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

3958
Total Resources
1908
Organizations
99
Countries
58
U.S. States & Territories
12
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.

3958 resources

Plug Load Metering Pilot at Swarthmore College

  • Swarthmore College (PA)

This report goes over the research and beginning stages of starting a pilot at Swarthmore college aimed to test a new technology, plug load meters. These have the ability to …


University halls plastics recycling: a blended intervention study

  • The Chinese University of Hong Kong (SAR)
  • The Education University of Hong Kong

Purpose – The problem of plastic wastes is serious nowadays worldwide, although plastic wastes recycling is already in practice. To promote sustainability in plastic waste recycling, the quality of wastes …


Why and how do universities work for sustainability in higher education (HE)?

  • Lund University
  • Malmö University

The purpose of this paper is to open up a discussion about the roles and responsibilities of universities in society. The vision of the Regional Centre of Expertise (RCE) Skane …


A Plan for Plastic Waste Reduction

  • Otterbein University (OH)

Since April 2018, Otterbein University has made steps to become more sustainable by reduce plastic waste and promoting reusable water bottles. The university added 30 bottle fill stations to campus …


U.S. Business Schools Failing on Climate Change

  • Loyola University Chicago (IL)

As a researcher and professor of business management, I have found that sustainable business courses across the U.S. do not align with the scientific consensus that we need radical change …


Addressing Sustainable Apparel Design Challenges With Problem-Based Learning

  • Illinois State University (IL)

This publication discusses the complexities of the modern fashion industry and provides an approach to incorporate sustainability education in the subject. The article provides research and case-studies assess the success …


A Necessary Partnership: Study Abroad and Sustainability in Higher Education

  • Augsburg University (MN)

Over the last two decades, two major trends that have emerged in higher education have been the internalization and increasing sustainability of institutions. Internalization has occurred via two main channels: …


Informal learning for sustainability in higher education institutions

  • University of Melbourne (Victoria)

Purpose Many higher education institutions are committed to developing students as skilled professionals and responsible citizens for a more sustainable future. In addition to the formal curriculum for sustainability education, …


Those Wooden Shipping Pallets? Not So Innocent After All?

  • AASHE (MA)
  • Change the Pallet (OR)

Read about how cardboard pallet technology is the way of the future for its proven ability to reduce carbon emissions, waste, and worker injuries


Diversifying the U.S. Climate Movement: Four Interviews

  • Antioch University, New England (NH)

Climate change is having devastating impacts in the United States, and people of color are disproportionately harmed. In this study, I interviewed four experts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in …


A Six Mile-Long Living Laboratory: Publishable Student Research to Foster Sustainability and Resilience in Austin’s Waller Creek

  • University of Texas at Austin (TX)

Over the past decade, a comprehensive approach to research in Waller Creek—the urban stream that bisects The University of Texas at Austin—was developed by faculty in the College of Natural …


Resilience Planning

  • Boston University (MA)
  • Cornell University (NY)
  • Smith College (MA)

This work initiates an inventory of good practices and introduces a theoretical framework for the assessment of resilience planning in order to guide and support institutions of higher education in …


Campus sustainability in the US: Environmental management and social change since 1970

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
  • Smith College (MA)
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

This work establishes the first comprehensive analysis of campus sustainability's development in the U.S. since the early 1970s.

In the US, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have occupied a distinct role …


Diversifying the U.S. Climate Movement

  • Antioch University, New England (NH)

People of color are poised to reach 50% of the United States population by 2046, yet they continue to be underrepresented in environmental organizations. This report summarizes the barriers for …


STARS Aligned: Higher Education and the SDGs

  • Bard College (NY)
  • AASHE (MA)

Given the unique position of higher education institutions (HEIs) in society, not only can these institutions model sustainable practices but they can be agents of change themselves in the societal …


Demystifying Sustainability Behaviors on College and University Campuses: A Mixed Methods Analysis

  • State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (NY)

In response to the growing threat posed by climate change, colleges and universities are implementing interventions to engage students and employees with achieving sustainability and greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. …


Resilient Cities Initiative: South Campus Neighborhood Project - Neighborhood Improvement Study

  • California State University, Chico (CA)

The South Campus Neighborhood Project is a neighborhood improvement planning effort coordinated by the Resilient Cities Initiative at California State University, Chico and the Public Works-Engineering Division at the City …


Reducing Energy Waste via Occupant Behavior: The Role of the Individual in Climate Change Solutions

