CBEY and Tsai CITY Go Beyond the Buzzwords

Have you ever felt that cool concepts get mired in complex vocabulary? It’s a problem for many students, staff, and faculty at Yale, particularly those who are branching out from their background to explore interdisciplinary projects.
This week, CBEY has joined forces with the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale (Tsai CITY) to create a new multimedia site, Beyond the Buzzwords, which clarifies some of the opaque vocabulary often used in sustainable innovation. Each page includes a set of explanatory resources, carefully curated by Yale-connected experts.
The site is launching with the following seven buzzwords, with a common theme of sustainability:
- Blockchain (curated by Dr. Martin Wainstein, Resident Fellow at CBEY)
- Carbon Removal (curated by Dr. Anastasia O’Rourke, Managing Director of Yale’s Carbon Containment Lab)
- Climate Tech (curated by Ben Soltoff, Environmental Innovation Manager at CBEY and Environmental Innovation Fellow at Tsai CITY)
- ESG (curated by Todd Cort, Faculty Director at the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance)
- Food Desert (Food Apartheid) (curated by Tagan Engel, Resident Fellow at CBEY, who gives primary credit to the Black scholars and leaders who have pioneered work on the topic)
- Green Chemistry (curated by Dr. Paul Anastas, Director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale)
- Industrial Ecology (curated by Dr. Marian Chertow, Director of the Center for Industrial Ecology)
This site aims to strike a unique tone for each page, reflecting the unique perspective of the curator, while also maintaining an overall sense of consistency across the site. The goal of a given page is similar to what a Yale student might get in the first session of an introductory course or in office hours with a faculty or staff member. It covers the basics for those who are unfamiliar or need a recap, and it lays a foundation for diving deeper.
The homepage of the site has a form to suggest additional buzzwords, for visitors who think there's more jargon in dire need of explanation. CBEY and Tsai CITY welcome suggestions from anyone, but particularly from Yale experts who might be able to curate a future page.
Beyond the Buzzwords was built collaboratively by:
- Student producers: Claire Goydan (MEM, ‘22), Isabel Moore (SOM ‘22), and Liora Fiskel (YSPH ‘22)
- Project manager: Ben Soltoff (MBA/MEM ‘19), Environmental Innovation Manager at CBEY and Environmental Innovation Fellow at Tsai CITY
- Site designer: Alara Degirmenci (YC 2021)
Check out the site at https://www.beyond-buzzwords.com.