Abstract
Education for sustainable development (ESD) has presented long-lasting interest for researchers and policy makers. Despite a significant body of research, more in depth empirical studies are required for a better understanding of how sustainable development goals are applied in higher education and how sustainable behavior could be shaped via ESD. The need for this kind of research arises from, first, the scarceness of existing studies that explore economic and business higher education, and, second, the necessity to properly assess the connection between ESD principles and students’ behavior. Following this rationale, the present paper aims to provide an overview of how students’ sustainable behaviors are shaped via their perception of sustainable campus initiatives, teaching staff involvement and curricula. Statistical and econometric analysis applied on data collected via a survey on students from Bucharest University of Economic Studies (N = 1253) provides findings on the extent to which the awareness of sustainable development-specific issues acquired through education leads to sustainable behavior among students. According to the results, we argue that an increasing share of sustainable development topics combined with teaching staff involvement to raise awareness of sustainability issues are crucial to students’ sustainable behavior. However, on-campus actions are unlikely to change behavior unless they are optional rather than compulsory. Our findings ratify that, since education is one of the main drivers of sustainable development, there is an urgent need for coherence in shaping higher education according to sustainability issues.
Highlights
According to the UN Agenda 2030, sustainable development requires universality and aims for global transformation
We argue that an increasing share of sustainable development topics combined with teaching staff involvement to raise awareness of sustainability issues are crucial to students’ sustainable behavior
Following the initial research question and the methodology specific to multinomial logistic regression, the study results were focused on the following question: “What are the odds that a marginal change in perceived Education for sustainable development (ESD) could shift students’ behavior from the lower to the upper bound of the scale?”
Summary
According to the UN Agenda 2030, sustainable development requires universality and aims for global transformation. “Universality” means that sustainable development does require achieving local economic, social and environmental goals, and global challenges, such as climate change or inequality between countries. These complex issues must be dealt with by both governments and international bodies, to allow appropriate “transformative” changes in our way of living and protecting the planet [1]. Against this background, it was observed that education has a special role in all its forms, starting from primary levels to higher education. ESD is defined as a learning process or approach to teaching based on standards and principles that train different kinds of people to plan, cope and find solutions to problems that threaten the sustainability of our planet [3]
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