Handbook of Sustainability Science and Research

The findings outlined in this paper have two core audiences in mind. The first are decision-makers with interest in sustainable development, and who can use the information to shape policy. The second are sustainable universities that may provide the needed research for the monitoring and evaluation on what is proposed. Between 2009 and 2013, Galileo University administered Renewable Energy and Climate Change sample surveys to entrepreneurs, university personnel, government officers, and civil society leaders in Guatemala. Qualitative and quantitative analysis was then conducted by the Galileo University on the collected survey data for this time frame. The analysis revealed weaknesses, that if not addressed, are capable of halting sustainability efforts in all Guatemalan sectors—academic, private, government, and the general public. Specifically, the research identified five sustainable development gaps which can serve, not only as important and foundational lessons for all surveyed participants, but also addressed by academic institutions and decision-makers to formulate appropriate actions. These gaps are the following: (1)The divorce/disconnect between research and teaching;(2)The lack of balance between specialized fields and multidisciplinary perspectives;(3)The absence of internal (within the university) and external (larger society) alignment in addressing sustainability problems;(4)Deficits in coordination within and between public, private, NGOs, and academic organizations;(5)And finally, the lack of time linkages (short-, medium-, and long-term) which will postpone decisions until the end of the century or later and ultimately, paralyze decision-makers.All these sectors—academic, private, government, and the general public—should strengthen their own capabilities by making respective internal changes to address these gaps and by forming “smart” strategic alliances. The implementation of “Quadruple and Quintuple Helix Innovation Models,” involving decision-makers, applied to these weaknesses appear to be the best policy decisions. These models emphasize collaborations, alliances, and networks. Then and only then, can these sectors address the challenges ahead: the academic sector would strengthen their offer to the larger society and avoid the consolidation of “clusters,” which mean confinements; entrepreneurs will be able to embrace their social responsibility; governments accept networks and horizontal relationships, while civil society may adopt common objectives moderating their dispersion of activities and resources. Universities will then become more sustainable and larger society more resilient.

Environmental issues are complex and malicious problems involving many characteristics, variables, increasing their level of uncertainty. While accompanying groups in solving their environmental problems, it is important to develop collaborative and creative approaches to properly define the problem at hand. In Morocco, flooding combined with climate change is damaging the drinking water supply system. The victims of this problem are searching for adaptation strategies. Design thinking and Facebook were selected as the methods to guide 10 Moroccan women in solving a problem with flooding. Design thinking encourages a needs analysis, abductive reasoning, and rapid prototyping. Digital tools, such as Facebook, can also help with problem definition, discussion, and solution development. Through the use of videos and pictures, the women shared their flood experience on Facebook and together solved the issue of poor drinking water as they were guided through the steps of design thinking. The experience allowed the women to broaden their definition of the problem and prototype various water purification solutions that demonstrated potential. The women developed a sense of collaboration and carried out flood adaptation strategies.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) bring together environmental, social and economic concerns. They therefore have the potential to move society away from the dominant model of prosperity as purely economic toward a more holistic and ‘sustainable’ prosperity. But, the success of such a transformative agenda rests on its implementation. At the heart of planned implementation of the SDGs is a set of 230 indicators. Indicators have been strongly critiqued in a range of literatures. However, in the context of the SDGs, indicators have been described as ‘essential’ with little critical assessment of their role in implementation. Therefore, this chapter aims to provide this critical voice. To do this, the chapter reviews critiques of indicators from sustainability science, anthropology and sociology and provides illustrative cases of indicators implementation. From this review we are able to draw lessons for the use of indicators in SDG implementation. Specifically, the chapter argues that indicators are reductionist and struggle with contested concepts. Nevertheless, by making the operationalisation of concepts visible and enabling quantified analysis, indicators can have a useful role in SDG implementation. However, this requires that indicator critiques are taken seriously and inform indicator use.

Sustainability science research is characterized by its high transdisciplinary ambitions. However, despite claims to urgent social change, important sustainability principles—including social complexity issues such as learning and knowledge sharing among stakeholders—are not fully contextualized and understood within the general framework of sustainability science research. To explore possible synergies between sustainability science research and social analysis, this chapter uses a qualitative method to account for the theoretical and practical implementation of a transdisciplinary research process. Through one example of a change in Swedish natural resource management policy, the paper demonstrates how a top–down and bottom–up conflict in natural resource management was dealt with by the creation of an innovative environmental governance constellation. This was done by the mobilization of the theoretical concept of ‘boundary objects’ to develop and maintain coherence over time between stakeholders and social worlds sharing a common sustainability interest but with conflicting stakes. It is concluded that ‘boundary objects’—here, a new communication platform—can facilitate cooperation between stakeholders regarding the complexities of social–ecological systems governance and policy.

Among the challenges to sustainability, urban sprawl and an increasing demand for resources and energy can be mentioned. In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, an intense process of industrialization and urbanization has accompanied the recent expansion of major highways. The study of these impacts is important from a sustainable perspective, as is analysis on how they may indicate socioenvironmental public policies and corporate actions. This study seeks to analyze sustainable corporate strategies to address environmental issues and managerial perceptions in industries located along the road axis Dom Pedro I (SP 65), in the Bragantina Region, state of São Paulo, Brazil. Methodological strategies involve analyses of industries’ data and interviews with personnel responsible for environmental departments. Data collected indicate a diversity of environmental management actions already adopted by many organizations and it became apparent that the main stimuli for their implementation are the necessity to reduce operational costs, consolidation of an environmentally responsible image and adequacy to the environmental legislation. Nevertheless, they still need to invest more substantially to implement modern sustainable strategies and updated socioenvironmental corporate policies for preservation of natural resources.

Conservation and management of water resources quality and quantity in a particular region are one of the great challenges to sustainability. Therefore, it is a very important element in the recognition of urban expansion processes and anthropic pressure on ecosystems associated with regional sustainable environmental planning. In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, an intense process of industrialisation and urbanisation followed the recent expansion of its main east road system, which is located near headwaters and ecosystems of important rivers. In recent years, this area was also faced with an intense shortage of water resources due to a severe drought that the southeast area of Brazil faced, along with the lack of effective water resource management and the definition of economic development projects that take into account environmental preservation and regional sustainability. The main objectives of this study involve the recognition and study of such problems, the involvement of surrounding communities in collective actions that aim to recognize the regional socio-environmental history and to stimulate an awareness of the importance of regional rivers and their conservation and maintenance, aiming to secure for present and future generations the quality of water resources as a priority for the region’s sustainability.

On 25 September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Declaration outlined 17 ambitious goals and 169 challenging targets. One of the most substantial goals was raising awareness of sustainable development, particularly within the context of the developing world. The following year, Saudi Arabia launched its Vision 2030; aiming at a “vibrant society”, “thriving economy” and an “ambitious nation”, through investing massively in health, education, infrastructure, among others. The Vision emphasised the significance of the youth of whom more than half are below age 25. However, to mobilise this precious segment of the Saudi society to achieve a prosperous and sustainable future, there is a need for mainstreaming sustainability, particularly in universities. Universities present a significant medium through which sustainability issues can be imbued in the youth, who are the future leaders. As critical agents of change, students, among other key stakeholders, are crucial enablers for a bright future. This paper investigates the environmental awareness and sustainable behaviour in public universities in Saudi Arabia. It provides an insight into the attitude, knowledge and awareness of sustainability. The main purpose of this research is to highlight the gaps between policy and practice. Therefore, this would be of great importance to help decision-makers formulate evidence-based strategies to ‘fill’ these gaps. A questionnaire was used to collect data from nine universities; three of which are old, whereas six are recently founded. The number of participants was almost two thousand. Results indicate, inter alia, that the vast majority of students in public universities have little knowledge about the notion of sustainable development. Therefore, special attention should be given to raising awareness of sustainability in order to achieve the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030 that is in line with the UN agenda for Sustainable Development.

