Introduction: higher education for sustainable development

An integrated approach to achieving campus sustainability: assessment of the current campus environmental management practices

“…The need for environmental sustainability in university campuses has been stressed in many articles [2,3,5,25,39,40]. Universities also have several activities and complex operations with potentially significant environmental impacts that, until recently, have been largely overlooked in terms of social and environmental responsibility.…”

What do engineering students learn in sustainability courses? The effect of the pedagogical approach

“…In this context, institutions of higher education have the responsibility of educating graduates to develop a moral vision and the necessary technical knowledge to ensure the quality of life for future generations. This implies that sustainable development must be the framework within which higher education focuses its mission [8].…”

An action research approach for embedding education for sustainability in a university undergraduate curriculum

“…A common requirement of institutional change is to address sustainability issues in the purposes, estates management and teaching and learning for sustainability . Over 1000 universities have committed to work towards sustainability, making it a central focus of all their activities (Corcoran, Calder, & Clugston, 2002). However it should be noted that the declaration of good intentions and commitments has not necessarily translated into action and implementation (Wright, 2004); they are non-binding declarations (Bekessy et al, 2007) and most of them do not involve any further action .…”

“…leadership; and action (Corcoran et al, 2002;Lozano, 2010). The adoption of these declarations has failed to have a transformatory impact on the HE sector so far, rather has had what could be considered as a merely greenwash event (Bekessy et al, 2007;Tilbury, 2012).…”