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

3968
Total Resources
1910
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.

3968 resources

Reducing students’ ecological footprints through self-developed interventions

  • Nelson Mandela University (Eastern Cape)
  • University of Pretoria

An increasing emphasis on taking personal responsibility for making changes to address climate change and support sustainable development is hindered by the limited tools and guidance available that enable the …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Critical Analysis of the GreenMetric World University Ranking System: The Issue of Comparability

  • University of Trento (Trentino)
  • Università degli Studi dell'Insubria

The Universitas Indonesia GreenMetric World Ranking is the most widely adopted system nowadays to rank worldwide universities’ sustainability. The number of participating universities has consistently increased throughout the last decade. …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Low carbon futures: assessing the status of decarbonisation efforts at universities within a 2050 perspective

  • Nottingham Trent University
  • University of Coimbra
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • Open University of the Netherlands
  • Universidade Fernando Pessoa
  • Universidade Federal da Paraíba

Background: The implementation of sustainability at universities means that they can also play a key role in the transition to a low carbon economy, and in assisting global efforts towards …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Sustainable management education and an empirical five-pillar model of sustainability

  • Charles Darwin University

Management academics, as the primary researchers of business practices and the educators of future managers, play critical roles shaping corporate behaviour and industry response to global sustainability challenges. However, the …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

A Place-Based Sustainability Approach to Learning about Photovoltaic Solar Energy

  • University of San Diego (CA)

An ethical and effective engineering practice is inherently place-responsive and designs for a sustainable future. Engineering students must therefore be educated within a sustainable and sociotechnical paradigm. In the spring …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Connecting curricula and competence through student learning journeys

  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg

This research examines the connection between higher education curricula for sustainable development and student development of key competencies for sustainability. The authors conducted a comparative case study that followed ten …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Empowering students to confront environmental injustice: Dialogue, theory, empathy, and partnership

  • George Washington University (DC)
  • Iowa State University (IA)
  • North Carolina A&T State University (NC)
  • Pennsylvania State University (PA)
  • The Ohio State University (OH)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (CA)

Many students find environmental justice to be emotionally overwhelming and/or politically alienating, and there is currently little work that provides instructors with effective techniques for addressing these types of challenges. …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The importance of the Sustainable Development Goals to students of environmental and sustainability studies—a global survey in 41 countries

  • Goethe University Frankfurt

To fight the global problems of humanity, the United Nations has adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To achieve these goals, it is necessary that future decision-makers and stakeholders in …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Social Capital, Indigenous Storytelling, and Fish Diversity: Learning Together Through Community-university Partnerships in Downeast Maine

  • University of Maine (ME)

Not only can community-university partnerships be vehicles for mobilizing community resources and affecting change, they also have high potential to produce useful, nuanced research and enable renewed visions of trust. …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Connection to nature of university students in the environmental field — An empirical study in 41 countries

  • Goethe University Frankfurt

People's personal relationships with nature are seen as essential factors influencing environmental behavior. Although human-nature relationships have been a recurring research topic in a wide range of disciplines, there has …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

How organizational constraints undermine sustainability actions in a university's campuses: A case study

  • University of Coimbra

Higher Education Institutions frequently struggle between the urgency to advance toward more sustainable campuses and the slow pace of their transformation. Although several stimuli and barriers are identified in the …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Empowering Future Leaders to Advocate Sustainable Action: A comparative analysis between two university programmes focusing on leadership and sustainability in Sweden and Germany

  • Malmö University

Sustainability must be integrated into our everyday world. To achieve that, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were established. Some scholars agree that the SDGs are not enough. So, a new strategy …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Combining best practices framework with benchmarking to advance principles for responsible management education (PRME) performance

  • University of Calgary (AB)

Higher education institutions play a critical role in shaping a more sustainable world. There is limited research on ‘how’ business schools can effectively take the UN PRME's Sharing Information Progress …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Teaching sustainability within the context of everyday life: Steps toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through the EUSTEPs Module

  • Global Footprint Network (CA)
  • Universidade Aberta
  • University of Coimbra
  • University of Aveiro
  • University of Siena
  • Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Kentriki Makedonia)

In a world characterized by Ecological Overshoot, where humanity demands more from natural ecosystems than they can sustainably renew, education can nurture sustainability-minded citizens and future leaders to help accelerate …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Politicizing the learning of Sustainable Development Goals through drama performances and agonistic debates: a teacher training experience from the perspective of radical democracy

  • Universitat de València

Based on empirical evidence, this research aimed to offer a methodical approach to politicizing the apprenticeship of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through drama performances and agonistic debates from the …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Fostering students’ systems thinking competence for sustainability by using multiple real-world learning approaches

  • Wageningen University
  • Addis Ababa University

For a sustainable future, equipping sustainability change agents with relevant sustainability competencies is crucial. Among these competencies is system thinking competence – the understanding of complex interrelationships among the dimensions …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Eco-critical language awareness for English language teaching (ELT): Promoting justice, wellbeing, and sustainability in the classroom

  • University of Alabama (AL)

Critical Language Awareness (CLA) seeks to promote social justice by explicitly calling attention to power issues in the context of literacy development and language instruction. In this article, we assert …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The Alignment of Universities With Sustainable Development Goals: How Do Academics Perceive the Progress (Not) Made?

