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

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
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Higher education in turbulent times: navigating the transition from un-sustainability in a world dominated by technology

  • Atlantic Technological University (Co. Galway)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the implications for higher education of a rapidly changing global context, where technologies play a role in the propagation of …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Governance in the implementation of the UN sustainable development goals in higher education: global trends

  • Winona State University (MN)
  • Universidade Federal de Vicosa
  • University of Malta (Northern Harbor District)
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (Eastern)
  • Universidade Fernando Pessoa

Governance is a key component for implementing sustainable development (SD) initiatives in university teaching, research, and projects. This line of thinking also applies to implementing the United Nations (UN) sustainable …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Generating students’ loyalty towards the sustainable university during the later COVID-19 pandemic

  • Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai

Purpose: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought tremendous changes in society. Universities were among the few organisations with some previous knowledge of online education, being able to rapidly adapt by transferring …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Authentic assessment targeting sustainability outcomes: a case study exploring student perceptions

  • Victoria University of Wellington

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand student experiences of authentically assessed community partnership projects and reflect on authentic assessment from a social and environmental sustainability perspective. Design/methodology/approach: …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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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
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Searching for Shared Meaning: Defining and Measuring Sustainability as Institutional Work and Organizational Change

  • University of Saskatchewan (SK)

About me In my schooling, worklife, and even childhood interests, the natural sciences played a big role. Although I certainly derived inherent satisfaction from many aspects of natural science, I …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Methods for assessing sustainability performance at higher education institutions: a review

  • Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
  • Simón Bolívar University

Sustainability has increasingly become key in universities, as the objectives of sustainable development are essential to establish policies, guidelines and indicators that guide institutions to be more sustainable. This recognition …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Justice in climate change education: a systematic review

  • Colorado State University (CO)
  • University of Cincinnati (OH)

Growing recognition of the multi-faceted injustices of climate change has resulted in shifting public and policy discourse around how to understand and address climate change, yet justice considerations are rarely …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Universities and the Doughnut Strategy: Comparative analysis of university strategies and the integration of planetary and social boundaries and the general concept of sustainable development

  • Linkoping University

The 21st-century climate crisis and human development are placing a burden on the planet and society and require strategic integration as well as education about sustainable development. Universities are educational …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Scoring Water Stewardship at Academic Institutions: A Water Resources Management Scoring Framework for Future Sustainability, Resilience and Innovation

  • Oregon State University (OR)

In the face of the global climate crisis, paired with current and future risks over water resources, the importance of effective water resources management cannot be overstated. However, there is …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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An overview of the engagement of higher education institutions in the implementation of the UN sustainable development goals

  • University of São Paulo
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences

Higher education institutions provide valuable inputs toward implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, it is unclear how this engagement is taking place across the world. This study addresses …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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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
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Perspective Transformation Regarding Sustainability in Higher Education

  • University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (WI)

This study examined transformative sustainability learning (TSL) by determining the occurrence of perspective transformation (PT) regarding sustainability in sustainability-focused courses offered at a public university. 131 students in two upper-division …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Embedding sustainability in university work experience placements: a De Montfort University model

  • De Montfort University

Purpose: The paper looks at the feasibility of university placements supporting small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) to operate in a sustainable manner. Due to size and resource constraints, many SMEs …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Understanding Environmental Justice Instruction in Higher Education: Activist Epistemic Orientations and a Continuum of Community Engaged Curricular and Pedagogical Practice

  • University of Massachusetts Boston (MA)

Starting in the early 1980’s, the environmental justice (EJ) movement was critical in drawing much needed attention to how communities of color, low-income groups, Indigenous peoples, and other marginalized groups …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Preparing Business Students to be Sustainable Business Leaders in the 21st Century

  • University of Michigan (MI)

The necessity and importance of sustainability has been discussed increasingly often and urgently as material business considerations, notably by Larry Fink, the CEO of Blackrock (Fink 2021a). Further, research over …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Benefit-cost analysis of becoming certified pollinator friendly

  • Louisiana State University (LA)
  • The Ohio State University (OH)

Despite significant drop in pollinator abundance, no studies exist on the benefits and costs of pollinator conservation in the public domain. An in-person survey was conducted at three large, public …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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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
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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
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Key insights from climate communication – and how they can inspire sustainability in higher education

