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
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 (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 (Newcastle Upon Tyne)
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 (Almeria)
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
- University of Gloucestershire (Gloucestershire)
- Australian University Kuwait
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 (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)
- Utah State University (UT)
- University of Milano-Bicocca
- The University of Arizona (AZ)
- University of Delaware (DE)
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
- University of Manchester (Lancashire)
- Queen's University Belfast
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
- Pennsylvania State University (PA)
- Conway School of Landscape Design (MA)
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 (Castelló)
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
- The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong
- Hong Kong Baptist 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 (Victoria)
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
- University of Kassel
- Utrecht University
- Czech Academy of Sciences
- University of Helsinki
- Leuphana University of Lüneburg
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
- University of South Florida (FL)
- Illinois Wesleyan University (IL)
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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Centering diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in environmental studies and sciences by practicing compassionate pedagogies
- McDaniel College (MD)
- Fort Lewis College (CO)
- Franklin & Marshall College (PA)
- University of Nottingham
The imperative to (re)center diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) touches nearly every aspect of higher education today. The multidisciplinary fields of environmental studies and sciences (ESS) are no exception; …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda
- University of Michigan (MI)
- University of Regina (SK)
- Salem State University (MA)
- Virginia Tech (VA)
- National University of Ireland, Maynooth (Co. Kildare)
- University of Miami (FL)
The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, from outright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is under growing scrutiny. One key site …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Purchases dominate the carbon footprint of research laboratories
- Université Paris-Saclay
- Université de Rennes
- University of Toulouse
- Sorbonne Université
Despite increasing interest for the carbon footprint of higher education institutions, little is known about the carbon footprint associated to research activities. Air travel and attendance to conferences concentrate recent …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Student-led discussions for sustainability education: an autoethnographic exploration
- Bowling Green State University (OH)
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore an interactive teaching approach using an autoethnographic lens to enhance key competencies in sustainability. These competencies are integrated sets of knowledge, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Measuring sustainable development goals (SDGs) in higher education through semantic matching
- UNSW Canberra
- UNSW Sydney (NSW)
Over the past twenty years, higher education institutions (HEIs) including universities, polytechnics, and vocational education providers, have become major conduits for the teaching and dissemination of the sustainable development goals …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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A framework for climate change curriculum redevelopment within built environment professional degrees
- University of Melbourne (Victoria)
- Western Sydney University (NSW)
Cities are important sites for greenhouse gas emission reductions and adaptation to climate change. Yet, the design, development and planning of many cities does not yet reflect this. Research reveals …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Designing transformative interventions for a world in crisis: How the ‘Worldview Journey’ invites for personal, cultural, and systems transformation
- Utrecht University
Our world is arguably in existential crisis, with crises manifesting in nearly every facet of our existence, from education, mental health, and culture, to democracy, environment, and institutions. As our …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Supporting students to become agents of change: Introducing and evaluating the Transition Cycle approach to teaching transformative skills
- University of Amsterdam
Human societies are dealing with urgent and daunting societal transition challenges, such as those posed by climate change, inequality, pandemics, and digitalization. In all these cases, we know that they …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Sustainability and impact reporting in US higher education anchor institutions
- California State University, San Bernardino (CA)
- California State University, Sacramento (CA)
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess how higher education anchor institutions (HEIs) voluntarily report their non-economic impacts. Its goals are to quantify the ease of public access …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Universities in global transformation: Re-thinking curriculum integration and collaboration to co-create our future
- Università di Catania
- RMIT University
University-based curriculum development often involves adding new content. This ‘just add’ approach has also been applied to integrating the UN SDGs into curricula, reducing them to a checklist rather than …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Enhancing sustainable development goals or promoting universities? An analysis of the times higher education impact rankings
- Gävle University College
- Universitat Politècnica de València (Valencia)
- Universidad Autonoma de Madrid (Madrid)
Purpose: This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Conceptualizing and comparing world-class universities’ contributions to global sustainability: Pathways, priorities and potential indicators
- Changsha University
- Hunan University
Sustainability is a goal for today, with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) acting as a guiding framework in a world characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. As research universities …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Towards context-independent indicators for an unbiased assessment of environmental sustainability in higher education: An application to Italian universities
- University of Trento (Trentino)
- Università degli Studi dell'Insubria
- Universita degli Studi di Padova
Higher education institutes (HEIs) are important drivers for the development and implementation of best practices for environmental sustainability. However, reliable indicators are needed to objectively evaluate the environmental performance of …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Teaching under an orange sky: Toward reimagining educational purpose on a damaged planet
- University of Cambridge
I begin with an assumption that there are intersectional relations among education, humans, cyber technologies, and nature, and assert that an expansive understanding of formal educational purpose is needed in …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Campus sustainability office representations of the DEIJ-sustainability nexus
- Central Michigan University (MI)
- University of Vermont (VT)
The number of campus sustainability offices in the USA has grown over the past two decades. These offices evolve from myriad origins such as an outgrowth of a facilities department, …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Environmental justice teaching in an undergraduate context: examining the intersection of community-engaged, inclusive, and anti-racist pedagogy
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
Since the early 1980s, the environmental justice (EJ) movement was critical in drawing much needed attention on how Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), and low-income groups have experienced a …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Exploring influences shaping university students’ attitudes toward green buildings
- Louisiana State University (LA)
Purpose: This study aims to investigate university students’ awareness of green residences and the factors influencing their willingness to pay for living in such accommodations. Design/methodology/approach: This mixed-methods research involved …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Do higher education institutions contribute to countries’ SDG progress: Evidence from university rankings
- Sumy State University
- University of Helsinki
- Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education
- Zhytomyr Polytechnic State University
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a universal call to action over the past few years and a basis for assessing the progress of sustainable development of countries …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Exploring the nexus between university sustainability practices and academic performance: An empirical analysis of the QS sustainability ranking and four world university rankings
- Nanjing Agricultural University
Universities, as agents of change, are expected to contribute to society’s most pressing challenges, particularly the 21st century’s central issue of sustainability. Amid growing expectations from governments, society, and an …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It: A Scoping Review
- Cornell University (NY)
- University of Maryland, College Park (MD)
Background: Across the U.S., college and university students exhibit high levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. While counseling, medications and, in more severe cases, hospitalization are …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Exploring the moderating role of university environmental performance in shaping students’ environmental awareness and behaviors
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University
- Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of university environmental performance in the relationship between students’ environmental awareness and behavior, with a particular focus on …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Tree mapping and carbon inventory on a university campus in South Korea: Case study and global review
- Kyungmin University
- Sangji University
- Korea University
Campus trees have significant potential for sequestering carbon in urban environments and improving civic life quality; however, few inventories of university campus trees have been constructed worldwide (excluding North America). …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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Provoking Sustainability: The Evolving Role of Management Educators
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (WI)
Despite JME’s impactful pedagogical presence, we still fail to motivate change in a world where our planet degrades, available resources are imbalanced or unavailable to marginalized communities, and business schools …
- Posted Aug. 13, 2025
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