Strengthening Sustainability Programs and Curricula at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels (2020) / Chapter Skim
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2 Landscape for Sustainability Education
2 Landscape for Sustainability Education
Pages 21-58
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Sustainability frameworks fall broadly into two groups. The first set has sought to construct theoretical foundations for sustainability analyses and to represent the dynamic human and natural processes related to sustainability, highlighting at the same time the relationships among the constituent elements of the framework.
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Work on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and on the Doughnut model falls into this second group, as do efforts in corporate social responsibility (Doh and Tashman, 2014; Montiel, 2008)
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Its emphasis on cross-scale interactions allows educators and practitioners to capture important dimensions of real-world sustainability processes. Over the past two decades, with substantial support from the U.S.
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. Consistent with the coupled systems framework, the SES framework also emphasizes the social and ecological interactions and links in attempting to understand sustainability processes and outcomes -- it is, however, more specific in two ways.
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. The SDGs are 1 See United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, available at https://sustainabledevelopment.
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For example, Stafford Smith et al. 2 See the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, available at https:// www.humanrights.dk/our-work/sustainable-development-goals-0, accessed on March 11, 2020.
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The global push to achieve the SDGs is driving the need for highly skilled, well-trained experts in sustainability who can translate global policy into a local or organizational context, source measures of impact, and build action-oriented coalitions. Higher education institutions are responding to the need for educational approaches to help students address the challenge of balancing the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
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For more information, see "Transformations to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals," available at http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/15347/1/TWI2050_Report081118-web-new. pdf, accessed on March 12, 2020.
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. The commission also recognizes the impact on education and employment if the private sector were to build on these opportunities, including the creation of 380 million jobs by 2030 and creation of new business models by company innovators.9 Membership organizations, such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and transparency and accountability tools, such as the World Benchmarking Alliance or the Global Reporting Initiative's Sustainability Disclosure Database, seek to build platforms and forums for sharing information and best practices around sustainable business (see Box 2-1)
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World Business Council for Sustainable Development. https://www.wbcsd.org.
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The potential tensions among various sustainability frameworks and goals lend a note of caution in the design and evaluation of sustainability curricula in higher education. Ensuring contextual linkages between sustainability and sustainable development in education is critical so that students, teachers, and communities remain engaged partners in achieving truly sustainable development in service to the SDGs, and reflect the intent to balance "people, planet, and prosperity."10 10 United Nations A/RES/70/1 – Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable De velopment, Preamble.
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in Our Common Future in 1987 and in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992.
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Senator John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz jumpstarted the effort to link sustainability with education more deliberately in 1993 when they collaborated with Anthony Cortese to launch Second Nature. The organization focused its attention on getting college and university presidents to spearhead sustainability initiatives on their campuses (Peterson, 2013)
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A large survey of U.S. interdisciplinary environmental programs found consensus in defining the field as "an applied, interdisciplinary focus on the interface of coupled human-natural systems with a normative commitment to sustainability" (Vincent and Focht, 2011)
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examined campus sustainability programs at six universities (Harvard University, University of Washington, Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, University of California, Berkeley, and Cornell University) and found that these universities have successfully integrated research and education into their campus sustainability programs and initiatives.
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Sustainability Science 6, 203–218.
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According to NCSE, the number of IESE degrees offered grew by 15 percent in the 4 years between 2012 and 2016, to a total of 2,361 degrees offered by 872 higher education institutions. Within this total, sustainability programs may be offered as degrees in sustainability, sustainable management, sustainability studies, environmental sustainability, and more than a dozen other names.
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. As an undergraduate program, the Earth Institute offers a major and concentration in sustainable development, in collaboration with the other schools and departments on campus (Columbia Uni versity, 2018)
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18 See Global RCE Network on Education for Sustainable Development, available at https://www. rcenetwork.org/portal/, accessed on March 11, 2020.
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24 See Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development, available at http:// www.swedesd.uu.se/about, accessed on March 12, 2020. 25 See also United Nations Global Universities Partnership on Environment for Sustainability, avail able at https://www.unenvironment.org/es/node/10655, accessed on March 12, 2020.
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Improved and more equitable access to sustainability education; curricular design to adapt sustainability education to local needs; and greater integration between research, instruction, and the practice of sustainability are only some of the potential gains from more systematic international collaboration for sustainability higher education. The Sustainable Development Goals in National and Global Higher Education Programs Several U.S.
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. Additionally, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network was set up in 2012 "to mobilize global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical solutions for sustainable development."27 Originally hosted by Columbia University's Earth Institute, the network became an independent nonprofit in 2016, and launched its global University Partnership Program in 2017.
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. The SDGs provide an opportunity for higher education institutions to work across departments, majors, and community members, such as faculty, staff, and students, to fulfill missions to provide knowledge, build skills, and support the cultivation of global citizens (Mahalak, 2018)
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To do so, the committee drew from workshop input from employers, BLS data, and their own expertise to brainstorm keywords (e.g., sustainable development, natural resources, climate change) to launch the searches.
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To obtain more reliable information about the career pathways of sustainability graduates, future efforts by labor analysts, economists, statisticians, or other relevant experts could develop comprehensive data collection and tracking approaches similar to the National Survey of Recent College Graduates conducted by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.32 DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IN SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT The employment figures above, combined with the changing demographics of the United States, have led to the need to strengthen diversity, equity, and inclusion in sustainability education and employment.33 The current faculty and student populations in most interdisciplinary environmental, sustainability, and energy programs do not reflect the demographic changes under way in the country, nor do the staff and boards of employing organizations. The committee examined research related to diversity, equity, and inclusion in sustainability education and employment to better understand the demographic gaps.
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These figures indicate diverse students enter these fields, but are diverted from pursuing the degrees. While these data do not precisely mirror sustainability degree programs, they offer key insights for efforts to recruit and retain underrepresented minority students at all levels in sustainability higher education programs.
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. Complementing this body of knowledge, additional research provides insights into why sustainability programs may have difficulty in recruiting underrepresented minority students, with a focus on how the programs are framed and potential misperceptions about race, ethnicity, and class related to the natural world.
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TABLE 2-1 Demographic Characteristics of the Workforce of Federal Environmental Agencies: 2018 48 SOURCE: Compiled from Partnership for Public Service, 2019. Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.
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. A recent study of 157 STEM college students found that approximately 91 percent of underrepresented minority students reported that they felt somewhat or very connected to nature.
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TABLE 2-2 Interest in Working in the Environmental Field Upon Graduation 50 SOURCE: Taylor, 2018b
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. Reasons for this disconnect as identified by underrepresented minority students include what they see in that workforce (Taylor, 2018b, 165)
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The U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development takes a broad look at sustainability education, from K–12 to higher education to communities of faith and other organizations outside the academy.
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2014. Half a world away: The integration and assimilation of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and sustainable development in business school curricula.
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2018. Yale Scholarship and the Sustainable Development Goals.
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2019. Education for sustainable development: A systemic framework for connecting the SDGs to educational outcomes. Sustainability (Switzerland)
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2019. Los Angeles Sustainable Development Goals: A Voluntary Local Review of Progress in 2019.
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2020. Sustainable Development Goals Knowledge Platform.
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2017. Making the Sustainable Development Goals con sistent with sustainability.
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