How can universities contribute to achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals? From research to mitigate the climate crisis to teaching through an SDG lens, academics share strategies


Sustainable Development Goals

Increasing concern with how corporate activity interacts with environmental and societal development has led to a rise in sustainability reporting since the 1990s. Until recently, companies have been able to pick, choose or ignore several voluntary sustainability reporting frameworks and standards that seek to highlight how socio-ecological development might affect or be affected by their activity. Sustainability reporting has therefore remained on the margins of corporate reporting subject to concerns about greenwashing and irrelevance. However, as recent developments look to mandate new forms of sustainability reporting across the EU, the UK and elsewhere, this article offers ways to help students distinguish and evaluate how sustainability is translated within different international reporting standards.As a starting point, one can ask students to look at specific sustainability reports published by large companies and ask them to identify the focus of the reports on a spectrum between two poles: are the reports focusing on the sustainability of the planet; or are they focusing on the sustainability of the company? We can then ask them to explain or justify their choices, and thereby critically explore the interactions between those different translations of sustainability. For example, the tension between seeing corporate activity as a cause of (harmful) socio-ecological change and as a source of innovation and economic value that can be used to address socio-ecological challenges.
  
      
  
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After sufficient discussion, we can then introduce the differing conceptions of materiality that are used to distinguish the poles in sustainability reporting and inform what type of sustainability information companies should disclose to the markets and society.Sustainability reports focused on the sustainability of the planet use an inside-out conception of materiality that requires companies to report on how their activity materially affects the environment, society, the economy and human rights. Information is reported based on its impact on the planet (impact materiality), rather than its financial impact on the firm.Resources for higher education professionals on the sustainable development goalsHow to implement experiential learning into accounting educationSustainability accounting is coming: here’s how to navigate itSustainability reports focused on the sustainability of the company use an outside-in conception of materiality that requires companies to report only on those social and environmental issues that are deemed by management to materially affect the decisions investors make about the future value of the firm. In doing so, the standards seek to reorientate flows of financial capital to those firms that can show they are less affected by climate change, water stress, biodiversity loss and societal upheaval and those that might thrive by offering solutions to socio-ecological challenges.&nbsp;As these outside-in standards focus only on reporting socio-ecological issues that are financially material, they look to tweak rather than revolutionise current notions of corporate success by seeking to extend the time horizon over which success is measured and highlight those socio-ecological factors upon which future corporate success depends.After introducing the different approaches to sustainability reporting, classroom debates can help to identify inside-out reporting information and consider when or whether it is likely to become material from an outside-in perspective.&nbsp;Teaching examplesInside-out reporting: impact on the environment, the economy, society and human rightsIssueOutside-in reporting: impact on the firmClimate changeCarbon emissionsCosts arising from mitigation plans, and tax/regulation required to meet international agreementsAgricultural monoculture (e.g. palm oil, soya bean, forestry) leads to material biodiversity lossBiodiversityBiodiversity loss lowers yields for producers and increases input pricesShort lead times perpetuate the abuse of labour rightsSupply chain subcontractingRegulatory and reputational costs if discoveredMaterial freshwater usage in water-stressed areasWater usageCosts if water usage becomes subject to tax/regulationPlastic packaging causes microplastic pollutionPackagingCosts if packaging materials become subject to tax/regulation, or lead to a fall in customer demandOpening a new manufacturing facility in a region of high unemployment leads to job creation and trainingEmployment and community developmentBenefits if the region offers cheaper employment and training costsIn thinking about the relations between the left and right columns in the table, we can introduce the notion of dynamic materiality, which recognises that issues that might only be material from an inside-out perspective can also become material from an outside-in perspective over time. For example, while carbon emissions would be considered material from an inside-out perspective in the 1980s, management might consider they would have no material impact on expectations of corporate value. Since then, international agreements and the advent of emissions trading schemes lead carbon emissions to be financially material from an outside-in perspective.Finally, one can introduce the new standards that learners will probably be interacting with in the future. For example, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) has developed standards based on an outside-in vision of reporting. A contrasting approach, led by the long-standing Global Reporting Initiative’s Global Sustainability Standards Board (GRI/GSSB) offers a more expansive vision and a more radical shift in the notion of corporate success. The middle ground, encompassing both materiality perspectives (so called double materiality), offered by the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, is being implemented across the EU.As sustainability reporting moves from the periphery to the mainstream and becomes embedded across curricula rather than being treated as an adjunct add-on, the materials offer some ideas of the ways to distinguish and appraise the ways in which sustainability is translated.Nick Rowbottom is a professor at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.

