Publications
Introduction
AASHE’s publications library is the leading repository of reports, journal articles, books, and student research on sustainability in higher education. Certain publication types are entered in the annual AASHE Awards Program.
At a Glance
Total Resources
Organizations
Countries
U.S. States & Territories
Canadian Provinces
Bars in graphs can be clicked to view resources that align with a particular category. Because a resource may be listed under multiple topics and disciplines, graph data may include higher total counts than what is indicated in total resources above.
New Resources
Wanting to be part of change but feeling overworked and disempowered: Researchers’ perceptions of climate action in UK universities
- Cardiff University
- University of Bath
Interest in the relationship between the activities of universities and action on climate change is growing, but until recently there has been little focus on the critical role of researchers, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Unlocking the evaluation of university-business collaborations on sustainable regional development: A comprehensive review and framework for place-based policy initiatives
- Lancaster University
University-business collaborations (UBCs) are widely recognised as a key component within the sustainability effort, yet the literature on how we articulate the value which collaborations contribute towards a wider sustainable …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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A sustainable campus for an uncertain future. Two cases of infrastructural transformation at Norway’s largest university
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Purpose: This study aims to convey lessons learned from two sustainability initiatives at Norway’s largest university. This contributes to knowledge-based discussions of how future, sustainable higher education institutions (HEIs) infrastructures …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Advancing sustainable entrepreneurial universities: sustainability transformations of university business incubators in Germany
- Technische Universität Berlin
Given the profound environmental and societal challenges, many higher education institutions (HEI) have adopted sustainability as a central mission to induce desirable societal impacts. While previous research investigated the transformation …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Green campus and student proactivity initiatives: the importance of a participatory approach
- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
- Polytechnic Institute of Leiria
Purpose: This study aims to examine the mediating role of students’ knowledge of sustainable development (SD) in the relationship between green campus initiatives by higher education institutions (HEIs) and student …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Higher education institutions as a microcosm of the circular economy
- Lund University
Higher education institutions (HEIs) can play a key role in the transition to the circular economy (CE) given their missions, characteristics and role in shaping the coming generations of citizens …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Beyond the classroom: Influence of a sustainability intervention on university students’ environmental knowledge and behaviors
- Southern Illinois University Carbondale (IL)
On college campuses, environmental science education largely takes place in classrooms, thereby limiting impact on the full student body. By implementing an educational intervention in an informal campus setting, this …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Enhancing curricular integration of the SDGs: fostering active methodologies through cross-departmental collaboration in a Spanish university
- Universitat Internacional de Catalunya
Purpose: This study aims to assess the effectiveness of active teaching methodologies, namely, problem-oriented learning and the case method, to develop sustainability competencies. It also analyses the advantages and challenges …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Assessing engineering students’ attitudes towards corporate social responsibility principles
- Tallinn University
- Tampere University of Applied Sciences
Ethical and sustainable thinking is an important competence in the engineering education to support students’ abilities to act and perform in a responsible manner in corporate contexts, and consequently contribute …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Emerging ESG reporting of higher education institutions in China
- Beijing Foreign Studies University
- Capital University of Economics and Business
This paper investigates the ESG reporting practices of Chinese higher education institutions (HEIs). Based on Global Reporting Initiative's common reporting standards and the education sector-specific indicators proposed by earlier studies, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Exploring education for sustainable development (ESD) course content in higher education; a multiple case study including what students say they like
- Rowan University (NJ)
This paper aims to contribute to the field of knowledge surrounding Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) curricula with a view to filling a gap in ESD literature by identifying features …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Environmental and sustainability education in teacher education research: an international scoping review of the literature
- Brock University (ON)
Purpose: Halfway into the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) timeline, we deemed fruitful an injunction into current teacher education (TE) practices at higher educational institutes (HEIs). The scoping …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Predictors of Motivation and Barriers to ICT-Enabling Education for Sustainability
- Frederick University
- Open University Malaysia
- University of Crete
There is an increasing interest and effort in reorienting university curricula to address sustainability and preparing teachers to get involved in embedding sustainability and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Environmental Sustainability Research and Future Directions for Events and Facilities: An Assessment of the Field
- Texas A&M University (TX)
Environmental sustainability among sport facilities and events is the focus of this piece. The authors focus on three areas: (1) the environmental impacts of sport facilities and events, (2) the …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Development and validation of a sustainable education scale
- Sinop Üniversitesi
This study introduces the Sustainable Education Scale (SES), a novel instrument designed to elicit teachers' perspectives on sustainable education. Grounded in human rights education, sustainable development, social justice, and psychometrics, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Sustainability education in information systems’ curricula: A conceptual research framework
- Murdoch University
In recent years, “sustainability education” in Higher Education has become an increasingly popular topic among researchers driven by the constant calls for the research community to contribute novel research that …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Service-Learning as a niche innovation in Higher Education for Sustainability
