From classroom to community
How one UB MBA helped a local company reduce climate risk
By Alexandra Richter
Mullens and Tingiecieh give their Carbon Reduction Challenge presentation in UB’s GRoW Clean Energy Center. Photo: Douglas Levere
Matthew Mullens, MBA ’25, selected the UB Carbon Reduction Challenge, a seminar-style course, as a way to combine his business acumen with his passion for sustainability.
“I saw the course as an opportunity to refine leadership skills, build a rapport with a client and make a real impact in the community,” says Mullens.
In the course, students collaborate directly with companies to design, pitch and implement creative strategies, aimed at guiding companies toward reducing their carbon footprint.
“Through these projects, students don’t just learn — they create real-world impact by developing action plans that drive positive change in our community,” says Ryan McPherson, UB chief sustainability officer, who co-teaches the course with Elizabeth K. Thomas, associate professor of earth sciences.
Mullens and a teammate, Zedechiah Tingiecieh, a master’s student from the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, worked with the Lexington Cooperative Market — Buffalo’s largest community owned grocery store. The goals were to help the company reduce environmental risks, add value for consumers and co-op members, and make meaningful environmental impacts without compromising financial health of the store’s Hertel Avenue location.
The students began by visiting the market to understand its carbon footprint and sustainability goals, followed by a comprehensive review of Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions — the classification system for greenhouse gases.
They saw that open refrigeration displays led to excessive energy consumption due to cold air spilling into the store and the consequent need for additional heating. They also analyzed the carbon impact of two purchased goods: a locally grown flagship item, apples, and the product that travels to the store from the furthest location: bananas from South America. The team recommended promoting local produce like apples and optimizing the inventory of imported goods like bananas to reduce waste and emissions.
“We provided the Lexington Co-op with a climate action plan and a simple carbon emissions calculator to estimate the footprint of products sold to help the organization understand and track future impact,” says Mullens.
Mullens, who is also a graduate student assistant for UB Sustainability, intends to take what he learned in the course to his own company, Empasta, which took first place in UB’s Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition in 2024. Mullens and teammate Neharika Korati received $25,000 in startup capital and in-kind services valued at $40,000 for their company, which produces a healthier cheese alternative that has a low impact on the planet.
“Empasta was founded on food as a sustainable solution,” says Mullens. “By using potatoes and carrots as a base to produce our product, we reduce carbon emissions associated with traditional cheese production. As we scale up the company and take what we’ve learned beyond the classroom, the sky is the limit on where we can go from here.”