  • University of Colorado Boulder (CO)

This study aims to achieve energy waste reductions via the rewiring of human habits as opposed to using technology. In public spaces like university campuses, individuals often remove themselves from …


An Economic Perspective on a Carbon Management Program at the University of Michigan

  • University of Michigan (MI)

The recent UN IPCC special report stated that, in order to stay at or below 1.5 degrees of warming, greenhouse gas emissions will need to be reduced by 45 percent …


Associations Between Higher Education Sustainability and Alumni Giving

  • Harvard University (MA)

Remaking higher education campuses to meet climate commitments will have real and significant costs, yet many campuses are financially constrained. For most institutions, alumni giving is a significant, yet declining, …


An analysis of vehicular emissions at Kansas State University

  • California State University, Bakersfield (CA)
  • Kansas State University (KS)

There has been a wave of recent interest in understanding the dynamics of vehicular emissions in university towns. Using data from a recent survey of Kansas State University students, faculty, …


Quantifying the Offset of Greenhouse Gas Emissions at the University of North Alabama

  • University of North Alabama (AL)

This study quantified the discrete and areal carbon sequestration capacity of the University of North Alabama’s green infrastructure. USDA i-Tree was used to analyze and report on the carbon sequestration …


An Assessment of Teaching and Learning about Sustainability Across the Higher Education Curriculum

  • Columbia University (NY)

Although the majority of scientists agree that we are facing unprecedented climate crises, higher education’s engagement with environmental and sustainability problems is lacking. While the role of human behavior on …


The Promotion of Indoor Drinking Water Fountains at UBC

  • University of British Columbia (BC)

The University of British Columbia (UBC), located in Vancouver, Canada, offers its students, staff and visitors free tap water through campus-wide drinking fountains (water fountains). However, there are currently no …


Sustainable Development in Swedish and Canadian Campus Plans

  • KTH Royal Institute of Technology

The concept of sustainable development being integrated into strategic spatial plans has increased in recent years. University campus plans are examples of such spatial plans, and these form the focus …


DiLoreto Initiative: Sustainability Decision Support System at Villanova

  • Villanova University (PA)

Colleges and universities throughout the world are not only significant consumers of energy and natural resources but also have the social, economic and political impacts of small cities. How can …


Let's Get Sorted: The Path to Zero Waste at Pomona College

  • Pomona College (CA)

This senior thesis in environmental analysis explores the Zero Waste ideal and its practical application to a college campus. Given the growing global trash crisis and its grave environmental, social …


Education for Sustainable Development: Business School Preparation of Student Social Entrepreneurs

  • University of Pennsylvania (PA)

The research examines the state of social entrepreneurship curricula, that is, programs that combine education for sustainable development and traditional business entrepreneurialism instruction, at leading business school MBA programs in …


Developing, Piloting, and Factor Analysis of a Brief Survey Tool for Evaluating Food and Composting Behaviors: The Short Composting Survey

  • Central Washington University (WA)

Composting on a university campus may take a variety of forms. Sustainable approaches to waste management can be taught and supported through educational programs, peer-to-peer behavior modeling, and composting program …


Solar PV as a mitigation strategy for the US education sector

  • Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (CA)

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is an important strategy to de-carbonize the energy sector in the United States and to reduce the health, environmental, and climate change damages associated with the production …


The Fear of Not Flying: Achieving Sustainable Academic Plane Travel in Higher Education Based on Insights from South Australia

  • The University of Adelaide (SA)

Universities are both disseminators and producers of the climate knowledge needed to institute the social and cultural change required for climate adaptation and mitigation to occur. They also have the …


Sustainability at SIT: a Look at the Past, a Plan for the Future

  • School for International Training (VT)

Climate change threatens our world and way of life. Intelligent development and investment could mitigate the worst threats of climate change, while simultaneously providing continuous growth for the global economy. …


Management perspectives on campus sustainability in Hong Kong

  • University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)

This study explores administrative managers’ understanding of sustainability issues and perceptions of stakeholder salience in relation to campus environmental initiatives in the publicly-funded universities of Hong Kong. Universities in Hong …


Sustainability in the higher education of interior designers

  • Royal Roads University (BC)

This thesis addresses the question: how comprehensive are principles of sustainability in the curricula of interior design degree programs in Canada? Key trends in literature regarding sustainability in higher education …


The Rise of H2Ottawa

  • University of Ottawa (ON)