  • Abu Dhabi University

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda have acted as a global unifying force to address social, economic, and environmental sustainability concerns. Higher education institutions (HEIs)/universities have been …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Gamification to Improve Participation in an Environmental Science Course: An Educator’s Reflection

  • University of Arizona (AZ)

Reticence prevalent among East Asian students has prompted educators to attempt different methods to engage them. Gamification of courses has gained popularity as an avenue to encourage students’ participation, and …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Developing interdisciplinary consciousness for sustainability: using playful frame reflection to challenge disciplinary bias

  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

A major challenge for interdisciplinary teamwork on complex sustainability issues is the often-conflicting disciplinary perspectives and underlying values and assumptions among collaborators. Interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers and practitioners therefore requires …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Research on sustainability leadership in higher education: a scoping review

  • Mahidol University (Bangkok)

Purpose: Despite the centrality of leadership to the successful transformation of universities toward sustainability, the literature on the role and practices of sustainability leadership in higher education remains poorly developed. …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Perceptions and concerns about sustainable healthcare of nursing students trained in sustainability and health: A cohort study

  • University of Jaén

Aim: To describe nursing students' perceptions of sustainable health education in the nursing curriculum and their concerns about sustainable healthcare and the impact of climate change on nursing. Background: Sustainable …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Sustainability as a purpose in life among Dutch higher education students

  • Tampere University of Applied Sciences
  • Hanze University of Applied Sciences

Given the prominence of sustainability in current global crises and the commitment of societies to the Sustainable Development Goals, this mixed methods study ascertains how Dutch higher education students (N …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Emergentist education and the opportunities of radical futurity

  • KTH Royal Institute of Technology
  • Uppsala University
  • University of the Sunshine Coast

Higher education has been criticised for its instrumental character, which constrains possibilities for meaningful change towards sustainability. Drawing on the concept of radical futurity, we develop a conception of education …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Students’ attitudes towards campus sustainability: a comparison among three universities in Sweden

  • Jönköping University
  • Diponegoro University

The role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in promoting and supporting sustainability has outstretched over the past decades as a result of various declarations and commitments related to the need …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Backcasting for sustainability – An approach to education for sustainable development in management

  • HEC Montréal (QC)

“Utopia dynamizes action,” said Mathieu Régnier, curator of the MTL + exhibition at the Biosphere, Environment Museum in Montreal, to students of a sustainable development and management graduate course. The …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Changing the world one engineer at a time – unmaking the traditional engineering education when introducing sustainability subjects

  • Linkoping University

Purpose: The information technology (IT) sector has been seen as central to society's transformation to a more just and sustainable society, which underlines teachers’ responsibility to foster engineers who can …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Who will save the world if the profit is too low?: A single case study on a Swedish business school, investigating their work toward responsible management education

  • Jönköping University

Background: Business schools are one of society’s most influential institutions as they contribute to transforming and influencing the way the business world works. Hence, business schools bear responsibility for the …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Student Development in Higher Education in the Era of the Agenda 2030 and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals: Towards SDGs 2.0

  • Université du Luxembourg (Luxembourg)
  • Universities South Africa

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Higher Education Conference in Barcelona was an occasion for the authors of this article to reflect on the UN Sustainable Development …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Incentives and penalties tied to sales volume in contracts between beverage companies and public universities in the United States

  • Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (MD)
  • Center for Science in the Public Interest (DC)

To assess whether and how beverage companies incentivize universities to maximize sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) sales through pouring rights contracts. Cross-sectional study of contracts between beverage companies and public U.S. universities …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Where is Nature? Where is Nature in Nature and Outdoor Learning in Higher Education? An Analysis of Nature-Based Learning in Higher Education Using Multispecies Ethnography

  • Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen

The multiple crises of the 21st century once again highlight the significant role of sustain-able education in all educational institutions. Particularly in higher education, the inclu-sion of nature and animals …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The impact of teaching interventions in education for sustainable development – an experimental case study

  • Open University of the Netherlands
  • University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz
  • University of Wroclaw/Uniwersytet Wrocławski (Wrocław)

Questionnaire research can be used as a teaching instrument and to measure the impacts of education for sustainable development. This paper presents a case study of a teaching intervention regarding …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Using Competency Maps for Embedding and Assessing Sustainability in Engineering Degrees

  • Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
  • University of the Basque Country

This paper features a methodology for embedding and assessing a competency in an academic curriculum using competency maps. This methodology enables embedding and assessment of any competency in any curriculum, …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in educating future leaders with social impact contributing to the sustainable development goals

