A practical example of integrating sustainable development into higher education: Green Dragons, City University London Students’ Union

Abstract

Education for Sustainable Development is to ‘equip the younger generation with leadership skills, management capabilities, and the broad knowledge needed to make informed decisions for the benefit of themselves and others, now and for the future, and to act upon those decisions’. This paper examines how an innovative student-led sustainability project of extracurricular activities with a bottom-up basis and a top-down motivation and capacity building support structure can deliver sustainability outcomes and inspire other institutions of higher education and policy makers in the UK. Green Dragons project for City University London aims to establish pro-environmental behaviours and facilitate empowerment, while engaging academics, creating community links and affecting operations management. To test the effectiveness of this new model, qualitative and quantitative data were collected. The paper concludes with the actions needed by institutions like City University London for exploiting the full potential of Green Dragons project as a sustainability model that could deliver sustainable development in the curriculum, research, operations community outreach, while empowering the future sustainability leaders and facilitating environmental behaviours.