An environmentally sustainable future rests on world-leading innovation, bold research, education, community engagement and knowledge exchange between scientists and industry. With the right approach, universities can deliver on all these elements, enabling some of our brightest minds to focus on tackling the climate crisis but also, making many more people aware of the SDGs and the inspiring work going on all over the world to achieve them.
This collection offers advice from global higher education on creating greener institutions, research and teaching. Resources cover practical actions to advance sustainability across the sector, from embedding the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into courses and curricula to reducing waste and emissions on campus and developing the next generation of environmental leaders.
How the SDGs can fit into university teaching and learning
The SDGs are best taught as part of existing curricula rather than as a bolt on. This enables students to relate questions over sustainability to their wider learning. The SDGs can also provide a useful vehicle for students to explore topics from multiple new perspectives. These resources offer insights on getting both teachers and students engaged in the SDGs.
Three ways universities can enhance teacher engagement with the Sustainable Development Goals: Using the UN SDGs to teach core content in a ‘real world’ context can enhance student engagement – but what about overstretched educators? Rebecca Watts Hull of Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities shares three strategies for bringing faculty on board.
Using Sustainable Development Goals to foster innovation: The SDGs offer both a universal framework and a way to incorporate global perspectives into curricula. Here, Tripp Shealy of Virginia Tech shares strategies for integrating their outward-focused, innovative mindset into everyday learning.
Critical approaches to incorporating the SDGs into curricula: Mapping curricula against the SDGs has become a key objective for education institutions aiming to showcase their commitment to sustainability. But we must do this through a critical lens, write a team at the University of Exeter.
A five-step framework to integrate sustainability into higher education: To integrate the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals into curricula, students need to be truly engaged. This five-step SCORE framework from Mariam Shadan and Yusra Idrees of Dubai Medical University could be the answer.
Teaching topics that cross academic disciplines
The SDGs do not fit neatly into different disciplines. Interdisciplinary collaboration is key to solving the climate challenge and finding ways to live sustainably. These resources offer ways to get students working beyond their disciplinary silos but also to make the SDGs relevant to specific disciplines.
How to embed sustainability into different curricula: A framework to support sustainability education that works within different courses, with discipline-specific examples from Chris Priest at the University of Bristol.
Embedding the SDGs into curricula via an interdisciplinary approach: Incorporating the SDGs into teaching involves facilitating project collaboration among students from different disciplines. Here are examples of how this can work in practice from colleagues at Manipal Academy of Higher Education.
Developing a new generation of sustainability leadership
As the world continues to heat up, students will need a future focused approach to tackle the changes and challenges this brings. Here, experts share advice on both nurturing and demonstrating leadership within universities to mitigate and address the climate crisis.
Equipping university students to be leaders in addressing climate change: The world is hotter today than at any time in the past 100,000 years. Tripp Shealy of Virginia Tech offers educational strategies for universities to develop the leaders needed in the critical fight for a liveable future.
Why visible senior leadership in sustainability matters: Successful or sustainable? Is this the biggest challenge that universities face when striving to reduce their carbon footprint? Jan Evans-Freeman of the University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha explains where leadership fits into the equation.
Empowering women leaders in fighting climate change: a call to action: Achieving gender balance goes beyond mere representation, writes Tahseen Jafry of Glasgow Caledonian University. Tackling the climate crisis necessitates a profound shift among the next generation of leaders towards gender-sensitive decision-making processes
Centring the student voice in green initiatives
Most students care deeply about the climate crisis but often concerns can tip over into anxiety and hopelessness. By creating opportunities for students to contribute to institutional sustainability efforts and develop initiatives of their own, universities give them agency to translate their knowledge into action. These resources provide ideas as to how this can be done.
How to include student voices in green campus initiatives: As centres of knowledge and innovation, higher education institutions have a unique opportunity – and responsibility – to lead by example in promoting sustainability and environmental awareness. Here are ways to do it, from Sowparnika Pavan Kumar Attavar of Manipal Academy of Higher Education.
We’ve engaged 250 student volunteers to hold climate emitters to account: A Net Zero Tracker scrutinising corporate climate pledges taps into students’ passion for climate action, teaches them net-zero literacy and builds their employability. Camilla Hyslop of the University of Oxford explains how they work with student volunteers.
Teaming up with students to design sustainability education: Involving students as co-creators and mentors in sustainability courses can help address differences in their understanding as well as issues such as eco-anxiety, write a team at the Université de Technologie de Compiègne.
Driving change - creating student-NGO partnerships for climate solutions: Luis Ricardo Fernández Carril and Luis Gerardo Rojas Solorio of Tecnológico de Monterrey reveal how to energise and empower students to take part in the fight against climate change.
Management of waste, energy efficiency and carbon emissions on campus
Long-term sustainability and resilience within higher education will depend on investment in greener campuses and actions that foster a culture of environmental awareness across institutions. While protecting the planet, this will also appeal to students for whom climate change is a major and growing concern. These resources look at the value of renewables, green space and recycling initiatives.
Greening your university is not optional; it’s urgent: Investing in greening your institution will result in huge savings in the long run. Isaac Azuz shares strategies that have worked for CETYS Universidad.
Building a sustainable future on campus: Work towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals starts from the ground up. Here’s how to cultivate a greener campus, by Gerry Wee from the Singapore Institute of Technology.
Go green, AI!Can artificial intelligence be as green as it is integral to solving complex problems? As universities integrate courses on AI into different fields, they also need to show students its risks and costs, particularly for the environment, write Inès Chihi and Inma Peral of the University of Luxembourg.
To offset or not to offset – that is the question: Carbon offsetting is a hotly debated issue, with critics positing that it distracts from real efforts to reduce emissions. The University of Glasgow’s David Duncan explains why a compromise position in which offsetting is used to complement focused efforts at carbon reduction may be needed.
How to cultivate a green campus: the journey to carbon neutrality: Achieving carbon neutrality is not an easy task but it is a necessary one. Here are four strategies to achieve it, from colleagues at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Three ways to create lasting change towards sustainability in your university: Progress towards sustainability falters when institutions don’t understand how change works. Here, Nicola Rieg of the University of Surrey explains how to apply concepts from organisational change management to integrate sustainability in higher education.
Why travel can sometimes be justified in academia
Universities understand the multiple benefits of sharing expertise. So, while travel comes with considerable carbon costs, events such as COP29 and other summits give climate and environmental researchers formal and informal opportunities for knowledge exchange to move thinking forward. But even without travel, it is vital to place the SDGs within local context, as explained below.
In-person events are still necessary: Should academics be travelling to events that could be done virtually? Drawing on her experiences at COP28, the University of Southampton’s Denise Baden shares tips on how to make the most of these events – and why a chance to form alliances, learn from each other and share ideas for action make it worth being present
We won’t get anywhere without placing the SDGs in local contexts: Applying the SDGs looks vastly different in a Western city from how it does in a rural Asian village. Su Li Chong of Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) explains how universities can help us get past a one-size-fits-all approach.
Thanks to all Campus contributors who shared their expertise in this guide.
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