Much debate surrounds the economic viability of urban agriculture as a livelihood strategy for Africa’s urban poor. This debate appears most polarised in South African cities, where key critiques revolve around urban agriculture’s low level of contribution to urban food systems and household income. This study aims to find out what the value of this sector is to those who participate in it, if its economic performance is indeed so negligible. To address this question, the author studied all four non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Cape Town who promote urban agriculture among the city’s poorest households through intensive training and extension services. Using in-depth interviews with the senior leadership of these NGOs as well as the cultivators trained and supported by them, the study finds that direct provision of food and income is far less of a consideration for the cultivators than the body of scholarship makes out. By taking a sustainable livelihoods approach, this study reveals that urban agriculture’s contribution is in fact holistic, building social capital and human capital as well as harnessing physical and natural resources, all of which improve economic viability, but not necessarily in traditional economic terms. The study concludes that an emphasis on profit maximisation tends to exclude the poorest of the poor from urban agriculture, while the more holistic sustainable livelihoods approach empowers the economically marginalised.

‘Quality education’ features in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in the United Nations declaration ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ (i.e. SDG 4). Furthermore, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) can be interpreted as a thread that supports the potential achievement of all the other SDGs. For instance, schools based in cities could help making these more ‘inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’ (i.e. SDG 11) whilst supporting ‘life on land’ (i.e. SDG 15) on the school grounds. This paper presents an environmental project, which aims to foster the integration of ESD in the curriculum through a tangible conservation and restoration initiative of some of the 70 ha of natural reserve in the Eastern hills of the city of Bogotá, Colombia. First, the paper describes the project and its links to urban ecosystems in the context of city resilience. Second, it analyses empirical data from the project evaluation, which evidences the development of pupils’ competencies and impacts beyond school activity. Finally, it presents the challenges faced by educators when adjusting curricula for ESD, followed by some recommendations for the future of the project. The purposes of the paper are: to provide insights to improve the project, to evidence the valuable pedagogic outcomes of this kind of initiatives for ESD and to inform and promote the development of similar projects in the region and beyond.

In order to achieve the goals of ending poverty and hunger, as stated under the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development, there needs to be a focus on low-income families who are most affected by these issues. Two ways to support low-income families in improving food security include providing access to affordable, fresh foods and education about food systems. Twenty-six percent of residents in Meadville, Pennsylvania live below the poverty line and 50% of students in the school district receive subsidized lunch. In 2014, the Community Wellness Initiative of Allegheny College established an affordable community and school garden in Meadville, Pennsylvania. There are monthly cooking and gardening workshops for community members. The garden-based curriculum is being integrated into middle- and high-school classes to teach students to think critically about the food system while learning basic growing and cooking skills. Students then bring lessons home to their families furthering the education of families in Meadville. This paper will describe how the garden is used to teach families and students of Meadville to grow, prepare, and purchase high-quality food in order to improve food security.

Universities have the potential, and a responsibility, to contribute to sustainable development through their own business operations, through research and through providing learning opportunities for students. The University of Edinburgh is committed to social responsibility and sustainability, and a department of the same name works on seven key areas: climate change and energy; resource efficiency and circular economy; supply chains and fair trade; responsible investment; learning, teaching and research; community and public engagement; and sustainability reporting. There are clear links between these areas of work and the Sustainable Development Goals, both in terms of environmental protection, and in reducing poverty and increasing well-being locally and globally. One approach to these themes is to view the university as a Living Lab—where research is carried out on the institution’s own operations, both by academics and by students. This paper shares experience from implementing the Living Lab approach at Edinburgh, which has provided useful learning on how to facilitate collaboration between different stakeholders within a university (academics, operations and students), and how to foster a sense of being a united learning community with sustainability aims. The paper highlights issues and learning around developing networks, data governance and initiating action research as practitioners.

As social and ecological problems escalate, involving stakeholder groups in helping solve these issues becomes critical for reaching solutions. The UN Sustainable Development Goal #17 recognizes the importance of partnerships and collaborative governance. However, organizing large multi-stakeholder groups (or partnerships) requires sophisticated implementation structures for ensuring collaborative action. Understanding the relationship between implementation structures and the outcomes is central to designing successful partnerships for sustainability. In the context of sustainable community plan implementation, the larger research project of which the results presented in this book chapter are one part of, examines how stakeholders configure to achieve results. To date, we have the data from a survey completed by 111 local governments around the world. The survey was offered in English, French, Spanish, and Korean. Seventeen integrated environmental, social, and economic topics are considered, including climate change, waste, ecological diversity, and local economy. Despite the prevalence of sustainable community plan implementation in local authorities around the world, there is scant empirical data on the topics covered in these plans internationally, the partners involved in implementation, and the costs and savings to the local governments that implement in partnership with their communities. The results presented in this book chapter show that sustainable community plans continue to be created and implemented in a diversity of communities around the world, are integrated in the sustainability topics that they cover, involve local organizations as partners in implementation, act as motivators of resource investment by the local government in community sustainability, and result in savings for the local government.

Sustainability reporting is increasingly perceived as a valuable tool for organizations to communicate and engage with stakeholders on their sustainability activities and performance. While sustainability reporting is mainly a corporate activity, over the last 10 years some pioneering higher education institutions have started engaging in this process. Yet, until today, the higher education sector is still lacking in-depth guidance on how to organize the sustainability reporting process in complex organizations such as higher education institutions. This paper addresses this gap by describing and analyzing the sustainability reporting process in the preparation of four consecutive sustainability reports (2010–2014) for a Belgian university, led by the business faculty’s sustainability office. The study is aimed at broadening the knowledge on the topic of sustainability reporting in higher education institutions, by unfolding elements of the process and some of its main challenges and opportunities through the use of action research. The paper describes (1) how the Global Reporting Initiative’s Sustainability Guidelines were used; (2) how the data collection and analysis were organized; (3) which types of stakeholder engagement took place within the sustainability reporting process; and (4) how students were involved in the reporting process. Afterward, these different elements are reflected upon and the main challenges of the process are identified, such as the organizational structure of higher education institutions linked to the data collection process and the absence of suitable indicators to report on higher education’s core impacts on society. Moreover, the paper specifically highlights the opportunities for higher education institutions and business faculties to engage in this process, including the use of sustainability reporting as an educational tool and the link with accreditation activities.

This article discusses the importance and influence of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Brazilian context, and makes a comparison of the converging aspects between them. The Brazilian performance regarding the MDGs is fundamental for identifying the challenges of the SDGs implementation in this country. The data presented is based on the Fifth National Monitoring Report of the Millennium Development Goals launched in 2014. These results show that Brazil has succeeded in some aspects. However, it has not reached some of MDGs’ targets that had a fixed due date for 2015, such as achieving a universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; and ensuring environmental sustainability. Therefore, these goals are present in SDGs’ targets, and are characterized as strategic challenges for Brazil in order to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

The commitment to implement the goals for sustainable development places the Sustainable Development Goals implementation challenges at the center of debate since 2015. In this context, companies need to maintain and/or expand their operations in the market seeking to adapt their management practices to meet the new emerging realities. Sustainability is a recent theme in global debates, leading new definitions and redefinitions of corporate policies. Corporate policies gain particular importance in promoting the relationship engaging communities that may be affected in some way by its daily activities. This notion of inclusion deals with the need of rethinking the production’s systems operation that requires reducing environmental exploitation and friendly relationship with communities, as well as keep it as operation economically sustainable. Through exploratory research, it sought to make a conceptual study of the advances and alternatives of the relationship between corporate policies and engagement of communities in decision-making processes, with aim of stimulating society’s debate and interest by this theme that begins to gain visibility within construction’s prospects of the understanding about sustainability. The terms of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent represented a tool that closes an advanced stage of community relations to the extent that human rights are fully respected, considering the minimization of conflict and environmental disasters.

