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

3944
Total Resources
1903
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.

150 resources

Providing immediate feedback improves recycling and composting accuracy

  • University of British Columbia (BC)

The volume of solid waste has increased significantly in the past century, directly contributing to global environmental problems. Public engagement with waste sorting is crucial to the diversion of solid ...

  • Posted Dec. 21, 2018
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A Case Study: Focusing on Sustainability Themes and Ecocomposition through Student Blogs in a Professional and Technical Writing Course

  • Southeastern Oklahoma State University (OK)

Tackling environmental and sustainability issues has grown in popularity in writing courses. Yet, for teachers designing professional and technical writing classes, what are the benefits and drawbacks in asking students ...

  • Posted Dec. 21, 2018
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Assessing research trends related to Sustainable Development Goals: local and global issues

  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • University of Passo Fundo
  • Manchester Metropolitan University

The Sustainable Development Goals agreed by the United Nations in September 2015 comprise 17 goals and 169 targets aimed at integrating matters related to sustainable development into the overall economic ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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Developing a capstone course on ecological and social sustainability in business education

  • XLRI-Xavier School of Management (Jharkhand State)

Sustainability is an important goal of management education, but it has not been integrated properly into all the functional courses. One option for management schools attempting to fix this misalignment ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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Critical Thinking Development—A Necessary Step in Higher Education Transformation towards Sustainability

  • University of Presov

Education for sustainable development has been addressed by professionals, authorities, and a number of research studies in the last decades, and yet the results are not clearly visible. Teachers as ...

  • Posted Nov. 29, 2018
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Prefiguring Sustainability through Participatory Action Research Experiences for Undergraduates: Reflections and Recommendations for Student Development

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

PAR-based UREs are undergraduate research experiences (UREs)—built into university-community partnerships—that apply principles of participatory action research (PAR) towards addressing community-defined challenges. In this paper, we advance PAR-based UREs ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Higher education for sustainable development: actioning the global goals in policy, curriculum and practice

  • University of Queensland (QLD)
  • United Nations University

Higher education for sustainable development (HEfSD) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda. Many higher education institutions, responsible for equipping the next generation of sustainability leaders with knowledge ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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Universities as Models of Sustainable Energy-Consuming Communities? Review of Selected Literature

  • Texas State University, San Marcos (TX)

Given the prominent position of academia in sustainability studies and sustainability science, it is natural to want to look to universities as models of (or keepers of knowledge about) sustainable ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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What does environmentally sustainable higher education institution mean?

  • Riga Technical University

Sustainable development, environmental protection and climate change definitions are increasingly emphasized globally. As analyses on global warming shows, all stakeholders in society must act to reduce their environmental impact. With ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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We Want Black Students, Just Not You: How White Admissions Counselors Screen Black Prospective Students

  • Florida Gulf Coast University (FL)

Most historically and predominantly white institutions (HPWIs) now desire some number of black students on their campuses. However, recent theoretical scholarship suggests that HPWIs’ desire for and willingness to embrace ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Deep learning for a sustainability mindset

  • University of Oulu
  • United Nations Global Compact (NY)

While ‘sustainability’ in management education is mostly addressed from a technical perspective, the emotional and ‘being’ aspects can be key for creating a new mindset. In this paper the authors ...


Transformative Sustainability Learning Within a Material-Discursive Ontology

  • University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (WI)

In this article, sustainability education is defined within the three orders of change—education about, for, and as sustainability. The third-order change, education as sustainability is defined as transformative sustainability ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Impact of communication sources for achieving campus sustainability

  • Cornell University (NY)
  • University of Washington, Seattle (WA)

Using self-reported data from over 12,000 students, staff, and faculty members, this study aims to quantify the effectiveness of various sustainability information sources on the awareness and behavioral changes ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Prioritising performance indicators for sustainable construction and development of university campuses using an integrated assessment approach

  • Deakin University

Sustainability assessment tools are considered to play a vital role in strategies to reorient universities towards sustainability in a systematic way. However, strategic selections of the main existing assessment tools ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Education for Wonder

  • UNSW Sydney (NSW)

This article argues that rejuvenating a sense of wonder towards nature is essential to ecocentric education and to finding a sustainable future. It examines the barriers that block education for ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Transferring Sustainability Solutions across Contexts through City–University Partnerships

  • Arizona State University (AZ)
  • Portland State University (OR)
  • Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (DF)
  • Leuphana University of Lüneburg
  • Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

The urgency of climate change and other sustainability challenges makes transferring and scaling solutions between cities a necessity. However, solutions are deeply contextual. To accelerate solution efforts, there is a ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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Sustainability in Management Education: Contributions from Critical Reflection and Transformative Learning

  • Mackenzie Presbyterian University

This theoretical paper discusses how the assumptions of critical reflection (CR) and transforming learning (TL) can help develop reflexive professionals in sustainability within management. The central argument is that a ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Organizing reflection to address collective dilemmas: Engaging students and professors with sustainable development in higher education

  • University of Central Oklahoma (OK)
  • Mackenzie Presbyterian University

Critical reflection and transformative learning theories generally place emphasis on individual change, giving little consideration to the organizational and societal aspects. Consequently, it is individual and not collective dilemmas that ...

