UConn community. This is a great way to earn community service hours! No previous experience is necessary. Remember to dress for outdoor conditions including warm water-repellant footwear.

Transportation: You can find us at 104 Spring Manor Road, Mansfield, CT, 06268 just off Route 32. Carpool, bike, or sign up for the free Community Outreach shuttle—please sign up for the Farm Friday you plan to attend here: https://uconntact.uconn.edu/organization/cocsd/events.

Read more about the farm on our website: https://dining.uconn.edu/spring-valley-farm/. You can also follow us on Instagram @springvalleystudentfarm.

We look forward to seeing you at the farm!

Have fun meeting students from all across campus while engaging in a variety of farming activities including planting seeds, weeding, and harvesting fresh healthy food for our UConn community. This is a great way to earn community service hours! No previous experience is necessary. Remember to dress for outdoor conditions including warm water-repellant footwear.

Transportation: You can find us at 104 Spring Manor Road, Mansfield, CT, 06268 just off Route 32. Carpool, bike, or sign up for the free Community Outreach shuttle—please sign up for the Farm Friday you plan to attend here: https://uconntact.uconn.edu/organization/cocsd/events.

Read more about the farm on our website: https://dining.uconn.edu/spring-valley-farm/. You can also follow us on Instagram @springvalleystudentfarm.

We look forward to seeing you at the farm!