This research study focuses on the potential role of indicators in encouraging engagement with the implementation of the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals. The UN has a pledge and focus on the need for greater engagement at all levels as a key to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Engagement is also a major concern for the higher education sector, both internally with staff and students and externally with stakeholders, for example, across research impact and funding, quality assessment and Higher Education support agencies, with the aim to build collaborative partnerships and increase the capacity for evidence-based impact, public benefit and widening participation. In line with the focus on engagement there is also a need to be able to measure progress made towards the Sustainable Development Goals by the Higher Education sector. However, this paper argues that measurement in the HE sector tends to concentrate on ‘specialist data’ focusing on comparative league tables and key performance indicators, rather than engagement with the global, social and environmental issues of ‘public good’. The research is informed by learning from the application of sustainability indicators at a local level to engage specialist and non-specialist communities, encourage participation, and inform policy and strategy. The paper examines the scope and challenges in the introduction of sustainability indicators in parallel with current sustainability policies, programmes and projects, and makes recommendations for the greater application of indicators across the HE sector to encourage engagement with the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) were produced in 2015 to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Eight of the 17 SDGs address social dimensions of sustainable development, although there are interrelationships between these and environmental, economic and process dimensions. Despite this emphasis on social aspects of sustainable development, sustainability science often neglects social science perspectives. In this paper this neglect will be confronted, and the value of both theoretical and empirical critical social sciences to sustainability science will be explored. With reference to an action research project, it will be argued that the framework of ideology–action–structure complexes is a useful one that can help illuminate the social conditions in which strides to achieving sustainability goals are taken. Some core characteristics of a future sustainability social science will be outlined.

The UN emphasises the importance of collaboration and integrated approaches to effectively implement the SDGs. Much of the action will have to take place locally where municipalities will play an important role in coordinating the efforts towards SDG fulfilment. They are constant local actors close to citizens and they can also influence other actors through their strategies. This paper reflects on how the SDGs can be integrated into existing strategies in order to avoid parallel non-effective processes and to avoid the risk of the SDGs to become marginalised. Furthermore, the paper discusses roles and preconditions of municipalities in the SDG implementation process. This study focuses the implementation of the SDGs into a regional municipality’s strategic planning and management, Region Östergötland, Sweden. The challenges and opportunities connected to implementing the SDGs will be problematized, and the paper gives recommendations on how this type of organisations can implement the SDGs taking advantage from qualities in already existing management and working procedures.

The 17 UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have a clear focus on social issues, mainly on eradicating poverty. This is concluded to be the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for Sustainable Development. Some of the SDGs also include resource use, e.g. water, energy, and sustainable consumption. It is obvious, however, that if developing countries should reach the material standards of the developed countries, it will increase global use of resources dramatically. Western-style consumer lifestyles cannot be sustained globally just by transitions to systems of renewable energy and by producing goods more cleanly and efficiently. One has also to take into account an increasing global population growth, which is mainly expected to take place in developing countries. In this paper this increased resource use is analysed using the IPAT equation. It is shown that, if the UN goals should be reached, and the consumption patterns are similar as today on a global scale, resource consumption will most probably increase dramatically on a global level. This would probably lead to international conflicts and further serious effects on ecosystems. The development in China has been analysed and it is concluded that China cannot be a role model for other developing countries. This is because the Chinese development has been accompanied with huge increases in resource use and environmental degradation. In order to achieve a necessary reduction of our resource use, we need a fundamental change in how our economies deal with natural resources and the services they provide. Basically, this problem has no technical solution, but involves moral and ethics on a global scale. It is important to find ways away from this trend of increasing resource use, when there are still strong economies in the developed countries to support the developing countries. The developing countries will need increasing resources for their development and this will include fossil fuels for a longe perios of time. New pathways for Sustainable Development have to be found before serious international resource conflicts have developed, which will make it difficult to reach global agreements.

The ambitious UN-adopted sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been criticized for being inconsistent, difficult to quantify, implement and monitor. Disparaging analysis suggests that there exists a potential inconsistency in the SDGs, particularly between the socio-economic development and the environmental sustainability goals. Critiques also raise questions on the measurability and monitoring of the broadly framed SDGs. The goals are non-binding, with each country being expected to create their own national or regional plans. Moreover, the source(s) and the extent of the financial resources and investments for the SDGs are ambiguous. This chapter quantifies and examines the inconsistencies of the SDGs. It further inspects which of the underlying social, economic or environmental pillars are that most effective for achieving sustainable development. Analyses of the data reveal that the developed countries need to remain focused on their social and environmental policies. The developing countries, on the other hand, are better off being focused on their economics and social policies in the short run, even though environmental policies remain significant for sustainable development.

In the last three decades, Malaysia has witnessed fast urban growth and spatial spread at a rate never experienced before, in response to overlapping industrial, social, economic and policy drivers. The paper will analyse the urban spatial spread from the productive towns and cities in the country, in particular, taking the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region as focus to demonstrate the spread of urbanization surfaces and the dimension of modernity among the urban people associated with urban life. The approach taken is the framework of the sustainability science, specifying issues and then taking a transdisciplinary stance to those issues. Data were then gathered from published sources supported by our own field observations of urban land use spread in parts of the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region. Despite the increasingly glittering showcasing of the state of the art development in infrastructures, housing and economic diversity there are challenges that the Kuala Lumpur mega urban region has to pay attention to, to make the city livable. Looking beyond the physical achievements to date there remains to develop what has been discussed lately about grooming the soul of the city, to instil the urbanites with globally accepted values related to what we believe should be the essence of a livable city, such that the urbanites will take responsibility to be with the authority to ensure, for example, cleanliness, safety and making the city more vibrant and attractive.

Sustainability awareness plays a crucial role for the practical implementation of sustainable development strategies in a globalised world. Universities have a special responsibility to take over this task within their educational mission according to SDG 4 on Higher Education and Life Long Learning. Subject of the contribution is the upgraded study course “Ecological Engineering” at the University of Applied Sciences Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany. The scientific and educational approach for the development of the upgraded curriculum is highlighted in this paper, starting with the methodology, followed by the description of the steps to an integrated resources management under the Nexus approach as framework. The main objective of the upgrade and revision was the intention to unlock the full potential of the study course for the practical implementation of sustainability for a resource efficient future. In this frame, the further scope of this paper is to highlight how the concept of Ecosystem Services, in the frame of Ecological Engineering and the Nexus approach with consideration of Material Flow Analysis, can facilitate sustainable development through its incorporation into an engineering curriculum.

Malaysian cities have undergone rapid growth over the past four decades. Cities such as Kuala Lumpur continues growing and its population have reached 1.67 million in 2015. As its population increases, a city’s metabolism process quickens, in turn, producing more waste as a by-product. The increasing rate of waste generation has become a critical issue for Malaysian cities, which generated 16,200 tons of waste per day in 2001 compared to 33,000 tons per day in 2012. Hence, managing the waste requires significantly more technological, financial, and human resources as well as land. There is now a need to understand the waste flow and to determine the key factors of sustainable waste management. This study was conducted to analyze factors such as waste generation patterns, technology, and infrastructure as well as the financial, legal, human resource, and waste management systems currently in place. The analyses conducted illustrate that these factors play an important part in controlling waste generation and flow. The findings from these analyses also provide key strategy for managing the waste flow in Malaysian cities such as Kuala Lumpur towards achieving sustainable waste management.

It is well acknowledged that the world’s population is expanding and increasing. According to the United Nations, more than seven billion people inhabited the earth in 2011, and the number is expected to increase to 9.3 billion in 2050. Consequently, for the first time since 2008, more than 50% of the world’s population resides in towns and cities, which is expected to increase to more than 70% by 2050. Similarly, rapid urbanisation in Asian countries is also expected to expand tremendously, and many of the mega-cities will be located in Asia. Malaysia is also experiencing a rapid expansion of urban areas due to economic and business activities. It has been estimated that by 2020, 75% of the total population in Peninsular Malaysia will be residing in urban and city centres. Furthermore, 50% of the Peninsular Malaysian population will be in Kuala Lumpur Extended Mega-Urban Region (EMUR). The rapid pace of expansion and development in urban areas will undoubtedly effect many aspects of sustainable development. Unsustainable consumption of natural resources, water, land and recreational facilities will have detrimental effects on the environment as well as on both economic and social livelihood. Thus, this paper elaborates on the general perspectives of the current status of forests and green areas in the extended mega-urban regions as well as explores the need for future development of urban greening for liveable cities. The development of strategies and solutions are urgently required to assist cities in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs), particularly goal SDG11, which focuses on making cities inclusive, safe, resilient, liveable and sustainable.