- United Nations University
- Universidad EAFIT
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a framework proposed by UNESCO to develop knowledge, skills, values, and behaviors in youth for sustainable development. As part of the global development agenda, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Traversing the Evolution of Research on Engineering Education for Sustainability: A Bibliometric Review (1991–2022)
- Mahidol University
Engineering education plays a pivotal role in cultivating the engineering capacity for sustainable development. Nonetheless, there has been no comprehensive review that examines sustainability as a distinct knowledge domain within …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Integrating Sustainable Development Goals into the Architecture Curriculum: Experiences and Perspectives
- Ain Shams University
- Helwan University
- Impact Circles
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) play a crucial role in architectural education, as buildings contribute 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions and 40% of extracted materials are used in construction. …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Imagining well with almonds and honeybees in the Capitalocene – five multispecies movements for environmental and sustainability education
- University of Oulu
Responses in resisting and subverting capitalist structures and practices often foreground imagination and experimentation. In environmental and sustainability education, imagination has been previously called upon as a way to sympathetically …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Using Social Media Data to Research the Impact of Campus Green Spaces on Students’ Emotions: A Case Study of Nanjing Campuses
- Nanjing Forestry University
Campus green space, as a component of urban green space and the main natural place for college students’ daily contact, has a subliminal effect on their mental health. This study …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Uncovering perspectives on SDG integration for university transformations
- Monash University
Purpose: This case study explores different perspectives on integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in universities to achieve university transformations. This study recognises that university actors think differently about the …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Understanding and assessing sustainable behavior among the academics in higher education institutions of Bangladesh
- University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
- University of South Carolina (SC)
Purpose: Considering that knowledge, skills and behavior can influence sustainability efforts, this study aims to assess which personality traits influence one’s sense of feeling connected to nature and presumably make …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Favourability towards natural gas relates to funding source of university energy centres
- Columbia University (NY)
Methane is 28 to 86 times more potent as a driver of global warming than CO2. Global methane concentrations have increased at an accelerating rate since 2004, yet the role …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Evaluating the perils and promises of academic climate advocacy
- University of Colorado Boulder (CO)
What are the causes and consequences of academic climate advocacy in contemporary times? Should it be celebrated and pursued, or derided and eschewed? Does advocacy in various forms tarnish or …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Can We Measure Universities’ Impact on Climate Change?
- University College London
Universities have a growing interest in understanding the impact that they have on climate change, whether positive or negative. Yet beyond the direct emissions from their campuses, is it possible …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Agents of (un)sustainability: democratising universities for the planetary crisis
- Queen's University Belfast
As producers and gatekeepers of knowledge, and as providers of education and training, our universities play a key role in the reproduction of unsustainability. This article finds that they are, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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From Pseudo to Genuine Sustainability Education: Ecopedagogy and Degrowth in Business Studies Courses
- Northumbria University
This article surveys critical scholarship that links the literature on sustainable business education and education for sustainable development goals (ESDG). It is assumed that ESDG is desirable in the business …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Integrating sustainability into business and management studies in higher education
- Universidad de Almería
This research investigates the crucial realm of sustainability education in university-level business and management studies. The main objective is to identify the main factors influencing sustainability learning and to establish …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Sustainability reporting, universities and global reporting initiative applicability: a still open issue
- Università di Verona
Purpose: The porpose of this study is to critically consider the use of global reporting initiative (GRI) guidelines in universities' sustainability reports. In light of the recent literature and Habermas's …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Board characteristics and sustainability in higher education institutions: The case of the United Kingdom
- Australian University Kuwait
- University of Gloucestershire
We explored the relationship between board characteristics and sustainability of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom (UK). We analysed 153 UK universities using data for the year 2019. Our …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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An evaluation of a computational technique for measuring the embeddedness of sustainability in the curriculum aligned to AASHE-STARS and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
- Technological University Dublin
Introduction: SDG 4.7 mandates university contributions to the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their education provisions. Hence, universities increasingly assess their curricular alignment to the SDGs. A …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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The failure to decarbonize the global energy education system: Carbon lock-in and stranded skill sets
- Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
The energy transition involves the transformation of professions and labour markets, which in turn depend on the availability of a workforce with the right education and competence. This study assesses …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Science-based targets for higher education? Evaluating alignment between Ivy+ climate action plans and the Science-Based Targets initiative’s net-zero standards