  • University of Derby

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand how higher education institutions (HEIs) educate future leaders with social impact contributing to the sustainable development goals (SDGs). HEIs have an …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Nature as Mentor: Catalyzing First-Year Liberal Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Transition Through a Biomimicry First-Year Seminar

  • College of Charleston (SC)
  • University of Minnesota System Office (MN)

University students crave immersive, collaborative, interdisciplinary, applied learning contextualized to real world sustainability challenges. Liberal arts and sciences institutions are particularly well positioned to respond. Here we report on our …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Integrating a sustainability education model into STEM courses at a tribal college

  • Arizona State University (AZ)

Indigenous scholars have been historically excluded from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and are currently underrepresented in STEM degree programs and jobs. Having a population with STEM skills is …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

From food access to food sovereignty: Striving to meet university student needs

  • Western Washington University (WA)

The ongoing neoliberalization of higher education has meant that college and university students at state institutions face declining state support for their education, increasing debt, precarious post-graduation job opportunities, and …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Life purposes: Comparing higher education students in four institutions in the Netherlands and Finland

  • Tampere University of Applied Sciences
  • Hanze University of Applied Sciences
  • Universiteit voor Humanistiek

Universities worldwide are beginning to counter the prevailing neo-liberal ideology by paying renewed attention to the moral development of students and fostering their life purposes. This mixed methods study investigates …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Alignment among environmental programs in higher education: What Food-Energy-Water Nexus concepts are covered in introductory courses?

  • California Polytechnic State University (CA)
  • Rider University (NJ)
  • University of South Dakota (SD)
  • University of Northern Colorado (CO)
  • Whitman College (WA)
  • United States Department of Energy (DC)

Interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability (IES) programs are different from other fields because they focus on a complex integration of humanities, social, and natural sciences concepts centered on the interactions of …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The college campus as a living laboratory for meaningful food system transformation

  • University at Albany (NY)
  • Johnson & Wales University, Providence (RI)

As has become abundantly clear to the social scientists, agriculturalists, policymakers, and food justice advocates who have taken up the fight, progress toward more resilient, fair, and effective food systems …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Teaching critical hope with creative pedagogies of possibilities

  • University of Sussex (Sussex)

How can we teach critical hope, amidst contemporary challenges that seem intractable, within neoliberal educational institutions that work to foreclose transformative pedagogies and through academic critique that can result in …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Education for sustainable development through research-based learning in an online environment

  • Universität Bremen

Purpose: The society faces growing global challenges in terms of sustainable development. A key factor in preparing society for these challenges is education for sustainable development (ESD). This study aims …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

A Cross-Cultural Genre Analysis of Leadership Statements in Italian and American University Sustainability Reports

  • Beijing Foreign Studies University

Background: Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue in higher education (HE). Leadership statements in university sustainability reports (LSUSR) represent a unique genre for university leaders to communicate sustainability. This …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Applied engineering education for soft skills in the context of sustainability and mobility

  • Halmstad University

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to address the need to rethink the traditional approach to education in the university engineering curriculum. The paper examines two engineering projects led …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

The Principles for (Ir)Responsible Management Education: An exploration of the dynamics of paradox, the hidden curriculum, competencies and symbolization

  • De Montfort University
  • Oxford Brookes University

This article discusses whether, as academics, we are behaving irresponsibly in the manner in which we deliver the much-vaunted Principles for Responsible Management Education. The Principles for Responsible Management Education …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Climate change education in China: a pioneering case of its implementation in tertiary education and its effects on students’ beliefs and attitudes

  • University of Arizona (AZ)

Purpose: In view of a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of climate change education (CCE) in China, this study aims to evaluate if a CCE course newly designed based …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Valuation of student-led agricultural activities at university: comparison of willingness to pay with inferred values

  • Ritsumeikan University

Agricultural fields in university campuses can improve urban nutrition security, increase greenery, and provide opportunities for students to grow crops and enhance self-management skills. We conducted student surveys among freshmen …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Development of education for sustainable fashion design using a challenge-based learning approach

  • Hongik University

This study proposes a model for sustainable education in fashion design through the development, implementation, and assessment of a specific curriculum. It employed the challenge-based learning (CBL) approach to facilitate …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Alternatives to the Mainstream Economic Growth Paradigm in Business Administration Curricula at Dutch Research Universities.

  • University of Twente

This Master’s thesis sheds light on the reasons for including or excluding alternatives to the mainstream economic growth paradigm in/from the Bachelor curricula of Business Administration (BA) programmes offered at …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more

Design principles for advancing higher education sustainability learning through transformative research

  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg
  • Technische Universität Berlin (Berlin)

A growing number of transformative research practices that redefine the role of science in engaging with local–mostly urban–transformation processes have emerged in recent decades. However, while education is considered a …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
  • Publications
  • View more