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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
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1

Introduction and Overview

Twenty years ago, the Board on Sustainable Development of the National Research Council conducted the study Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability (NRC, 1999). The goal of this landmark report was to “reinvigorate the essential strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies’ efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well-being” (NRC, 1999, 2). The title paid tribute to Our Common Future, the 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development report that laid the groundwork for sustainable development (WCED, 1987). Our Common Journey also deliberately introduced the concept of a “journey,” adopted to “reflect the board’s view that any successful quest for sustainability will be a collective, uncertain, and adaptive endeavor in which society’s discovering of where it wants to go is intertwined with how it might try to get there” (NRC, 1999, 2).

AN URGENT JOURNEY

The journey continues. The urgency to address environmental, economic, and societal challenges has increased worldwide as social and environmental processes intersect to exacerbate climate change, deforestation, ecosystem degradation, poverty, inequality, and conflict. When Our Common Journey was published in 1999, its authors envisioned a time horizon of two generations to make serious progress in the transition toward sustainability. To many observers, that two-generation window now seems like a luxury that human civilization does not have. As a result, there is a pressing need to dramatically increase design and implementation of solutions to sustainability challenges.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

Against this backdrop, individuals and groups around the world are taking steps to achieve sustainable development despite, or because of, the challenges. In 2015, the global community, through a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a comprehensive set of 17 interconnected goals that “recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth—all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.”1 Communities, businesses, governments, and other formal and informal institutions are seeking ways to become more sustainable, whether explicitly tying their efforts to the SDG goals, other frameworks, or embarking on their own, complementary paths.

In 1999, Our Common Journey called for a research agenda for the interdisciplinary field of sustainability science and greater use of knowledge-action collaboratives to solve critical sustainability problems. This call aligned with the action plan developed at the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which had outlined a foundation for the field of education for sustainable development (UNCED, 1993), or the more common term in the United States, sustainability education. As defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, education for sustainable development “empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity.”2 At the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20, in 2012, the international community agreed to “promote education for sustainable development, and to integrate sustainable development more actively into education beyond the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development” (UNESCO, 2014a, 2014b).

Higher education institutions play a vital role in sustainability education in terms of educational curricula, research, collaborative action, and workforce development. Different definitions of sustainability education (Tilbury, 1995), hold in common a concern with applying learning to address real-world sustainability challenges (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015; Sterling, 2010; Wals and Jickling, 2002). Thus, Wiek et al. (2011, 204) defines it as “education that should enable students to analyze and solve sustainability problems, to anticipate and prepare for future sustainability challenges, as well as to create and seize opportunities for sustainability.” The Green Education Foundation (2018) defines it as “education that utilizes applied learning models that connect real-world circumstances with the broader human concerns of environmental, economic, and social systems.” At the same time, because sustainability is a relatively new and still-evolving

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1 See United Nations Sustainability Development Goals, available at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs, accessed on March 11, 2020.

2 For the definition of “education for sustainable development,” see https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-sustainable-development/what-is-esd, accessed on March 11, 2020.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

synthetic concept in academia, definitions and programs of sustainability education continue to be refined in light of diverse needs of students and institutions.

Analogously, meanings of terms used in sustainability education are still evolving. Terms are often used interchangeably even if they may mean different things to different people (Shephard et al., 2018). Therefore, for the sake of clarity, we define some of the key terms used throughout this report in Appendix A: these include sustainable development, sustainability, sustainability education, sustainability education programs/sustainability programs in higher education, sustainability curricula, environmental education, sustainability science research, and sustainability education research.

One of the central goals of higher education in sustainability is to equip learners with the knowledge, skills, competencies, and capacities that would enable them to work effectively in societal and environmental sustainability careers. Many institutions of higher education already have robust programs to prepare students to enter the workforce, cognizant of the SDGs and related sustainability challenges; others are in the process of creating such programs within existing offerings. From an employer perspective, public- and private-sector organizations need workers who are well versed in the principles of sustainability: people with a variety of skills, from entry level to top leadership, representing all segments of society, and able to apply their knowledge in sectors of the economy that range from agriculture, health care, financial services, transportation, and much more. Students are also creating demand. Many students may enter sustainability education programs with a passion to create change and develop the skills to channel that passion into action. Students may also look to incorporate sustainability concepts into the academic or career options they have already chosen, such as developing more sustainable supply chains in business or fewer carbon-emitting transportation options. Regardless of their motivations, current and future undergraduate and graduate students will likely enter a broad range of sustainability-related fields.