The local, state, and federal department goals for housing and community development organizations are to create, strengthen, and sustain communities. This contributes to the enhancement of quality of life and helps to meet the need for affordable housing for all. In the United States, approximately 21.3 million people are spending more than 30% of their monthly income to cover rent; this number is documented as a record high. Financial experts recommend budgeting 30% of monthly income to cover housing costs. Incorporating sustainability into these goals through building science can be the path to achieving green building development, which positively further impacts development of affordable communities. The key concepts and relationships among various disciplines (architecture, engineering, and construction) in the building sciences support advancement in how buildings reduce waste and conserve energy and resources. This paper seeks to inform, involve, and support private and public stakeholders in the field of sustainable development by helping to reduce resource consumption, encouraging the development community to advance the practice of sustainable building science, promoting the improvement of policies affecting these practices, inspiring smart growth, and strengthening affordable community development. This paper also describes how sustainable building science can address concepts of affordability that affect community development. These sustainable development practices offer a holistic approach to advancing the real estate development agenda in our built environment and should ultimately bring us closer to transforming our world by 2030.

Over the last decades, the right to development as well as standards of development assistance evolved. Recently, development assistance concentrates its actions on the elimination of poverty. Analysis of the right to development and international regulations of the development cooperation (UN, EU, OECD, WB) proves that on the basis of the development cooperation, the eradication of poverty became an independent purpose of the international community, and it can be treated as a new international legal obligation. Additionally, on the basis of international law, it can be proved that presently we have two different human rights: the right to (sustainable) development and the right to freedom from (extreme) poverty. They cannot be treated in the same way because those rights relate to different subjects and objects. Everyone has the right to development but not everyone lives in extreme poverty. To make development cooperation more effective, global development cooperation agenda should take this distinction into consideration and provide two different groups of development goals—one which will concentrate on areas where the humanity struggles with the elimination of extreme poverty, and second which will concentrate on areas where sustainable development is needed. Such distinction can make development assistance, especially in the developing countries, more coherent, effective, and transparent.

The sustainable development philosophy can be regarded as the most multi- and interdisciplinary field. On the other hand, climate change, which is relatively a new field, has yet been evolving as another significantly multi- and interdisciplinary field. Both, the sustainable development and climate change have many factors in common ranging from socio-economic to the environment. However, commonality between the two has so far been studied insufficiently. This paper is to advance knowledge in this direction, specifically considering the Climate Change Act 2008 of the UK that legally binds the country to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG). By employing the UK housing sector as a case study, it is demonstrated via numerical calculations that even partly insulating the existing UK housing stock, legal targets of the Act can almost be met for that sector. Links are also drawn between climate change and sustainable development and that how addressing climate change can directly and indirectly help meeting the national sustainability agenda.

The philosophy of lean production is widely used around the world. It is based on the creation of a production system for client satisfaction, minimization of losses, and energy efficiency. It is in consent with the objectives, defined by the Goal 12 of the Agenda (Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development, 2015) for Sustainable Development: achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources, achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycles, and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil in order to minimize their adverse impacts on human health and the environment, and substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling, and reuse. The present paper analyzes the relationship between the lean production concept and the demands of ISO 9001––Quality management, ISO 14001––Environmental management Systems, ISO 50001––Energy management, ISO 45001––Occupational health and safety, etc., standards of management, as well as their impact on the realization of the Agenda 2030 objectives. The results of analyses show that the implementation of the ISO standards in enterprises practice helps them to introduce lean production systems and move towards sustainability.

A quarter of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) originate from the transportation sector. Continuously increasing demand for transportation services worldwide is one of the main urban challenges addressed by Sustainable Development Goal 11, target 2. One way to address this issue is to develop an integrated transportation system that can ensure confidence and comfort for the passengers. This will contribute not only to the customers’ experience but also to operators and authorities through sustainable, cost-effective, and profitable services. Conversely, the lack of such a system or a poorly managed system prevents the economy and society from realizing its potential. In the transition towards sustainability, the planning process of complex systems such as transportation often requires supportive tools and methods, such as futures methodologies that assist decision-making by providing information about possible futures. In today’s rapidly changing environment, forecasting tools do not always provide the expected outcomes since it is difficult to predict all the unexpected events. Therefore, there is a demand for alternative methods that not only grasp the constant changes but also create additional value (for example, meeting the needs of multisectoral collaboration and creation of common vision). The present article investigates the usefulness of three such methodologies, namely backcasting, foresighting, and SymbioCity, for the planning process of the bus park and railway station in Kisumu, Kenya, and Centralen in Gothenburg, Sweden. The paper’s contribution is a description of the Kenyan transportation system (which has not been studied in detail before), planning process, and pertinent issues related to the stations both in Kisumu and Gothenburg, located in the sharply contrasting contexts of global South and global North, respectively. On the basis of field research, interviews, and feasibility study of futures methodologies, the paper concludes that backcasting is the most suitable of the methodologies for both places, since it can be applied at a small scale, and provides creative solutions and has a high level of integration of stakeholders. Furthermore, the paper examines the application of the futures methodologies in multisectoral urban transitions apart from transportation and draws conclusion on what can be learnt from it.

Human resource department has been challenged to shift their role to include environmental management. This paper highlights the importance and benefits of practicing green human resource management in universities through the investigation of green human resource at a case site Divine Word University Papua New Guinea. The study of green human resource management has been limited to corporate organizations and not educational institutions. The study addresses Green HRM from an institutional perspective. This study engaged mixed methods using case study as the strategy. A vast majority of DWU staff and students have expressed the need for their institution to do more on sustainability education. The findings from the study on Green Human Resource Management (GHRM) at Divine Word University revealed that departments are not fully integrated like the Egg of sustainability and well-being. This paper has added a new insight to the body of knowledge that greening in a university and green human resource management in organizations and application of green human resource management at an institution are necessary and important to environmental sustainability.

Developing countries continue to struggle to achieve sustainable lifestyles, poverty alleviation, and economic development. Increasing the quantity and quality of consumption generally also means increasing emissions of greenhouse gases and other environmental impacts. The world has recognized the need to decouple economic development (i.e., elevation of the standard of living in developing countries) and resource consumption, but the way to do so remains unclear. The relationship between economic growth and environmental impacts is often discussed in the context of the Kuznets curve, which expresses the development path as an inverted U. One of the ways to decouple that has been discussed in this context is “leap-frogging,” in which developing countries skip (or “compress”) the period of higher environmental impacts in their developmental paths. Structural changes in a country’s industrial sectors are important in this context, including investment in infrastructure, investment in technological innovation, and investment in human resource development (education). The aim of this study was to explore ways to skip the so-called “dirty stages” of development and examine issues related to the “compressed development” concept in the Southeast Asian region, with a particular emphasis on the role of education. To this end, a case study was conducted in Thailand, a relatively newly developed country, in August 2016. A total of 15 individuals were interviewed in Bangkok and Chiang Mai about their current standards of living, social networks, views on education, and future aspirations. The interviewees were from urban and rural areas from five social and economic classes (SECs). Across regional and income categories, (1) people expressed the importance of education in pursuing better lives in the future; (2) people (especially those in the lower SECs) owned more household equipment than we expected, including smart phones, which allowed them access to social networking services and online news; and (3) family was reported as an important safety net, especially for people in lower SECs. In addition, current Thai social, political, and economic conditions influenced people’s perceptions of their “hopes for the future.”

The foundry industry is counted among the energy- and resource-intensive industries, and thus an important contributor to impacts on climate change. On a global level, the production of casting parts is expected to increase, with China, USA and India as the main cast producers, and the automotive sector as the main purchaser. While the production of castings is one of the oldest production processes in human history, there are still weaknesses regarding sustainable operations, amongst others due to the asset intensity and different energy cost situations on global level. Political and legislative actions were taken to force sustainable practices in Europe, which means a challenge and a responsibility for foundries at the same time, to adapt their processes, and to adopt sustainability and efficiency management. This paper describes a systematic model approach combining a synthesis of top-down and bottom-up analyses and establishing sustainable practices in foundries. The approach follows the Plan–Do–Check–Act cycle and allows to identify and capture energy and resource efficiency potential while considering life cycle aspects within a highly specific and complex industry. The paper also highlights the importance of transdisciplinary collaboration regarding the realization of sector-specific energy efficiency and integrated into value chain networks. The benefit of the approach is its application on different sustainability maturity levels, and its potential to be adopted in different energy- and resource-intensive industries.