  • Posted Nov. 13, 2018
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Characteristics of UK higher education institutions that disclose sustainability reports

  • University of Hamburg

This study aims to focus on the following research question: Which institutional characteristics are associated with sustainability reporting by UK higher education institutions?

To answer the aforementioned research question, this ...

  • Posted Dec. 21, 2018
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Meeting the food waste challenge in higher education

  • Montana State University (MT)

Purpose: Food waste represents a major sustainability challenge with environmental, economic, social and health implications. Institutions of higher education contribute to generating food waste while serving as models in championing ...

  • Posted Aug. 10, 2018
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Using Community‐Based Learning to Teach Environmental Sustainability Engineering: Notes from the Classroom

  • University of Wisconsin-Madison (WI)

In line with University of Wisconsin tradition, community-based learning was integrated into a course on sustainability as an opportunity for students to apply the tools learned in the course to ...


Wicked Leadership Competencies for Sustainability Professionals: Definition, Pedagogy, and Assessment

  • Virginia Tech (VA)

Sustainability professionals need specialized leadership competencies to effectively influence the complex, uncertain, conflicted, and dynamic (i.e., wicked) sustainability challenges of our time. Higher education programs can teach these leadership ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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Sustainability segmentation of business students: Toward self-regulated development of critical and interpretational competences in a post-truth era

  • UC Leuven-Limburg
  • Open University of the Netherlands
  • University of Antwerp

This article adds insights in students' attitudes toward sustainability, with specific focus on students in business management/marketing. It builds upon a number of conceptual interpretations and barriers for change ...


University Mission Statements and Sustainability Performance

  • DePaul University (IL)

This paper examines the relationship between university mission statements and sustainability practices by institutions of higher education. We examine mission statement constructs and the degree to which higher educational institutions ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Enhancing university students’ global citizenship, public mindedness, and moral quotient for promoting sense of environmental responsibility and pro-environmental behaviours

  • Valaya Alongkorn Rajabhat University
  • King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi

Many universities have attempted to courage their students to engage in sustainable, green behaviours. However, the mere role of environmental knowledge cannot contribute to students’ engagement in pro-environmental behaviours. This ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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Climate adaptation planning in the higher education sector

  • RMIT University

Purpose There is a growing interest in climate change action in the higher education sector. Higher education institutions (HEIs) play an important role as property owners, employers, education and research ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Environmental performance of universities: Proposal for implementing campus urban morphology as an evaluation parameter in Green Metric

  • Università Roma Tre

Over the last years, various sustainability evaluation tools for universities have been developed and have gained a certain diffusion. This paper reviews the applications of the most widespread university ranking ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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Recent trends in sustainability reporting by German universities

  • University of Hamburg

Voluntary sustainability reporting in the higher-education sector is still in its early stages. To better understand it, we looked at all 401 German universities to examine the specific contents of ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Bridging barriers to advance global sustainability

  • Columbia University (NY)
  • The Ohio State University (OH)
  • University of Maryland, College Park (MD)
  • University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna
  • SEA Education Association (MA)

Academic enterprises seeking to support society’s efforts to achieve global sustainability need to change their legacy reward systems. We need new structures to foster knowledge that is deeply integrated ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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Protecting Life on Land and Below Water: Using Storytelling to Promote Undergraduate Students’ Attitudes toward Animals

  • National Sun Yat-sen University

The framework of Global Education 2030 Agenda suggests 17 learning objectives for sustainability education. Restoring the human–animal relationship is a core task emphasized by Goals 14 (Life below water ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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University Buildings: The Push and Pull for Sustainability

  • RMIT University

Universities are a key stakeholder in our built environment with buildings in many major cities around Australia and the world. Due to their primarily urban locations, size and number of ...


