Abstract
Although there have been proven and successful developments in the field of Higher Education for Sustainable Development over the past 15 years or so, there are still numerous challenges to be overcome. Among these challenges is the need for Higher Education Institutions to improve the integration of sustainability in the curriculum and in research, and most importantly, to integrate it holistically in their systems. This paper presents an analysis of the fundamental obstacles to the incorporation of sustainable development in universities. It reports on an empirical study performed with universities across the world, where some of the main barriers are identified. It is recommended that these barriers are viewed as obstacles and entrepreneurial opportunities, and addressed accordingly.
Highlights
Due to the nature of their activities and their mission, universities have an important responsibility in transforming societies, and in particular, in contributing to the development of a more sustainable humanity (Barth and Rieckmann 2012)
Lozano et al (2015a), developed an exploratory literature review to identify the different practices and domains among HEIs within sustainability, and the results revealed that most are focused on education, followed by campus operations, institutional framework, outreach, and assessment and reporting
This paper has reported on an explorative study about the fundamental obstacles to implementing sustainability at universities
Summary
Due to the nature of their activities and their mission, universities have an important responsibility in transforming societies, and in particular, in contributing to the development of a more sustainable humanity (Barth and Rieckmann 2012). HEIs can implement sustainability concepts and translate them to practices in different domains: e.g. education and curricula, research, facilities/campus operations, community outreach, organisational change management/institutional framework, and assessment and reporting (UNESCO 2012; Lozano et al 2015a). According to Lozano et al (2013), despite a number of ESD initiatives and universities being engaged in this process, these institutions continue to be traditional and to rely upon reductionist and mechanistic paradigms Among these challenges, is the need for HIEs to improve the integration of ESD into curricula and research, and most importantly, to include it holistically into their systems. HEIs have a high potential to make rapid progress in implementing SD into their operations (e.g. Cantalapiedra et al 2006; Ferrer-Balas et al 2009; Lozano and Lozano 2014; Verhulst and Lambrechts 2015; Wu and Shen 2016), curricula (e.g. Watson et al 2013; Aktas et al 2015; Alonso-Almeida et al 2015; Azeiteiro et al 2015; von Blottnitz et al 2015; Dlouhá and Burandt 2015; Lozano et al 2015b; Rose et al 2015; Verhulst and Lambrechts 2015), and research (e.g. Cantalapiedra et al 2006; Ferrer-Balas et al 2009; Lozano and Lozano 2014)
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