In order to make use of the significant potential of the science of sustainability, it is crucial to further develop the science system and especially the subject “sustainability” at universities. Transformation knowledge, as well as trans-disciplinary cooperation, will have to play an important role in science. An integrative and interdisciplinary approach is necessary to establish an education for sustainable development. Environmental consciousness and social aspects cannot simply be added to existing subjects. According to sustainable development, both should be a recurring theme in the whole course of studies right from the start. To be able to cope with the challenges of the twenty-first century on a national and international level, it is important to encourage a scientific culture that works on the future problems of our society across the borders of special disciplines. The key elements to achieve a “highly efficient zero emission university” are the networking of all involved actors, the development of renewable energies, participation in sustainable education as well as the improvement of existing systems. This will be exemplified by the Environmental Campus Birkenfeld, which was founded in 1996. This campus can be considered Europe’s first Zero-Emission Campus and is one of Germany’s greenest universities.

To illustrate the practical application of the concept of sustainable development in the context of ecological crisis, this paper used a phenomenological method that is centered on the understanding of prevailing philosophies, orientations, and experiences existing in the locus of study—St. John Paul II Village in Infanta, Quezon. The St. John Paul II Village mainly houses the poor victims of the 2004 flash flood. These victims consist of families whose heads are mostly subsistence farmers and fishermen. Almost 1000 people died and at least 450 others went missing as huge logs and other forest debris rapidly flowed down from the Sierra Madre mountain range and bulldozed entire communities. Moved by the people’s depressing condition, the local church of the Prelature of Infanta sought help from individuals and organizations to build St. John Paul II Village and help people regain their livelihoods. The people live with a common aspiration: to live in a harmonious community far away from environmental tragedies and problems. The researcher listened and reflected thematically on the indigenous environmental virtues that emerged and were articulated out of the lived experiences of his co-researchers. The researcher’s eidetic insight recognized his co-researchers’ practice of indigenous environmental virtues as a way to holistic spirituality which finds its expression towards sustainable development, and hence, contributes to the implementation of the SDGs.

Cities play an important role in forwarding sustainability. In Sweden, municipalities have a monopoly on spatial planning and are, therefore, key actors for developing sustainable cities. Through integrating sustainability concerns early in the planning processes they have a significant possibility to have an impact on other actors’ towards increased sustainability. The aim of this paper is to discuss a process for how sustainability concerns can be addressed in municipalities’ spatial planning. It is based on experiences from an on-going planning process in Linköping, Sweden. There is a rapid increase in the number of index-based assessment and planning tools for sustainable cities (e.g. BREEAM communities, LEED neighbourhood, CASBEE-City). In Sweden, there is a newly developed tool: Citylab action, which has clear connections to the UN sustainable development goals. However, from a city planning perspective the existing tools are often complex and lack conformity with other municipal processes. There is therefore a need for municipalities to reflect on which tools that are useful, what the local needs for support are, and to develop inclusive and broad planning processes with a broad systems perspective in which actor involvement is key, and where the city’s overall strategies and policies, as well as national and international goals, are clearly disseminated.

Understanding what marketing messages trigger sustainable consumer behavior is one of the key issues for companies to be able to design effective green marketing. The goal of this paper is to present a conceptual framework for a green marketing approach that includes product, industry, production processes, and supply chain specific considerations to be utilized in the design of green product marketing for the mass markets. Based on a literature review, we have created a conceptual framework with industry-specific aspects on the basis of unique features in seven industrial sectors that are of relevance to the personal needs of consumers from an environmental perspective, but are focusing on the product-specific aspects of the marketed products. The originality of this study lies in the proposition that green marketing should use the actual product features as a starting point and not focus only on green consumers. The greenness of a product should be an additional dimension that adds to the competitiveness of the product when compared to conventional products. Theoretically, we propose that a transdisciplinary approach that integrates sustainable supply chain management perspectives to green marketing would benefit companies designing green marketing approaches and consumers making green product choices.

This article discusses a conceptual framework for developing environmental awareness among the Malaysian people via sustainable development principles and the dialogic change model. The conceptual model was developed based on the principles of the integrated pillars in sustainable development and the dialogic change model. Two main component data were used: awareness campaign activities data and complaints data. The awareness campaign hard data were obtained from the various government agencies that contain the awareness campaign activities such as the Town and Country Planning Department (TCPD), the Department of Environment (DoE), and the Ministry of Health (MoH), among others, for the past 10 years (2005–2015). The complaints data were gathered from the Selayang Municipal Council (Majlis Perbandaran Selayang—MPS). Generally, people are more aware of the changes that take place in the urban ecosystems as the recipients of rules or policies made by authorities. The level of awareness among the Malaysian people now has improved. The people take action through the Municipal Council via telephone calls, face-to-face complaints and emails. This article uses the complaints by the residents in the MPS, which is located in the Selangor State, as a case study to investigate the level of awareness and actions taken by urbanites in urban areas. The main findings of the study are issues related to cleanliness of the resident’s area and maintenance, among others, and the major implications for planning policy and ecosystem resilience will be drawn in this article.

The augmented Solow human-capital-growth model by Mankiw, Romer and Weil is used to examine the influence of the product of human capital development and labour force and other variables on gross domestic product growth rate in Nigeria, using quarterly time series data between 2000q1 and 2015q4. The study reveal that the lag of gross domestic growth rate, lag of log of the product of human capital development and labour force and that of gross capital formation explained the dependent variable significantly. This is an indication that, the treatment variables are important in improving and sustaining the gross domestic product growth rate in Nigeria irrespective of their signs. The study outcomes further show the existence of long-run relationships among the variables. The study therefore, recommends the need for government and policy makers to give preference to qualitative human capital development. Besides, enabling economic and business environments that would guarantee macro-economic stability should be vigorously pursued. That said foreign investors would be attracted to invest in the nation’s economy. Ohioze Wilson Friday is a lecturer in the Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, National Open University of Nigeria. He is a member of the Nigerian Economic Society (NES). His erudite works have been published in top Nigerian journals. His research interest is in Health and Public Sector Economics with special focus on Healthcare financing.