The role of transformation in learning and education for sustainability

  • North-West University (North West)
  • Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya
  • University of Campinas
  • Universidade Federal Fluminense
  • Damascus University
  • University of Latvia
  • Manchester Metropolitan University
  • Hamburg University of Applied Sciences
  • University of Belgrade

Education research has acknowledged the value of transformation, which offers an opportunity for researching and rethinking how appropriate and successful educational practices may be. However, despite the role of transformation ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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The Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire: The theoretical development and empirical validation of an evaluation instrument for stakeholders working with sustainable development

  • University of Antwerp
  • Karlstad University

In this paper, the concept of sustainability consciousness, an individual's experience and awareness of sustainable development, is introduced. Based on UNESCO's definition of sustainable development, a sustainability consciousness ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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Pedagogy and Evaluation of an Envision Case Study Module Bridging Sustainable Engineering and Behavioral Science

  • Virginia Tech (VA)

Designing for sustainability demands systems thinking and problem-based learning focused on the types of ill-structured problems found in the real world. The approach detailed in this paper uses the Envision ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Transforming Sustainability Education at the Creative Edge of the Mainstream

  • University of Plymouth (Devon)
  • Schumacher College

Mainstream westernised educational policy and practice continue to be firmly rooted in ontological and epistemological traditions that reflect what Gregory Bateson referred to as the illusion of our separation from ...


Teetering on the Brink: Subversive and Restorative Learning in Times of Climate Turmoil and Disaster

  • Sustainability Frontiers

Unchecked climate change poses a self-inflicted existential risk to humanity as it exacerbates the multiple-crisis syndrome facing global society. In international policy, education for sustainable development is widely flagged as ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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Pathways to carbon neutral energy systems at the University of California, Davis

  • University of California, Davis (CA)

To achieve carbon neutrality by 2025 the University of California, Davis (UCD) seeks to eliminate its dependence on fossil energy sources. This study outlines a methodology to identify optimal equipment ...


Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Sustainability: Systematic Review 1990–2016

  • Universidad de Antioquia

For any transition towards sustainability to be successful, it is necessary to understand the knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) – related to sustainability – in different populations. A systematic review was conducted ...

  • Posted Nov. 15, 2018
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No food for thought: Food insecurity is related to poor mental health and lower academic performance among students in California’s public university system

  • University of South Carolina (SC)
  • University of Michigan (MI)

This study examined the relationships between food insecurity, mental health, and academic performance among college students in a California public university system (N = 8705). Structural equation modeling was performed to ...


Vocation for planetary citizenship: Lutheran liberal arts education in the Anthropocene

  • Concordia College - Moorhead (MN)

The focus question of this article is, “In what ways should Lutheran higher education's teaching on vocation be revised to include the fact that we are living in a ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Drama in higher education for sustainability: work-based learning through fiction?

  • Stockholm University

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of drama in the context of professional learning for sustainability, and specifically, a drama workshop on sustainability for in-service ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Sustainability in the professional accounting and finance curriculum: an exploration

  • University of Chester

Whereas the integration of sustainability into business schools has received increasing attention in recent years, the debate continues to be generic rather than recognising the peculiarities of the more quantitative ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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Communicating a social agenda within HEIs: the role of the social enterprise mark

  • University of Salford
  • University of Huddersfield

By using the lens of the social enterprise mark (SEM) accreditation which enables social enterprises to “prove” that the interests of people and planet are put before shareholder gain, this ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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A scientometric review of global research on sustainability and sustainable development

  • University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong)

The concept of sustainable development has gained worldwide attention in recent years which had enhanced its implementation. However, few studies have attempted to map the global research of sustainability. This ...


Meeting the food waste challenge in higher education

  • Montana State University (MT)

Food waste represents a major sustainability challenge with environmental, economic, social and health implications. Institutions of higher education contribute to generating food waste while serving as models in championing sustainability ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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A practical learning environment for sustainability and sustainable tourism: The case of student engagement at the sustainability house (SH)

  • University of North Texas (TX)
  • Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza
  • Kyung Hee University

This paper aims to review the current joint master’s program between two international institutions in the USA and Costa Rica; to identify students’ perceptions and experiences with the sustainability ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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The Role of Universities in Private Environmental Governance Experimentalism

  • University of Pennsylvania (PA)

In our federal, constitutional system of government, the states are often lauded as “laboratories of experimentation” for public policy, including for public environmental law. Yet private actors are playing an ...

  • Posted Dec. 11, 2018
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Student teachers’ perceptions about the social pillar of urban sustainability: Attached importance and believed effectiveness of education

  • University of Western Macedonia

This study aims to detect preschool and primary school student–teachers’ (STs) views about the social pillar of urban sustainability and particularly about the importance they attach to various social ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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The green economy learning assessment South Africa: Lessons for higher education, skills and work-based learning

  • Rhodes University

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference ...

  • Posted Oct. 23, 2018
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Understanding Finnish student craft teachers’ conceptions of sustainability

  • University of Eastern Finland

This study aims to explore student craft teachers’ conceptions of sustainable craft. This is an important issue because the Finnish National Curriculum of Basic Education emphasises sustainability, especially in craft ...

  • Posted Nov. 26, 2018
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