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which a sample of US-based higher education institution’s (HEI’s) climate targets and associated climate action planning efforts align …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Academic capture in the Anthropocene: a framework to assess climate action in higher education
- Montana State University (MT)
- The University of Arizona (AZ)
- University of Delaware (DE)
- University of Milano-Bicocca
- Utah State University (UT)
Higher education institutions have a mandate to serve the public good, yet in many cases fail to adequately respond to the global climate crisis. The inability of academic institutions to …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Sustainable Development in Third Level Programs: Distilling a Pathway to a True Net-Zero Education
- Queen's University Belfast
- University of Manchester
This study probes the notable gap between the theoretical endorsement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDGs 7, 12, and 13, and their tangible implementation in higher education …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Sustainability teaching in higher education: assessing arts and design faculty perceptions and attitudes
- Conway School of Landscape Design (MA)
- Pennsylvania State University (PA)
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the perceptions and attitudes of arts and design faculty on teaching sustainability in higher education institutions in the USA. Design/methodology/approach: Arts …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Online, Experiential Sustainability Education Can Improve Students’ Self-Reported Environmental Attitudes, Behaviours and Wellbeing
- University of Tasmania (TAS)
Educating for sustainability is a critical step in moving towards a more sustainable future for humanity. As higher education moves into the online space, education for sustainability can reach larger …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Measuring and monitoring the transition to the circular economy of universities: CExUNV
- Universitat Jaume I
The circular economy (CE) has been identified as a critical strategy to contribute to sustainable development and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, being one …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Status of Sustainability Management Education in African MBA Programmes: A Web-based Research Approach
- Midlands State University
- Vaal University of Technology
Emerging evidence suggests that business schools in Africa are lagging behind in promoting sustainability education. Grand challenges that point to a limited focus on transformative sustainability education such as environmental …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Universities, Sustainability, and Neoliberalism: Contradictions of the Climate Emergency Declarations
- Cardiff University
UK universities have been successively declaring a climate emergency, following the University of Bristol’s lead in 2019. Universities are key actors in climate change education, and potentially progressive organisations researching, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Exploring the Mediating Role of Organizational Commitment in the Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Performance: Evidence from Henan's Universities
- Lincoln University College
Aims: This study aims to examine the mediating role of organizational commitment in the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and employee performance within Henan's universities, highlighting the strategic importance …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Shifting the approach: greening abolitionist teaching for inclusive sustainability
- California State University, San Marcos (CA)
- Goddard College (VT)
In recent years, there has been growing criticism within environmental studies and sciences (ESS) regarding the environmental racism embedded in the institutions that train future environmental professionals and leaders. The …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Developing and validating a scale to measure tertiary students’ sustainability competence in extracurricular settings in Asia
- Hong Kong Baptist University
- The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
This study aims to develop and validate a comprehensive scale for assessing students’ sustainability competence in education for sustainable development (ESD). Existing ESD assessment tools have faced criticism for lacking …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Net-Zero Heroes? Climate Change Mitigation Efforts and Strategies across Australian Group-of-Eight Universities
- University of Melbourne
Businesses are increasingly declaring their operations to be “carbon neutral” or “net-zero”. But how real are these claims? We investigated the climate mitigation efforts of the eight leading universities in …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Transformative research for sustainability: characteristics, tensions, and moving forward
- Czech Academy of Sciences
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg
- University of Helsinki
- University of Kassel
- Utrecht University
The question of how science can become a lever in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals permeates most recent sustainability research. Wide-ranging literature calling for a transformative approach has emerged in …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Citation as representation: gendered academic citation politics persist in environmental studies publications
- Illinois Wesleyan University (IL)
- University of South Florida (FL)
Publication citation impact can be an essential metric in deciding tenure and promotion, but studies have shown that historically women are cited less than men, despite equal or greater output …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Building more epistemically inclusive and environmentally equitable universities
- University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)
Higher educational institutions tend to draw from mainstream approaches to environmentalism that reinforce race, class, and gender hierarchies around who constitutes “an environmentalist” and what activities constitute “environmentalism.” As a …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Racially inclusive climates within degree programs and increasing student of color enrollment: An examination of environmental/sustainability programs.
- University of Virginia (VA)
- Vincent Evaluation Consulting (OK)
Students of color remain severely underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, including environmental fields. Although there is a growing body of research on predictors of selecting …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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A pedagogy for the end of the world: teaching environmental health and justice in a sacrifice zone
- University of California, Santa Cruz (CA)
This article describes pedagogical changes that I have made to my Environmental Justice class at the University of the Pacific in response to increasingly crisis conditions with regard to both …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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