  • Hochschule Konstanz für Technik, Wirtschaft und Gestaltung

Purpose: To combat climate change and safeguard a liveable future, humanity needs fundamental and rapid social change. The purpose of this paper is to show, why and how climate communication …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Footprints in Action: How UVA Is Managing Its Sustainability Stewardship

  • University of New Hampshire (NH)
  • University of Virginia (VA)
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (DC)

Evaluating sustainability stewardship at higher educational institutions is essential to working towards improving our environment. Many institutions have used environmental footprint indicators as a way to evaluate, track, and improve …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Informative initiatives as a useful tool to raise awareness of food waste. An application to higher education

  • University of Zaragoza

Purpose: Because food waste is a serious problem today, society is currently aiming for more responsible consumption to minimize it, as defined in the 12th goal of the United Nations …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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What can Sustainability Schools Learn from the Career Services Offered at Business Schools?

  • University of Michigan (MI)

Increasingly, the importance of sustainability as a goal for different sectors in society is becoming paramount. Given the importance and urgency of this, the objective of this paper is to …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Student Led Governance of a Campus Community Permaculture Garden at a Liberal Arts University

  • St. Lawrence University (NY)

This case-study supports the implementation and social investment in university campus community gardens as an interdisciplinary resource for academic research, extra-curricular activities, and community building. Using a permaculture design model, …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Training students for complex sustainability issues: a literature review on the design of inter- and transdisciplinary higher education

  • Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Purpose: To prepare students to address complex sustainability issues, they need to be trained in inter- and transdisciplinarity. This paper aims to contribute to better understanding how to do this, …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Experiential Learning for Sustainability in Supply Chain Management Education

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA)
  • Tecnológico de Monterrey (Nuevo Leon)
  • Aston University

This work is about sustainability-related learning experiences for the discipline of supply chain management (SCM) in Higher Education. It arises from the need to motivate students with relevant and interesting …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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What do We Know About Teacher Educators’ Perceptions of Education for Sustainable Development? A Systematic Literature Review

  • University of Vechta

Teacher educators prepare prospective teachers to deliver Education for SustainableDevelopment (ESD) in schools. Lecturersí personal perceptions of ESD guide them inthis work. While there has been some research into lecturersí …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Examining undergraduate students’ systems thinking competency through a problem scenario in the context of climate change education

  • National Sun Yat-sen University

Higher education plays an important role in preparing future citizens and leaders with the capacity to address systemic issues behind complex problems such as climate change. There have however been …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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EffSET: a Self-Evaluation Tool to Assess the Effectiveness of Education for Sustainable Development

  • University of Bari Aldo Moro

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) plays a prominent part in the process of building the ethical, responsible, and sustainable consciousness of future generations and in addressing the sustainability challenge that …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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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
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A model of behavioral climate change education for higher educational institutions

  • University of Arizona (AZ)

This paper puts forth a novel model of Climate Change Education (CCE) targeting to bridge the attitude-behavior gap in students’ climate action, called the behavioral CCE. It refers to relevant …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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How to Assess the Carbon Footprint of a Large University? The Case Study of University of Bologna’s Multicampus Organization

  • Università di Bologna

University campuses represent a heterogeneous ecosystem as to social, economic, energetic, and personal travel planning with a huge impact on hosting cities and territories. Sustainable policies are thus fundamental to …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Understanding the impact of state-level financial incentives on the deployment of renewable energy at colleges and universities

  • Georgia State University (GA)

Over 400 colleges and universities have signed carbon reduction pledges through Second Nature. Nonetheless, a review of their greenhouse gas inventories shows that many universities continue to show limited or …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Narcissism as a global barrier to education for sustainable development

  • Troy University (AL)
  • Berjaya University College

Narcissism, extreme self-interest, refers to a set of personality characteristics including arrogance, self-centeredness, need for admiration, sense of entitlement, grandiosity, lack of empathy, and interpersonal exploitation, which can range from …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Using Modified Delphi Study to Develop Instrument for ESG Implementation: A Case Study at an Indonesian Higher Education Institution

  • Chung Yuan Christian University
  • Universitas Katolik Indonesia Atma Jaya (South Jakarta)

