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

Report on the Study Group on Climate Change Participatory Workshop

  • Smith College (MA)

New England’s climate is projected to experience signifiant changes in the near future, including warmer temperatures, varied precipitation and extended periods of drought, with more extreme rainfall and snowfall events. …


The Transition to Resilience: A Comparative Case Study of Two Communities

  • Berea College (KY)
  • Oberlin College (OH)
  • University of Kentucky (KY)

This dissertation examines the question of how communities understand their risk related to global economic and environmental problems and how communities respond to those risks. Specifically, using comparative case study, …


The role of students in the co-creation of transformational knowledge and sustainability experiments: Experiences from Sweden, Japan and the USA

  • Clark University (MA)
  • Oberlin College (OH)
  • University of Tokyo
  • Lund University

Accompanying realizations that engagement of multiple societal sectors (academia, industry, government, citizenry) and disciplines are required for formulating effective responses to complex sustainability challenges, calls for new forms of knowledge …


Sustainability reporting in higher education: a comprehensive review of the recent literature and paths for further research

Over the last decade, sustainability reporting (SR) has gained importance in both profit and non-profit environments. In spite of the slowly emerging trend of SR in higher education, it is …


Sustainability Champions: Role Models in Sustainability Graduate Education

  • University of Saskatchewan (SK)

Sustainability champions are iconic men and women who have shaped the scholarly understanding of sustainability by considering broad, alternative, and visionary solutions to sustainability problems. For instance, sustainability champions such …


The Role of Pro-Environmental Behavior Change in Sustainability Planning and Programming in Higher Education

  • Ohio University (OH)

Behavior change is a prominent topic among sustainability practitioners in higher education, but what role does pro-environmental behavior change play in sustainability planning and programming at institutions of higher education? …


Future sustainability scenarios for universities: moving beyond the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

As achievements of the completed United Nations Decade (2005-2014) of Education for Sustainable Development are contemplated globally, along with potential steps forward for the future, Member States have urged that …


Organizational Change and Organizational Learning for Promoting Higher Education for Sustainable Development

  • Dalhousie University (NS)

The scholarship of higher education for sustainable development has been criticised for its reliance on case studies and lack of theoretical rigour. This chapter provides a brief overview of several …


Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities: Stories of Change

  • United Nations Environment Programme

This document includes over 25 chapters on sustainability in African universities.


Learning while transforming: solution-oriented learning for urban sustainability in Phoenix, Arizona

  • Arizona State University (AZ)

Conventional educational settings struggle with enabling students to acquire competence in collectively solving sustainability problems. Such competence is best conveyed in real-world learning settings. Solution-oriented sustainability learning (SOSL) programs create …


University of Redlands Proposal for Expanded Composting

  • University of Redlands (CA)

We are currently living in a time with inequity, economic instability and environmental degradation. The University of Redlands campus claims to be sustainable, however, we lack many forms of renewable …


Anchor Institutions Toolkit: A guide for neighborhood revitalization

  • University of Pennsylvania (PA)

This is a Toolkit for Anchor Institutions to use as a guide to rebuild, revitalize, strengthen and improve their local communities.

Each of the tools in this kit was developed …


The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads

  • University of Maryland, College Park (MD)
  • University of Pennsylvania (PA)

A growing number of universities are dedicating resources to support their surrounding communities, but much potential for advancement remains. A university’s mission as an “anchor institution,” as defined by the …


Calling the Question: Is Higher Education Ready to Commit to Community Engagement?

  • University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (WI)

This document reflects the collaborative work of the assembled participants of the 2004 Wingspread conference: Institutionalizing University Engagement. It notes that, despite a decade of calls to action, engagement has …


Personal values and attitudes towards societal and environmental accountability: a study of MBA students

Efforts to promote corporate societal and environmental accountability (SEA) should be informed by an understanding of stakeholders’ attitudes toward enhanced accountability standards. However, little is known regarding current attitudes on …


A Strategy for Energy Performance Analysis at the Early Design Stage: Predicted vs. Actual Building Energy Performance

  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (MA)

Developments in information technology are providing methods to improve current design practices, where uncertainties about various design elements can be simulated and studied from the design inception. Energy and thermal …


Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI)

Liberating Service Learning and the Rest of Higher Education Civic Engagement describes the contradictions, unrealized potential, and unrecognized urgency of the causes as well as the risks and rewards of …


How We Came to Inhabit These Spaces: Reflections on the Role of Place in Our Individual and Collective Journeys as Emerging Sustainability Scholars

  • University of Saskatchewan (SK)

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the experience of four doctoral students engaged in a collective project of place exploration at a mid sized Canadian university. Under the methodological …


True Merit: Ensuring Our Brightest Students Have Access to Our Best Colleges and Universities

Representation of low-income students at selective colleges and universities has not changed in ten years despite selective institutions’ well-advertised, increased commitment to “need-blind admissions” and “no-loan financial aid” packages. All …


The methodology and results of using life cycle assessment to measure and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions footprint of Major Events at the University of Arizona

  • Michigan Technological University (MI)
  • University of Arizona (AZ)

In 2012 and 2013, the University of Arizona’s Office of Sustainability conducted environmental life cycle assessments of two Homecoming events that drew 60,000 attendees each. Based on reviews of published …


An Economical Analysis of the USFSP Solar Parking Garage

  • University of South Florida St. Petersburg (FL)

This undergraduate student paper was accepted without revision as an oral presentation at the ICES 2016: 18th International Conference on Energy held in Paris. The topic is an economical analysis …


A Statistical Analysis of the USFSP Solar Parking Garage

  • University of South Florida St. Petersburg (FL)

This undergraduate student paper was accepted without revision as an oral presentation at the ICES 2016 : 18th International Conference on Energy held in Paris. The topic is a statistical …


Organizational transformation and higher sustainability management education: The case of the MBA Sustainability Management

  • Griffith University (Queensland)
  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the roles of leadership in enabling sustainability transformation of universities and higher sustainability management education. It advocates research into the role of leadership for …


Educating change agents for sustainability – learnings from the first sustainability management master of business administration

  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg

In recent years, knowledge and capabilities to manage corporate sustainability have become a significant component of different career paths in companies, consultancies, and even in non-profit and public institutions. As …


Business pedagogy for social justice? An exploratory investigation of business faculty perspectives of social justice in business education

  • York University

What needs to happen in business schools to create a space for social justice? In this article I explore business faculty members’ perspectives on social justice as a means of …


Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Education: Shifting the Worldview

  • DePaul University (IL)
  • Temple University (PA)

While the topics of business ethics and social responsibility education have received much attention in scholarly and pedagogical literature (although less in the pedagogical literature), the authors argue that the …


A Methodology for Building Faculty Support for the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education

  • Kennesaw State University (GA)

Evidence from extant literature indicates that faculty support is a critical driver for implementing the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), particularly for schools pursuing an advanced, cross-disciplinary …


Decision-Analytic Approach for Water Sustainability Definition: A Higher Education Case Study

  • George Washington University (DC)

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a multi-criteria decision analysis approach that can be used to circumscribe the definition of sustainability within an organization or …


Academic Jet-Setting in a Time of Climate Destabilization: Ecological Privilege and Professional Geographic Travel

  • Vassar College (NY)

This article analyzes the interrelationship among resource consumption, sociospatial justice, and what is popularly known as global warming by interrogating the ecological footprint of professional geographers, especially in terms of …


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

  • King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals

Universities can nowadays be regarded as ‘small cities’ due to their large size, population, and the various complex activities taking place in campuses, which have some serious direct and indirect …


The Carbon Footprint of Conference Papers

The action required to stem the environmental and social implications of climate change depends crucially on how humankind shapes technology, economy, lifestyle and policy. With transport CO2 emissions accounting for …


Sustainable Science? Reducing the Carbon Impact of Scientific Mega-Meetings

  • University of California, Santa Barbara (CA)
  • University of North Texas (TX)

Scientists across the globe recognize the importance of reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change. At the same time, we have increased our carbon footprint through air travel to the …


Responsible academia: optimizing conference locations to minimize greenhouse gas emissions

  • Florida International University (FL)