The Center for a Sustainable University at the University of Hamburg, Germany (UHH), is an interdisciplinary institution wherein various university stakeholders work together towards creating a “University for a Sustainable Future”. Thus, it is an example for addressing processes of sustainable development according to the whole institutional approach outlined by the UNESCO’s Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Moreover, the UHH Center for a Sustainable University is a field of application for sustainability-oriented organizational development. In this paper, the UHH Center for a Sustainable University is introduced and serves as a case study: First, a linkage between ESD and innovation processes is drawn and the advantage of organizational development for sustainability as a specific working domain is discussed. Second, barriers for sustainability-orientated transformation at higher education institutions are identified: Different barriers which emerge during the day-to-day business of the Center for a Sustainable University will be examined and deliberated. Finally, particular tools that might help to overcome these barriers are presented. In September 2015 the UN agreed on global goals for sustainable development (United Nations in Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development, 2015), and the UNESCO’s roadmap on education for sustainable development highlights the importance of learning and training for transforming our world in a social responsible and sustainable way (UNESCO in UNESCO roadmap for implementing the global action programme on education for sustainable development, 2014). Obviously, the awareness for sustainability-related topics increases—in society in general as well as in science and at higher education institutions (cf. Leal Filho and Zint in The contribution of social sciences to sustainable development at universities. Springer, Basel, 2016; Lozano et al. in J Clean Prod 108:1–18, 2015; Schneidewind and Singer-Brodowski in Transformative Wissenschaft: Klimawandel im deutschen Wissenschafts- und Hochschulsystem—Transformative Science—Climate Change in the German scientific and university system. Metropolis, Marburg, 2013). Whereas numerous good practice projects and initiatives have been set up and collected that showcase “green campus development” (e.g. Bellantuono et al. in Introducing the Graphical Assessment of Universities’ Sustainable Image (GAUSI) instrument: A marketing tool. Springer, Switzerland, pp. 213–228, 2016; Finlay and Massey in Int J Sustain High Educ 13(2):150–165, 2012; Atherton and Giurco in Int J Sustain High Educ 12(3):269–279, 2011) and the contribution of research and science to various problems that come along with climate change (cf. IPCC in Summary for policymakers. Climate change 2013. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2013; Costanza et al. in Sustainability or collapse?: An integrated history and future of people on earth. MIT Press in cooperation with Dahlem University Press, Cambridge, 2007) the question of how to institutionalize integrated sustainability-related activities at organizations—and especially at universities as “cultural reference points for their communities” (Paleari et al. in J Technol Transf 40(3):369–379, 2015, p. 369)—is addressed only recently. How can structures for sustainable development at higher education institutions (HEIs) be established that incorporate all stakeholders and that help to engage in sustainability-promoting behavior at all levels? Whole-institution approaches (WIAs) are in demand (UNESCO in UNESCO roadmap for implementing the global action programme on education for sustainable development, 2014), yet theoretical and practical frameworks for fostering sustainability-related motivation and behavior in vocational settings at HEIs are sparse. Systematic methods as well as methodologies that can be used to realize WIAs haven’t been developed and explored sufficiently so far. Drawing from the experience of the Center for a Sustainable University (KNU) at the University of Hamburg (UHH)—one of Germany’s largest Universities with more than 40,000 students and 5000 members of staff (Präsidium der Universität Hamburg 2016)—this paper introduces tools and methods for targeting a whole-institution approach in order to generate and strengthen transformational processes toward sustainability.

Rural Development is a fundamental point in the action plans by the United Nations: the Sustainable Development Goal 2 of the Post-2015 Development Agenda attests the importance of increasing investment and international cooperation to end hunger and achieve food security (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf). The relevance of this topic makes Scalability and Replicability essential to the successful of the projects that deal with Rural Development. This research is facing the Rural Development through the Systemic Design approach, and its outcomes are models that enable the possibility to replicate projects and processes (Holocombe in Lessons from practice: Assessing scalability. World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012). The concept of Scalability helps to define the boundaries and the limits of the project in order to grow up the benefits for the territory as much as possible, but without exploiting it. The Replicability, defined as the property of an activity, process or test result that allows it to be duplicated at another location or time, it helps to consider the key elements of a project that can have the same role in other contexts. This paper wants to investigate how should Replicability and Scalability become with the application of Systemic Design Approach in a specific context.

This paper describes the experience of a participatory process that has driven the development of rural communities facing water shortages, demonstrating that collaborative work is key to solve challenges and to achieve a sustainable development. In particular, the paper shows the Manglaralto’s participatory process methodology including social, economic, environmental and cultural sustainability areas, and the technical and social adaptations and interactions that have been implemented. The aim of this paper is to describe with facts and events the participatory process and its impact on water management in Manglaralto in order to contribute to the creation of a long-term integrity of natural resources and human well-being. This participatory process has been considered a global example because it was a joint effort between stakeholders, like Manglaralto communities, the Board of Water Regional Manglaralto, International Atomic Energy Agency and the Academic Community-Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral. The main results of the participatory process have been the water satisfaction for the growing demand, the integration of technical knowledge with ancestral knowledge such as the rescue of ancestral techniques like “tapes” (dykes), the work of the water board at the technical limits of aquifer capacity, avoiding its overexploitation; and the communities’ empowerment in water management.

Implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted at the UN Summit in September 2015 specifically invites the creation of “an integrated, holistic, multi-stakeholder approach”. This implies the need for systems thinking in practice, a tradition that draws on systems theories, tools and techniques able to facilitate better conversation and cooperation between agencies. As an approach it goes beyond development of competencies through formal education programmes. This paper focuses on SDG 17—the means of implementation—and the role of systems thinking in practice for supporting both competence and SDG implementation capability. Two inter-linked initiatives led by systems thinking practitioners in the field of sustainability science are reported; one is an action research inquiry exploring the praxis (theory-informed-action) challenges of applying systems thinking in practice in contemporary workplaces ranging from in-field development projects to government administrations and business ventures, and another which built on the findings from this inquiry—a proposal for developing an action-learning platform for SDG implementation. Experience suggests that implementing SDGs requires not only competence in systems thinking but a capability of putting systems thinking into practice in a dynamic way, as praxis. The proposed action-learning platform can also be regarded as a learning laboratory in the sense that it will offer learning support and a chance to collaborate and experiment. This platform aims to be co-designed with multi-agency practitioners from international development, government planning, business/social enterprise and NGOs. The proposed platform draws on open-source resources, and ideas of social learning, developmental evaluation and systems thinking in practice traditions.

The ‘Grand Challenges’ of our times, like climate change, resource depletion, global inequity and the destruction of wildlife and biodiversity can only be addressed by innovating cities. This paper will analyse major options for innovating cities, main barriers for these innovations that are rooted in the paradigms of the experts running urban systems and educational reforms that might contribute overcoming these barriers.

Fish, the largest source of animal protein in the world, has long been one of the most important foods in the history of humanity. Its contribution to nutritional, economic and social well-being has been a pivotal factor in facilitating population growth over many hundreds of millennia. With population growth predicted to exceed 9 billion by 2050, its continued availability will be essential in taking humanity forwards. As far as sustainable development is concerned, a significant number of studies have suggested the more recent history of fishing is one of over-exploitation, pollution, nutritional inconsistency, depletion, local extinctions and imminent crisis. The incentive-driven free market for fish has encouraged efficiency and industrial scale production. Calculations of fish stocks are mostly based on United Nations data, but the accuracy of this data has also been called into question. As international and national governance failed to deliver effective fisheries management, these have largely been replaced by a proliferation of market-based certification schemes. This paper explores the more recent evidence in order to understand the key challenges of producing fish sustainably. The purpose is to understand how sustainable fish consumption is today. Specifically, it will attempt to investigate the scope and size of the challenges facing the sector, and critically appraise the management strategies currently in place to ensure that the Sustainable Development Goal is met. It will then assess the effectiveness of those organisations charged with governing the sector and attempt to ascertain the extent to which the consumer is aware of the challenges and how this influences seafood purchasing behaviour.

In response to the growing concerns of global environmental damage and resource depletion, UN launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. Using SDGs to develop sustainable systems and practices requires tools that link goals and actions. This study provides a systems engineering framework to operationalize SDGs and develop strategies to attain goals and targets. The approach is based on a multidisciplinary process initiated by system and stakeholder analysis before developing sustainability goals, targets and indicators. These are used to identify and analyze strategies for system improvement. A case study using SDGs to improve fishing gear resource management (FGRM) is provided to illustrate the framework. The study shows that the proposed framework may assist decision-makers in translating SDGs to improved practices in a consistent, traceable and transparent manner.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Summit 2015 adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which reveal the need for the integration of the three main dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social, and environmental. Sustainability is often cited as a reason to build transportation infrastructure such as high-speed rail. A transport CBA that integrates economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits is needed to support these claims. Most transport CBAs ignore or pay little attention to the life cycle costs and benefits over the life of the project. In order to avoid potentially misleading results, the infrastructure project must be examined over the entire life of the project. In transport CBAs, the environmental impacts are only considered during the operation phase. The aim of this research is to account for the environmental impacts for the entire life cycle of the project and better reflecting the costs and benefits of the project throughout its entire life cycle. Transforming CBA to include a life cycle perspective will be accomplished by performing, monetizing, and including a life cycle assessment (LCA) into the CBA finally tying economic, social, and environmental impacts into a single project evaluation tool.

This paper proposes the concept design of a novel Localised Rapid Flood Vulnerability Index. This proposed index has been initially tested and applied to a specific locale in Somerset, UK. The early analysis demonstrates that flood vulnerability may be unique to an individual location, despite the flood risk being considered the same for identical adjacent properties. Interpretation of these findings should provide increases in understanding of the interaction between the socio-economic and natural environmental requirements and overall flood vulnerability at a localised level. This initial research demonstrates the need for a rapid and cost effective flood vulnerability assessment tool at the localised scale.