The importance of these questions has led some relevant grantmaking foundations, such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation to fund attempts to answer them. In 2013, the Foundation Center released a report indicating that U.S. foundations awarded $1.2 billion in grants that were focused on the “right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” (Foundation Center, 2013). By 2017, support from foundations for work on sustainability had more than doubled to $2.7 billion (Foundation Center, 2017).

The top issues receiving funding from foundations are biodiversity and species preservation, energy, fresh water and inland water ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems and land use, climate and atmosphere, coastal marine ecosystems, and sustainable agriculture and food systems. The most frequently funded strategies are advocacy, stewardship, and research. In 2015, these strategic approaches received 35 percent, 24 percent, and 15 percent of the funding, respectively (EGA and Foundation Center, 2017).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

WORK OF THE COMMITTEE

In 2018, the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program and the Board on Higher Education and Workforce convened the Committee on Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. This six-person committee was requested to share findings and recommendations for strengthening sustainability programs and curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels that relate to the SDGs and other relevant sustainability frameworks. (See Box 1-1 for the Statement of Task.)

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

To gather input, the committee convened three public, participatory workshops to gather perspectives from a diverse group of trainers and end users in sustainability education. The trainers included educators at public and private institutions, including research-intensive universities, private colleges, and 2- and 4-year minority-serving institutions. End users included professionals in engineering, administrative, and other roles in local and federal agencies, nonprofits, consulting firms, and corporations. Many of the participants are directly involved in hiring interns or entry-level employees.

The committee designed two workshops, held in Austin, Texas, in December 2018, and Washington, D.C., in February 2019, around a series of open-ended questions for group discussion by educators and employers. Breakout sessions first divided “training” and “end-user” stakeholders into separate groups, then merged them. They used the questions to stimulate discussion about current sustainability education practices and gaps, trends in sustainability education and workplace needs, and critical barriers to access. The first workshop included discussions on a systems thinking approach to sustainability; the diversity of necessary competencies, including such skills as communications and negotiations; and the importance of engaging with new technologies and big data and ethical dimensions in sustainability education. Participants in the second workshop emphasized the need for a mix of crosscutting skills both interpersonal and cognitive, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion space, not just among students but also within faculty and across the board.

A third workshop in Santa Cruz, California, in January 2020, diverged from the breakout-session format of the first two gatherings by convening three panels: the first included students and recent alumni to reflect on their educational experiences and preparation for employment in the field, followed by sessions of end users (employers) and educators that focused on the sustainability skills and competencies valued by hiring organizations and in the research and academic community, as well as ideas for strengthening sustainability programs. The workshop also included the discussion on how higher education can engage with their local communities in preparing students for careers in sustainability. The final workshop agendas are in Appendix D, and key themes that emerged from these workshops are highlighted throughout the report. Brief summaries of each of these workshops is available on the National Academies Press website at www.nas.edu.

In addition, the committee conducted a review of the literature and of existing curriculum reform and competency definition efforts, which were discussed at the workshops and during committee deliberations. The committee’s recommendations and the choices of educational programs given as models are based primarily on input from practitioners attending the three workshops or members of the committee, as described in the committee’s statement of task. However, the committee examined relevant literature and research where available.

How the world predicts, responds to, and reconciles the challenges of the 21st century and beyond will require transformations on many levels and in all sectors.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

The committee offers the findings and recommendations in this report, focused on higher education, to form a part of this vital endeavor. Much of the literature informing the findings and recommendations in the report analyzed practices in degree programs, but the committee encourages sustainability program directors to apply the recommendations to nondegree sustainability programs where appropriate. In addition, the committee encourages using the evaluations of those efforts to inform subsequent research on strengthening sustainability programs in higher education.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY AND ORGANIZATION OF THIS REPORT

Sustainability education around the world includes all levels from the primary grades to adult training and continuing education courses. This report focuses on undergraduate and graduate education in the United States, recognizing that all areas of sustainability education, including K–12, workforce development, and citizen education, are critical to sustainability efforts.