In 2010, the University of Ottawa (hereafter, UO) banned the sale of single-use water bottles. UO decided that the sale of this product ran contrary to their commitments to environmental, …


Putting Japanese Youth into Practice: Japanese Student Campus Practices and Sustainability

  • University of Sheffield

Practice theory has been increasingly employed to deepen understanding of how everyday life is conducted, including the question of how our daily activities might evolve in more sustainable directions (Shove …


Mobilizing transdisciplinary collaborations: collective reflections on decentering academia in knowledge production

  • California State University, Long Beach (CA)
  • University of Calgary (AB)
  • Massey University
  • The Nature Conservancy (VA)

Global sustainability challenges and their impact on society have been well-documented in recent years, such as more intense extreme weather events, environmental degradation, as well as ecosystem and biodiversity loss. …


Envisioning green solutions for reducing the ecological footprint of a university campus

  • Politecnico di Torino

Purpose This paper aims to report strategies towards a green campus project at Politecnico di Torino University, a 33,000-students Italian higher education institution (HEI), and estimate the avoided ecological footprint …


A baseline assessment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within European Student Union web environments

  • National Union of Students
  • University of the West of England, Bristol

The world of student unions is under-researched, particularly relating to global issues and challenges, despite them holding a large proportion of the future workforce. At present, the European Students Union …


Making Sustainability Personal: An Experiential Semester-Long Project to Enhance Students’ Understanding of Sustainability

  • University of Minnesota, Duluth (MN)

Students often naively assume that pursuing sustainability is necessarily costly and difficult. However, proponents of “weak” or “business-centered” sustainability argue that well-crafted sustainability initiatives may simultaneously reduce carbon footprint and …


Climate change belief, sustainability education, and political values: Assessing the need for higher-education curriculum reform

  • Vanderbilt University (TN)

Educational attainment is generally a strong predictor of belief in climate change, but prior research indicates that for political conservatives a college education is not always associated with increased belief. …


Teaching Climate Science to Increase Understanding & Receptivity

  • Friedrich Schiller University Jena

Only about half of Americans are convinced that human activity is the major cause of climate change. This statistic highlights the increased need for high-quality climate science education but also …


Design and Life Cycle Cost of a Vertical Ground Source Heat Exchange System for the Smith College Field House

  • Smith College (MA)

Committed to becoming a carbon neutral campus by 2030, Smith College is transitioning towards geothermal energy for campus heating and cooling. Energy consultants have been hired to conduct an economic …


Sustainability awareness, attitudes and actions: A survey of pre-service teachers

  • Memorial University of Newfoundland (NL)
  • King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

The purpose of this study was to survey the awareness, attitudes and actions of Thai, pre-service, industrial-education teachers (N=390) regarding economic, social and environmental sustainability. Survey items were derived from …


Education for Sustainability in Education: A Focus on Pedagogical Approaches for Effective Teaching and Learning

  • Michigan State University (MI)

Teaching and learning for sustainable development have become an important area of educational endeavour that educators are responsible for. Given the need to educate citizens about sustainable ways of living …


How to motivate students to use green chemistry approaches in everyday research work: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia

  • Lomonosov Moscow State University

Teaching green chemistry to chemistry students is necessary in order to raise up a new generation of responsible scientists, highly motivated to implement sustainable development of the human race. This …


Gender Equality and UN Sustainable Development Goals: Priorities and Correlations in the Top Business Schools’ Communication and Legitimation Strategies

  • Universitat Ramon Llull

Gender equality is still an issue in business schools, since women in MBAs classrooms, in faculty and in management teams have low representation. Challenges caused by lack of financial aids, …


Complexity in Education for Sustainable Consumption—An Educational Data Mining Approach using Mysteries

  • University of Kiel
  • University of Hamburg

Systems thinking is one of the skills necessary for sustainable behavior, especially regarding sustainable consumption. Students are faced with complexity and uncertainty while taking part in it and other daily …


An Empirical Investigation on the Awareness and Practices of Higher Education Students in Green Information Technology: Implications for Sustainable Computing Practice, Education, and Policy

  • Technological Institute of the Philippines

Green IT is a resource efficient and effective consumption through the use of information technology with minimal or no impact to the environment. This study is an initial attempt to …


Sustainability in finance teaching: evaluating levels of reflection and transformative learning

  • Mackenzie Presbyterian University

Purpose The purpose of this study is to argue for the need for more critical-reflective teaching-learning experiences in finance teaching, capable of promoting changes in students’ frames of reference toward …