The transition to sustainable development has become a strategic line of action that increasingly finds links to the quality of higher education (HE). A growing number of HE accreditation agencies include sustainability as a criterion for their standards and assessments, with a consideration of the degree of “curricular sustainability” of programmes, i.e. the extent to which contents, principles and values of sustainable development are present in HE formative processes. These aspects are directly related to the teaching practice of lecturers, and constitute the focus of this work. This research is currently being conducted at Hull University Business School (HUBS) with the aim of understanding the degree of coherence between the teaching practice of lecturers and the principles and values of sustainable development. It aims to evaluate such teaching practice from lecturers’ own perceptions in order to identify shortcomings and provide HUBS with information that can support future improvement. It is an empirical descriptive study whose variables are established from the quality standards of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), and taking into account the recommendations of the UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) to implement education for sustainable development at higher education level. The results support the need to promote the role of lecturers as “change agents” for sustainability and show that there is a group of lecturers who could be motivated to build learning networks for curricular sustainability.

Education and environmental sustainability are issues of great importance. Both are intertwined and cannot be meaningfully discussed in isolation. Nevertheless, it is education that serves the cause towards environmental sustainability. This would suggest that education in itself is incomplete if it fails to firmly integrate environmental sustainability within its agenda. A closer look at the SDGs suggests that the notion of environmental sustainability is not expressly integrated within Goal 4 on education (“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”). While numerous points elaborate the individual targets, SDG Goal 4 makes no single explicit reference to any concern related to environmental sustainability. This raises a number of important questions. If environmental sustainability is not even embedded within the goal, can education be expected to deliver environmental sustainability outcomes? Do the SDGs, in aiming for “sustainable development”, predominantly refer to economic development, merely sustained over time and space? Are policy makers and development professionals in danger of inadvertently divorcing the inalienable union that education has with environmental sustainability? Is the sustainable development agenda risking diluting the fundamental basis—environmental sustainability—upon which it was originally articulated (Brundtland Report in Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our common future 1987)? These are enquiries the research addresses. This paper is informed by an analysis of expert literature, including a systematic keyword search, and field research conducted in Bangladesh.

Since October 2011, we offer an optional course “CookUOS—Cooking in context of health literacy and education for sustainable development” at University of Osnabrueck assuming, that cooking and eating is a feasible method to convey ESD by combining theory with an emotional activity everybody knows (Neumann et al. 2016). CookUOS works as a “bus” to pitch science to the participants. They develop figurative and decision-making competencies, self-responsibility and self-efficiency by practice-related tasks. During interdisciplinary colloquia, CookUOS initiates by means of an obligate transdisciplinary change of perspectives a multiprofessional and interdisciplinary exchange between the participants. This paper votes for the implementation of more theory practice-based approaches in higher education to recruit multipliers. A cooking course following theoretical lectures in the curricula of higher education fosters knowledge, competencies and skills we need now and in the future to achieve ambitious agenda 2030 aims. An overview of a 6-year experience analyses pitfalls and succeeding. It furthermore points out opportunities for research as well as options to promote a transfer of knowledge within this process to society to society and vice versa.

The need to ensure that learners acquire the knowledge and skills required to promote sustainable development and evolving preferences for experiential and collaborative learning within higher education are reshaping approaches to education for sustainability. In response the sustainable strategies game seeks to provide experiential game-based learning and teaching for business sustainability within Worcester Business School. The sustainable strategies game aims to stimulate collaborative engagement in business strategy making that promotes sustainability literacy skills, the adoption of sustainable practices, the sustainable use of common resources (freshwater) and encourages students to explore the equitable sharing of benefits gained from the use of this generic resource. This paper presents qualitative evidence from research conducted into student perceptions’ of the effectiveness of SSG as a new way to learn and think about business sustainability. It utilises the HEA framework for engagement through partnership and the framework for engagement in game-based learning and teaching to explore the value the sustainable strategies game has for experiential and collaborative learning for education for sustainability and its ability to engage students in the complexities of integrating social, environmental and economic impacts of consuming natural resources within business operations. The findings suggest that the sustainable strategies game provides an entertaining learning environment that challenges sustainability thinking and behaviours and encourages students to engage with the key principles of business sustainability and investigate business strategies that carry less impact on society and the environment.

Business schools are more and more thinking about innovative ways to integrate sustainability into the curriculum. The Summer School Sustainable Management was developed by the close collaboration between three Belgian organizations, i.e., KU Leuven, a university, Odisee, University College, an institution for higher education of professional level, and VOKA Oost-Vlaanderen, a chamber of commerce, with that particular aim. Participants came from institutions of higher education, companies, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The delegates were especially attracted by the format of the summer school, i.e., people coming from diverse backgrounds working together on a sustainable challenge formulated by SMEs. The most important conclusion is that solving real-world learning cases by a diverse group composed of students, managers, and NGOs representatives is helpful for fostering collaborative competencies, on the condition that the group is as diverse as possible. Moreover, students are eager to attend when they can add this experience to their academic portfolio or when they can gain credits. Managers and NGOs representatives will be motivated to participate when the summer school is limited in time and when the sustainable challenges are of relevance to them. When several alternative learning approaches are integrated, a summer school can also stimulate the competency for creativity, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary work.

Research (Davis, Elliot, Hagglung, Johansson, Ritchie, Miller, Inoue, Chua, Sageidet, Young, Cutter-Mackenzie, Ji, Stuhmcke, Mackey, Ohillips, Enggahl, Arlemalm–Hagser, Barrat, Barrat–Hacking, Black, Chawla, Rivkin, Gorman, Sundberg, Ottander, Gilbert, Fuller, Palmer, Rose, Farrell, Danby, 2014) has indicated that very young children are capable of supporting the Agenda for Global Action through transformative and creative pedagogical approaches utilised through their environments, that are informed and practiced by knowledgeable early education practitioners and leaders. The early years offers multiple opportunities to surround young children with the awe and wonder of their world, linking to their local cultures, as they seek to question, challenge and access possibilities to transform their families and communities. Beach Kindy utilises the natural environment of the coastline, at sites that demonstrate the biodiversity of the planet. Water, for example, is recognised not only as an effective medium and tool for education for sustainable development but also its immense capacity to support holistic, interconnected areas within early childhood education. However, it is acknowledged that this approach is not without challenges. The four home nations that make up the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland Scotland and Wales) have distinct early years curriculum frameworks and this paper focuses on the English framework, The Early Years Foundation Stage (The Department of Education (DfE) (2014). The DfE (2014) imposes what is perceived by many as a linear statutory framework and policy makers must try to move towards embedding education for sustainable development and encourage more flexible, creative approaches to learning. The English Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS, DFE 2014) statutory guidance focuses on three Prime areas, (Communication and Language, Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development and four Specific areas including, Understanding the World (UW). This Specific area (UW), presents a renewed emphasis on a ‘concentric approach to learning’ (Tickell in The early years: foundations for life health and learning (Tickell review), DfE, London 2011, p. 104) where children are guided to ‘make sense of their physical world and their community through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places, technology and the environment’ (DfE 2014, p. 8). Children can become young scientists, utilising the coastlines and becoming “ocean literate”. Early education practitioners can thus provide “a platform to channel their infinite capacities for activism into the creation of a better world”. (2015, p. 12). This paper seeks to explore how Beach Kindy can help implement both the Sustainable Development Goals and the scientific approaches embedded within UW, whilst also recognising the challenges that it may bring.

