Not logged in.

Contribution Details

Type Book Chapter
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Sustainability Assessment in Higher Education Institutions
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Christian Rammel
  • Luis Valázques
  • Clemens Mader
Editors
  • Mathias Barth
  • Gerd Michelsen
  • Marco Rieckmann
  • Ian Thomas
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Booktitle Routledge Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development
Place of Publication London
Publisher Routledge
Page Range 331 - 346
Date 2015
Abstract Text Universities play a crucial role in promoting sustainability principles and should contribute to a paradigm shift towards a more sustainable society. They are essential drivers of education for sustainable development (ESD) and constitute fundamental vehicles to explore, test, develop and communicate conditions for transformative change (Disterheft et al. 2013; Leal Filho 2012). But before universities can really promote and drive sustainable development (SD), their sustainability activities must extend a still prevailing narrow perception of sustainability, limited to environmental issues or the simple integration of sustainability topics into existing curricula (Wals 2014; Leal Filho 2009). In order to incorporate SD into the daily life of universities, sustainability has to become mainstream and cannot be implemented as a simple ‘add-on’. This mainstreaming or institutionalising is only achieved, when the idea of SD is accepted and integrated into a universities’ culture and its day-to-day operations (Lozano 2006a). In short, SD must become an integrative and structural element of all aspects of higher education institutions (HEI) (Tilbury 2011). Without a whole-institution approach that aims at real change and a holistic integration of SD, university are caught in a crossfire of greenwashing, reductionist models and the increasing demand to produce knowledge and students simply for an economy based on unchallenged economic growth.
Official URL https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315852249.ch22
Digital Object Identifier 10.4324/9781315852249.ch22
Export BibTeX
EP3 XML (ZORA)