Most research states that implementing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has positive impacts. However, fewer studies have discussed ESG implementation in higher education. This study aimed to develop instruments to …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Internationalisation of Higher Education and Climate Change: A Cognitive Dissonance Perspective

  • San Diego State University (CA)
  • Ghent University
  • Eastern Institute of Technology

This article applies cognitive dissonance theory to the internationalisation of higher education sector to comment on tensions experienced by practitioners associated with their work's climate impact. The existing literature and …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Integrating sustainability into scientific research

  • My Green Lab (CA)

Laboratories have a large environmental impact, with high levels of resource consumption and waste generation. In this article, I discuss some of the actionable strategies that can bring real and …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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On sustainability and higher education: Towards an affirmative ethics

  • North-West University (North West)
  • University of KwaZulu-Natal

Sustainable development has been the dominant focus in sustainability discourses over the past three decades. In 2015, the United Nations Member States adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Teaching sustainable development: an approach to rapidly introducing the UN sustainable development goals into an undergraduate business curriculum

  • Dominican University (IL)

The purpose of this study is to determine whether an undergraduate business program that rapidly introduced sustainable development into its curriculum, without an overall curriculum revision, was effective in terms …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Embedding sustainable development goals (SDGs) in an undergraduate business capstone subject using an experiential learning approach: A qualitative analysis

  • Monash University (VIC)

Universities have an important role in ensuring that business school graduates can address issues regarding sustainable development and the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. While …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Planetary health education in medical curricula in the Republic of Ireland

  • University College Dublin, National University of Ireland
  • Trinity College Dublin (The University of Dublin)
  • Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
  • University Hospital Galway
  • Mater Misericordiae University Hospital

The World Health Organization considers climate change an urgent global health challenge requiring prioritised action. A recent global survey reported that only 15% of medical schools have incorporated climate change …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Quantifying universities’ direct and indirect carbon emissions – the case of Delft University of Technology

  • Technische Universiteit Delft

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive analysis of the carbon footprint of the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), including direct and indirect emissions from …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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A framework to enable sustainability-oriented transition activities in HEIs: Learnings from two case studies in Germany and Switzerland

  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can significantly contribute to sustainability transitions, as they facilitate research, education and knowledge transfer. The integration of sustainability in research touches many scientific disciplines and beyond …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Sustainable entrepreneurial intentions: Exploration of a model based on the theory of planned behaviour among university students in north-east Colombia

  • Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana
  • Universidad Industrial de Santander

Entrepreneurship is considered the basis of economies, in which finding ways to stimulate it is a constant object of research. With the increasing awareness of social and environmental sustainability, sustainable …

  • Posted June 15, 2023
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Advancing Sustainability Education through a Cross-Disciplinary Online Course: Sustainability and Human Rights in the Business World

  • Florida State University (FL)

Abstract: The increasing threats of climate change, resource depletion, and human rights crises have led us to realize the impendent need for advancing sustainable development education and to reevaluate the …


Sustainable New Product Development for Ten Thousand Villages, a Fair-Trade Social Enterprise: Empowering Women and Economic Development through Problem-Based Service Learning

  • Florida State University (FL)

Abstract – Universities have an important role in advancing sustainable development by educating future professionals. As an effective approach to scaling sustainability education, the author implemented a problem-based service-learning (PBSL) …


Campus Zero Waste Program: Toward a Better Understanding of Zero Waste Program Success

  • University of Florida (FL)

This research is a part of my dissertation and I have used AASHE Data to look into Zero Waste programs in HEIs


Campus foodscapes as sites of transformation: mapping policy and projects in US universities envisioning just, sustainable and healthy food systems

  • University of California, Berkeley (CA)
  • University of Melbourne (Victoria)

Globally universities have expanded their mission beyond teaching and research: recognising their broader responsibilities to their students, communities and civic neighbours, and to sustainable operations and infrastructure. This research considers …


Differential Vulnerability to Extreme Heat Events Among the UC Campuses: A quantitative analysis of social vulnerability to extreme heat in communities surrounding UC Campuses

  • University of California, Office of the President (CA)
  • University of California, Davis (CA)

Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent, intense, and longer as a result of global climate change. Individual characteristics and conditions amplify exposure and impact of extreme heat events. I …