‘Perception’ plays an influential role in policy formulation, implementation, and monitoring. It varies between individuals, communities, and administrative levels, and in degrees of importance. Furthermore, perception can be good or bad, positive or negative, yes or no, right or wrong, belief or disbelief, or even true or false. In parallel to perception, ‘skepticism’ is referred to in literature and practice, and is a corollary to understanding human interaction in environmental communication. A review of the perception-associated literature and anecdotes collected from researchers and practitioners reveals that there is no clear definition of the remit of these two terms. At least not when it comes down to research and its application in controversial topics and scenarios cropping from sustainable development and climate change, which are two of the most multi- and interdisciplinary fields in their own individual right. The purpose of the paper is to identify and propose the definitional boundaries between perception and skepticism in a systematic manner, and propose a conceptual model in the form of a schematic. Based on illustrative case studies, the paper also paves a path for further research areas in which the conceptual model can be applied to real-world scenarios for testing and sensitivity analysis, whereas such scenarios can come from the multi- and interdisciplinary fields of sustainability and climate change. This way, the environmental communication can be rendered more effective and efficient between diverse and wide range of stakeholders, particularly including decision makers. The paper also concludes that skepticism is relatively a newer term as opposed to perception needing to be carefully employed and, not confused and readily interchangeably used with perception.

Since the concept establishment of education for sustainable development, many higher education institutions are challenged to change their curriculum from a profit maximization to a triple bottom line paradigm. This paper aims to discuss the different strategies that universities adopt to encompass sustainable development into business curriculum. This analysis will provide key elements for a theoretical framework building. Considering the Six Principles for a Responsible Management Education proposed by the United Nations Global Compact, a comparative case study is designed with two Brazilian universities: PUCPR and IMED. In-depth interviews, direct observation and formal documents were used, and data analysis were performed through content analysis. Results show that in business schools, “sustainability” still has some weaknesses in relation to the understanding about the synergy of management and sustainability. In sum, this work analyzes the dimensions of management education focused on sustainability; provides a broad understanding of the main drivers for a sustainable perspective adoption; and offers significant insights for universities to perform sustainability in a holistic way. Our theoretical framework may guide future studies by understanding connections between dimensions and components of management education, from a sustainable perspective.

Despite several decades of Education for Sustainable Development, it seems that there is still no massive transition in (individual) consumer behaviour from ‘unbridled’ to sustainable and thus so that we still notice an absence of widespread responsible lifestyles. It has been documented numerous times that there is a gap between knowledge of and positive attitude towards addressing unsustainable behaviours, and the actual individual’s behaviour when it comes to sustainable lifestyles. The question now is: what is causing this gap? Our research focuses on the different factors that influence sustainable (consumer) behaviour changes. We will use psychoanalytical models (Lacan) to try and find out how satisfaction of materialistic needs works, the effect of consumption patterns on the brain, the impact of political and ideological influences on behaviour(al changes),… The goal is to create a systems model that would allow us to better understand consumer behaviour and that hopefully will bring suggestions on how to change education models for sustainable development. The research will use a multidisciplinary approach and hopes to explain why behaviour is so hard to change and why current programmes (such as the 4E and 7E-model) based on cognitive behavioural therapy are not as effective.

The competitive environment for new graduates to acquire a well-paid and satisfying job position and the long-standing gap between recent university graduates and business requirements as to the skills of these graduates, lead to the creation of a Sectoral Education Program model, involving seven different courses with various learning methods ranging from guest speakers, industry analyses and case studies to company practicum projects. The Sectoral Education Program model is a mandatory part of the curriculum for business students and electives for all other students university wide. Emphasized by the launch of sustainable development goals and trying to find complementary and comprehensive examples of innovative tools for private sector–university partnerships, this continuously developing model accepted one of the foci of the program as sustainable development and devised solutions that embed the teaching of sustainable development principles aligning them with concerns of business. In the embedded approach, the curriculum regarding local sectoral expertise, the crosscutting issues for all sectors from population dynamics, resource scarcity to climate change and even big data are being discussed. Over the three semesters of teaching local sectoral expertise in the light of crosscutting issues, students’ feedbacks have been recorded. Main results show that for university students the phrase sustainability is being overused but still the connotation to the real-world cannot be established. By embedding sustainable development principles directly aligned with the concerns of business sectors, majority of the students think that this know-how would be a skill for them in their future prospects.

The 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development lists ending poverty and hunger, achieving food security and promoting sustainable agriculture as its first two goals for transforming our world. The accomplishment of these goals requires individuals who can think critically about our current food systems. Since 2013, professors at Allegheny College have taught a food and agriculture course entitled Soil to Plate to address questions related to agriculture and food security. The 15-week course covers sustainable farming practices, soil fertility, pest management, and the factors that influence access to high quality food. Methods of introducing content are multi-modal: field trips, lectures, discussions, guest speakers, cooking lessons, and skype sessions with experts around the world. Weekly field trips are taken to small, medium, and large-scale farms, food processing facilities, food pantries, community gardens, and grocery markets. The course addresses issues of nutrition, food security, food production, poverty, and environmental sustainability applicable to rural Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world. This paper describes our methodology and the tangible outcomes students and graduates have achieved in support of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

Green or sustainable schools are an important building type from which to explore questions of changing social behaviors and the often overlooked social dimensions of sustainable development such as equity and inclusion. Building performance studies, including post-occupancy evaluations (POE) are increasingly taking into account behavioral and social dimensions of the build environment, as well as the more common objectives of reductions in energy efficiency, and adopting ethnographic and art-based research methodologies to examine building users’ interaction with their environments. In this paper we examine contemporary evaluation methods in the context of school buildings to explore how some popular POE approaches imply only superficial objectives for green building. The need to create new habits of living and the role of the built environment in this task goes without question; but confronting scientific methods and engineering perspectives typical within the industry, meets professional barriers. In order to improve commonly adopted POE methods in the context of sustainable building, it is important that we are able to contest the meaning of sustainable design and include evaluation tools that have radical educational and transformative objectives, in particular those that allow communities to explore futures that demand both social and technical change. This paper suggests that through user feedback, architects and other building professionals have not only important tools to improve the performance of sustainable buildings, but also to confront the limited expectations of architects and engage users in a sustainable future. POE tools are educational and in listening to users, co-researching ways to transform environments, architects can transform their approaches to sustainable design.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes that the achievement of sustainable development is a shared responsibility among all countries and among all actors from the public and the private sectors. How the world would look like in 2030 will greatly depend on how different development actors come together, and how they find new ways of partnering. The SDG Fund supports the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development by implementing the innovative joint programmes and focuses on public–private partnerships to accelerate the achievement of SDGs in more than 20 countries. The SDG Fund promotes the universality of action where all actors need to play a role by engaging two new actors that are gaining new ground with the SDGs: private sector and universities. The goal of this paper is to analyze the experience of the SDG Fund to accelerate progress towards the SDGs through the partnerships with new development actors. The paper will analyze the innovative approach to work with new partners (private sector and universities) and their contribution to the SDGs. The methodology of this paper is based on case study analysis of innovative on-going joint programmes of the SDG Fund in three countries: Peru, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka. Private sector has a critical role to play in accelerating the achievement of the SDGs by promoting public–private partnerships, social investments and corporate social responsibility. Promotion of greater participation of universities for the achievement of the SDGs through their involvement in development projects is another initiative of the SDG Fund. Under the universality approach, the main objective of the SDG Fund is to bring together UN agencies, national governments, civil society, and academia as well as business to address the challenges of sustainable development. Results from monitoring reports of the SDG Fund in Peru, Sri Lanka and Sierra Leone demonstrated how integrated efforts of new development actors can contribute towards a common goal. Through public–private partnerships, the private sector and universities are directly involved in carrying out important programme activities to increase the ownership and sustainability of development results. Practical examples and success stories of the SDG Fund working with the private sector and universities clearly demonstrate that participation of these actors has tremendous potential to contribute to the SDGs. Moreover, the contributions of these development actors, according to their area of competence, expertise and capacity, increase national ownership and sustainability of results. The findings of qualitative analysis suggest that there is a need to continue engaging new partners and pilot innovative initiatives of the SDG Fund have high potential to be replicated and scaled up. Therefore, the SDG Fund has a unique role in the transformation of the international partnerships landscape by bringing new actors to support sustainable development activities. This paper will be useful to academics, researchers and development practitioners around the world to raise awareness about the universality of the 2030 agenda and the role of the private sector and universities to play in accelerating the achievement of the SDGs.

This paper introduces the World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre, a new initiative to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The rationale behind the Centre is outlined, and its activities are described.