Sustainability in the Modernization of Higher Education: Curricular Transformation and Sustainable Campus—A Literature Review

Abstract

Supported by a literature review, the present article looks to address the issue of sustainability in the modernization of higher education. Education for sustainability and the encouragement of a sustainable lifestyle are increasingly present in the academic and professional training of individuals. Progressively more responsible for the environment in which they operate, individuals, in order to preserve their quality of life and, above all, ensure quality of life for future generations, begin to assume new behaviors, such as the rationalization of energy and water consumption, reducing the use of paper, recycling products, and eliminating the use of plastics, among other behavioral changes. In this context, considering higher education institutions as a vital source for the development of sustainability and, consequently, a key lever in the definition and implementation of strategies conducive to sustainable development, it is through the teaching, training, research, and development carried out by them that these behavioral changes occur. Aware of this issue’s relevance, the present article, consisting of a critical review of the literature, seeks to answer a set of questions, such as “What role do academic managers, teachers and students assume in the search for sustainability?”; “What measures/actions have been developed by the HEIs in terms of curricula reform and the promotion of a sustainable campus?”; “What sustainability metrics are used in higher education?”. Giving particular emphasis to some studies about sustainability in different HEIs, the results of the research allow us to conclude that education for sustainability is seen as a tool of crucial importance in the current decade of the 21st century.