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributable to many scientists, including ecologists and conservation biologists, are often much greater than those attributable to average non-scientists (Fox et al. 2009, Synolakis and …


Carbon footprint of science: More than flying

  • KU Leuven

Previous efforts to evaluate the climate change impact of researchers have focused mainly on transport related impact of conference attendance, and infrastructure. Because these represent only a part of the …


Academic mobility in the Anthropocene era: a comparative study of university policy at three New Zealand institutions

  • University of Otago (Otago)
  • University of Auckland

Anthropogenic climate change is a wicked problem, requiring fundamental behavioural and technological responses now, in the Anthropocene, a term denoting the current era of human dominance of biological, chemical and …


The failure of non‐binding declarations to achieve university sustainability: A need for accountability

  • RMIT University

Purpose

This paper aims to assess the impact and value of non‐binding agreements or declarations in achieving sustainability in universities.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology …


Integrating environmental sustainability into universities

  • Monash University (VIC)

Universities play a fundamental role in addressing global environmental challenges as their education, research and community involvement can produce long-lasting environmental effects and societal change. By demonstrating best practice in …


Shaping the Education of Tomorrow: 2012 Full-length Report on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

  • UNESCO
  • Wageningen University

This report represents the second review of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and is conducted in the context of its Global Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (GMEF). The …


The Sustainable University: Progress and prospects

  • University of Plymouth (Devon)

The direction of higher education is at a crossroads against a background of mounting sustainability-related issues and uncertainties. This book seeks to inspire positive change in higher education by exploring …


Turnaround Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education

  • Western Sydney University (NSW)
  • Australian National University
  • University of Gloucestershire (Gloucestershire)

Universities play a central role in addressing key challenges of social, economic and environmental sustainability. For this role to be delivered effectively it is critical to identify not only what …


The Essex Report: Workshop on the Principles of Sustainability in Higher Education

  • Second Nature (MA)
  • Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (DC)

In February of 1995, a workshop at the Essex Conference Center of Essex, Massachusetts brought together thirty-two educators and other professionals with environmental expertise to discuss the principles of sustainability …


A mathematical decision-making procedure to assist in the development of sustainability plans based on the STARS framework

  • Dominican University of California (CA)

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to establish an objective mathematical decision-making procedure to help universities prioritize credits, while using the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (STARS) framework …


Sustainability assessment in higher education institutions: The STARS system

Sustainable development is a concern for countries, businesses and organizations sensitive to excess in terms of utilized resources. This is evident in international initiatives which aim to establish guiding principles …


Benchmarking tools for assessing and tracking sustainability in higher educational institutions: Identifying an effective tool for the University of Saskatchewan

  • University of Saskatchewan (SK)

Purpose

The University of Saskatchewan (UofS) has indentified five areas of campus life critical to improving the university's sustainability performance: education, research, operations, governance, and community engagement. In recognition of …


The state of sustainability reporting at Canadian universities

  • University of Waterloo (ON)

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe the state of sustainability reporting in Canada's higher education sector, while understanding who is reporting on sustainability performance, how is information …


Examining the Literature: A Bibliometric Study of ESD Journal Articles in the Education Resources Information Center Database

  • Dalhousie University (NS)

Using the tool of bibliometry, this study examines journal articles related to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in academic journals from 1990 to 2005. It offers a statistical description of …


Higher education for today and tomorrow: university appraisal for diversity, innovation and change towards sustainable development

  • United Nations University

This article serves as a position paper of a consortium of universities in the Asia–Pacific region working to address challenges of sustainable development and rapidly changing social, economic and natural …


Developing key competencies for sustainable development in higher education

  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Purpose

To date, little attention has been given to the circumstances in which the process of developing key competencies for sustainable development may take place. The purpose of this paper …


Advancing Civic Learning and Engagement in Democracy: A Road Map and Call to Action

Education in America must prepare all students for informed participation in civic and democratic life—so that all Americans are ready to tackle the challenges confronting communities and the nation in …


Democracy Matters: A Guide to Non-Statutory Barriers to College Student Voting

  • Tufts University (MA)

Campus climates for political engagement matter, but if students face technical barriers to voting, they may get frustrated and not bother. This guide describes the sometimes-hidden barriers students face and …