Approach to Sustainability for Colleges and Universities

• Author: William R. Blackburn
• Pages: 477-542

Chapter 15

Approach to Sustainability for Colleges and

Universities

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education

and catastrophe.”1

—H.G. Wells

Impact of Collegiate Institutions on Sustainability

Tosome people, colleges and universities may seem like distant, isolated

ivory towers, offering little practical help in the fight for sustainability.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Collegiate organizations, like

their governmental, NGO, and business sisters, have both an operations

and a services and products side to their activities that affect sustain-

ability in a big way. The operations side for a college or university—the

management of people, the running of buildings, the maintenance of

grounds, streets, and utilities—is really not very different than that of a

small city. Like municipal bodies, some universities have quite sizeable

staffs, land holdings, and procurement and building programs. And like

their municipal counterparts, they too can have a significant effect on the

economic, social, and environmental aspects of their communities. In

fact, a number of sustainability programs for governments are also quite

suitable for academic institutions. For example, LA 21—a tool designed

for governments—is being used by some European universities to guide

their march toward sustainability.

The services and products side of the collegiate world—education and

research—holds a special place in the quest for a sustainable society. As

U.N. Secretary-General Annan noted on WorldEnvironment Day 2000:

We need a major public education effort.Understanding of these chal-

lenges we face is alarmingly low. Corporations and consumers alike

need to recognize that their choices can have significant consequences.

Schools and civil society groups have a crucial role to play.2

Following up on the Secretary-General’s remarks, the U.N. General

Assembly declared 2005-2014 to be the Decade of Education for Sus-

tainable Development to encourage national and international efforts on

the matter (see Appendix 8.1.1).

477

Tobe sure, the world faces serious economic, social, and environmen-

tal problems that will require new solutions, new knowledge, and new,

holistic ways of thinking—something collegiate institutions are best po-

sitioned to address. They have the focus, talent, and objectivity to evalu-

ate sustainability issues of critical importance, and the credibility to help

marshal public action on them. They are the ones who teach our decision-

makers of tomorrow, the ones who must provide them with the informa-

tion, tools, and skills essential in securing long-term well-being for all.

That is the role of academic institutions—their moral imperative.

General Framework for Sustainability at Collegiate Institutions

Infusing sustainability into a college or university means infusing it into

the institution’s operations (buildings and grounds), products and ser-

vices (research and education) as well as its student and community-out-

reach activities. This does not happen by simply wishing it so. Many ob-

stacles must be overcome. As with companies, institutions of higher

learning must find champions and leaders to move their organizations to-

ward sustainability.In universities and colleges, champions are typically

found among the faculty, although at few schools the president, chancel-

lor, or other high-ranking administrator,a student activist, or a big finan-

cial donor has led the way. Regardless of where they come from, the

champions and leaders must create a vision of what must be achieved and

sell that vision to the movers and shakers of their organizations. But hav-

ing a vision is meaningless without execution. That’swhere the real work

begins. Schools must undertake the planning and build the operating, ac-

countability, and reporting systems that will bring the vision to life. To

perpetuate the initiative, the university must deploy, integrate, and align

efforts across the organization, through its administration, faculty, staff,

and student body. In that regard, the lessons of Chapter 8 are as germane

to them as to a company that is trying to adopt a sustainability culture.

The university,like a company, must incorporate sustainability consider-

ations in its key decisionmaking, including purchasing and investment

evaluations. Community outreach and other stakeholder engagement ac-

tivities are important, too, since they generate the support of people who

can make the institution successful. Such engagement also serves as a

useful source of feedback on performance and priorities.

Fortunately, colleges and universities that seek sustainability have a

wide range of support organizations to draw upon for advice and tools.

478 THE SUSTAINABILITY HANDBOOK

Such schools can also learn by studying the best SOS practices adopted

by their fellow collegiate institutions. The encouraging news is that some

of these institutions are well on the way to establishing comprehensive,

well-integrated sustainability programs.

This chapter reviews the challenges and best SOS practices of colle-

giate sustainability initiatives and offers tips on how to sell the goal of

sustainability to the school administration. Appendices 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3

present useful resources for those schools wanting to develop their own

SOS programs. Appendix 8.1 identifies support organizations that can

help. Appendix 8.2 lists sustainability-related codes that may be worth

adopting. And Appendix 8.3 describes special assessment tools that have

been used by universities to identify gaps in sustainability performance,

to raise awareness about their sustainability-oriented risks and opportu-

nities, and to pinpoint priorities for action. Readers should find that this

chapter, when coupled with the lessons from other parts of this book, will

provide a good review of the whys and hows of establishing a successful

collegiate sustainability program.

The Challenges for Universities Seeking Sustainability

Visionaries who seek to align, deploy, and integrate sustainability across

a collegiate setting will likely find the following institutional obstacles:

Creating a Multidisciplinary Approach

The first obstacle arises in attempting to build a strong multidisciplinary

approach to teaching and research—something advocated in LA 21 un-

der Chapter 36, Education, Training,and Public Awareness.3Such an ap-

proach is needed to overcome the complex, multidimensional problems

standing in the way of sustainability.The trouble is, universities are orga-

nized by disciplines. Many of their grants and donations are earmarked

for specific areas of study. Alumni are particularly interested in seeing

their old departments highly rated since that enhances the status and

value of their own education. School accrediting agencies reinforce tra-

ditional thinking, seeing no need to mandate cross-departmental courses

on sustainability. Career advancement by faculty remains within disci-

plinary silos. The cultural bias reinforces these silos and discourages

teamwork across them. Academics comfortable in their isolation may

see little personal benefit to changing the status quo.

SUSTAINABILITY FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES 479