Indeed, sustainability is emerging as a revolutionary field of actionable knowledge to change how humans work and live. Analogously, sustainability education carries an enormous societal responsibility to identify both system- and component-level insights to enable sustainable societal transitions. The study consciously builds on global and national efforts already under way to strengthen sustainability education.

After a consideration of the local, national, and global landscape related to sustainability education in Chapter 2, the report hones in on its three principal themes related to the substance of sustainability programs (i.e., competencies, content, and context), their institutional organization and support, and the relationship with a strong sustainability workforce. Chapter 3 highlights the competencies, content areas, and capacities students need through classroom and experiential learning. Chapter 4 focuses on how academic institutions can build sustainability programs and where research may support their success. Chapter 5 examines the importance of developing a strong sustainability workforce. Each chapter includes specific recommendations that the concluding Chapter 6 compiles and organizes by actor.

REFERENCES

EGA (Environmental Grantmakers Association) and Foundation Center. 2017. Tracking the Field: Volume 6: Analyzing Trends in Environmental Grantmaking. https://ega.org/sites/default/files/pubs/summaries/EGA%20Tracking%20the%20Field%20Volume%206%20Executive%20Summary.pdf.

Figueiró, P. S., and E. Raufflet. 2015. Sustainability in higher education: A systematic review with focus on management education. Journal of Cleaner Production 106, 22–33.

Foundation Center. 2013. Advancing Human Rights: The State of Global Foundation Grantmaking. http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/humanrights_environment.pdf, accessed on March 11, 2020.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

Foundation Center. 2017. Advancing Global Human Rights: Update on Global Foundation Grantmaking. https://humanrightsfunding.org/key-findings/?ga=2.78277522.726358826.1580565359-801627809.1577953824, accessed on March 11, 2020.

Green Education Foundation. 2018. What Is Sustainability Education? http://www.gefinstitute.org/what-is-sustainability-education.html. Accessed March 25, 2020.

NRC (National Research Council). 1999. Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/9690.

Shephard, K., M. Rieckmann, and M. Barth. 2018. Seeking sustainability competence and capability in the ESD and HESD literature: An international philosophical hermeneutic analysis. Environmental Education Research 25(4), 532–547. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1490947.

Sterling, S., ed. 2010. Sustainability Education: Perspectives and Practice across Higher Education. Philadelphia, PA: Taylor & Francis.

Tilbury, D. 1995. Sustainability Environmental Education for Sustainability: Defining the New Focus of Environmental Education in the 1990s. Environmental Education Research 1, 195-212. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350462950010206.

UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development). 1993. Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development; Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; Statement of Forest Principles: The Final Text of Agreements Negotiated by Governments, June 3–14, 1992, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. New York: UN Department of Public Information. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf.

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). 2014a. Roadmap for Implementing the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development. Paris : UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000230514.

UNESCO. 2014b. Shaping the Future We Want: UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). Final Report. Paris: UNESCO. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/1682Shaping%20the%20future%20we%20want.pdf, accessed on June 1, 2020.

Wals, A. E., and B. Jickling. 2002. “Sustainability” in higher education: From doublethink and new-speak to critical thinking and meaningful learning. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 3(3), 221–232. DOI: 10.1108/14676370210434688.

WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development). 1987. Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wiek, A., L. Withycombe, and C. Redman. 2011. Key competencies in sustainability: A reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability Science 6, 203–218. DOI: 10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×

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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
Page 15
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
Page 17
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction and Overview." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2020. Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25821.
×
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Over the past decade there has been a growing interest in sustainability education in colleges and universities across the United States, with a marked increase in the number of undergraduate and graduate degree programs, research institutes, and centers focused on sustainability. Evidence-based core competencies for interdisciplinary sustainability programs can provide suitable guidance for curricular and program development, research, policy, communication, and pedagogical approaches at academic institutions. They can also serve as a guide for students to select academic programs and potential career options, a reference for employers to understand qualifications of graduates, and the foundation for a potential specialized accreditation for interdisciplinary sustainability programs. The growing demand for well-qualified sustainability professionals within the public, private, and nonprofit sectors also points to the value of developing core competencies.

Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels provides expert insights for strengthening the emerging discipline of sustainability in higher education in the United States. This report describes the local, national, and global landscape related to sustainability education; examines the history and current status of sustainability education programs in the United States and globally; discusses employment prospects for sustainability graduates in terms of the opportunities and the skills that employers seek; and addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion in sustainability-related education and employment.

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