The Unit-Based Sustainability Assessment Tool and its use in the UNEP Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities Partnership

Abstract

This paper reports on the development and use of a Unit-based Sustainability Assessment Tool (USAT) for establishing the status of Education for Sustainable Development initiatives and sustainable development practices in universities. The tool was developed for use in the Swedish/Africa International Training Programme (ITP) on ‘Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education’ and complements the UNEP Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability into African Universities (MESA) ‘Education for Sustainable Development Innovations Programmes for Universities in Africa’ materials. The USAT facilitates a quick assessment of the level of integration of sustainability issues in university functions and operations, both to benchmark sustainability initiatives and identify new areas for action or improvement. It is based on a unit-based framework which allows for sustainability assessments to be done per division, unit, department, or faculty within universities. Collectively, the unit-based assessments provide for development of an institution wide picture of university sustainability. The USAT has been widely used, in different ways, in African universities which are participating in the MESA Universities Partnership, and it has been found that it provides a useful reflexive learning tool for furthering sustainability objectives. This chapter discusses the context in which the USAT was developed, its development and pilot use at Rhodes University and the design features of the tool. The chapter also showcases use of the USAT in a whole university assessment at the University of Swaziland to illustrate how data from the assessment can be analyzed and presented and what the tool enables reviewers to perceive from the results. It further illuminates how the tool is being employed in identifying actions for change (called change projects) in the MESA Universities Partnership. Use of the USAT across a range of African universities suggests that its value lies in showing the level of integration of sustainability, and in facilitating change oriented learning and practice.