Abstract
This paper reports on a sustainability outreach study based on an assessment of human and social capital. The aim was to capture the national sustainability outreach of twenty years of Environmental Sciences education, centered at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. The study contained two lines of research, one being a human capital assessment with a survey among graduates from the years 1992 to 2005 (n = 542) and the other being a social capital analysis based on interviews with institutions that represent the Swiss social systems of economy, politics/public administration and civil society (20 institutions). Our analyses reveal several functional forms of both human capital (specialists, pioneers, leaders) and social capital (qualification profile, internalization, networks, standardization, professionalization) that trigger and channel sustainability outreach.
Highlights
What was—in terms of human and social capital—the contribution of the Environmental Sciences educational program to sustainability in Switzerland? What does this case teach us about functional forms of human and social capital of sustainability outreach in general?
The outreach study aimed at answering two questions: What was—in terms of human and social capital—the contribution of the Environmental Sciences educational program to sustainability in Switzerland? What does this case teach us about functional forms of human and social capital of sustainability outreach in general? We operationalized sustainability outreach as a specific national contribution to human and social capital [46], taking reference to OECD initiatives to assess educational outputs [1,2,3,8]
With regard to human capital: our study revealed the sustainability contributions of the graduates of ETH Environmental Sciences, differentiating three types of human capital;
Summary
Since the 1990s, the OECD has been researching and promoting the concepts of human and social capital. Both concepts are more or less linked to the education system. In particular human capital is defined via individual knowledge [1] and measured via educational attainment [2]. The current OECD short definition reads as follows: “Human capital is productive wealth embodied in labour, skills and knowledge” [3]. This definition gives credit to the fact that human capital “can be identified as a key factor in economic production” This definition gives credit to the fact that human capital “can be identified as a key factor in economic production” (p. 9) [2]
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