How to distinguish sustainability in accounting and business

In this resource, Nick Rowbottom offers ways to help students distinguish and evaluate how sustainability is translated within different international reporting standards

How to distinguish sustainability in your accounting and business teaching

Building a sustainable global economy that can address the multifaceted crises we face requires a reimagining of the purpose, principles and practices of accounting. As accounting professionals with a central place within both the real economy and capital markets, we need to understand and measure value creation differently, change the way we account for performance, present a more balanced, true and fair reflection of organisations’ positions and integrate social and environmental factors into financial decision-making.&nbsp;The pace of change currently outstrips the profession’s capacity-building efforts. We are heading towards a global skills shortage that will hamper the transition to a nature-positive, just, net zero economy. Although business schools are increasingly integrating sustainability into finance and accounting modules, syllabuses often do not provide the practical skills accountants need to integrate sustainability into their professional roles such as valuation, accounting, performance management, budgeting, financial risk analysis, capital allocation and the ability to make financial and business decisions.Experiential learning offers a solutionExperiential learning emphasises the importance of acquiring knowledge through direct experience and, crucially, reflection on that experience. Instead of passively receiving information from lectures or textbooks, experiential learners actively engage in hands-on experiences, allowing them to directly apply what they’ve learned in real-world contexts. Examples include simulations, case competitions, internships or active implementation of a newly learned concept. Gaining this concrete experience fosters deeper understanding, problem-solving skills, critical thinking and personal growth.&nbsp;Embedding experiential learning into your programmes doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, simulations don’t have to be centred around technology; you can set an assignment that requires your students to act out situations they may face within an organisation navigating sustainability.&nbsp;Resources for higher education professionals on the Sustainable Development GoalsEmbrace broader definitions of accounting to help your students operate sustainablySustainability accounting is coming: here’s how to navigate itSetting experiential learning assignmentsBelow is a simple framework you could use to incorporate experiential learning into your accounting courses:Choose an approach&nbsp;Select a fictional or real-world scenario. There are advantages and drawbacks to both; a fictional scenario gives you greater flexibility to tailor the assignment to specific learning outcomes, but developing it takes time and care. Alternatively, using a real-world scenario enables you to build the assignment around a public company with readily available accounting and sustainability information. There is also the potential to involve the company, particularly if it is located nearby.Define students’ roleStudents may form various teams such as management accountants, financial analysts, a finance leadership team, an audit committee or a due diligence or audit team. Does the team need a leader who plays the role of finance director, CFO, audit committee chair or accounting firm partner? Do you select this leader or leave the team to choose their own? Setting parameters around leadership could provide extra learning opportunities.Set the challengeAssignments should be accessible to the students, consider their skills and experience and challenge them. The scenario should allow them to gain new knowledge and apply their existing competencies to new situations. Base the challenge on real-world business needs.&nbsp;Examples for undergraduates could include:Developing a company-specific carbon accounting manual, based on recognised carbon accounting standards while incorporating the rigour of financial accounting and control environmentsBuilding a management information framework to present sustainability information alongside financial informationCreating a capital investment decision-making process that incorporates social and/or environmental factors.For master’s students:Presenting a commercial business case for investment in a specific asset or initiative that generates significant social or environmental benefitsDeveloping an internal carbon pricing mechanism to support a greenhouse gas reduction target and presenting the plan for roll-out to executive managementWriting a due diligence report or investment analysis incorporating a balanced critique of financial, social and environmental considerations.&nbsp;Design the assessment&nbsp;Ensuring students are fairly assessed in an area in which you might not have specific expertise can be a real worry. Here, collaboration is key. You could:Call on colleagues within or outside your department who have sustainability expertise and split the marking accordinglyUse an assessment panel of internal and/or external expertise (which can include representation from the company the assignment is focused on). This can work particularly well for assignments where students are required to present their findings as a pitch/to a mock executive teamBuild the marking rubric for the sustainability element based on how understandable and usable the students’ proposed solutions would be to a typical accountant.If this all feels a step too far, you can always take advantage of existing sustainability-focused case competitions and challenges. In whatever form your students engage with experiential learning opportunities, the benefits are noteworthy. They can really enhance accounting students’ learning, give them the freedom to make mistakes in a safe environment, strengthen their professional credibility and skills and empower them to drive much-needed change.&nbsp;Helen Slinger is executive director of knowledge and learning at Accounting for Sustainability (A4S). She is also head judge for the A4S International Case Competition.&nbsp;If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.

The role of experiential learning in accounting education

The accounting landscape is evolving rapidly amid growing environmental and social challenges. There is a need for urgent action, yet finance teams lack essential sustainable business competencies 

How to implement experiential learning into accounting education

When deciding what to teach, and how to do so, we are accustomed to considering aims and learning outcomes. Alas, we don’t always consider what our students want to become and achieve, and how this motivates them to enrol. 

This is even more important when considering embedding sustainability into our teaching. We all must understand and deal with sustainability and our part in making the world a better place, not just leave it to experts or specialists. 

All of us, as educators, want to inspire the next generation of professionals. We want them to make new connections, experience a broad education and reflect on what they want to become and achieve. For guidance, UK academics should consult the subject benchmark statements, which show what graduates might reasonably be expected to know, do and understand at the end of their studies. 

Indeed, all academics should consult these statements when considering course design and delivery. They include five themes that cut across all subject benchmark statements:


	Equity, diversity and inclusion 
	Accessibility and the needs of disabled students 
	Education for sustainable development&nbsp; 
	Employability, entrepreneurship and enterprise education 
	Generative artificial intelligence (as of February 2024). 


This year, accounting is one of eleven subject benchmark statements being subject to review and members of the advisory panel are hoping to rewrite it to embrace wider, and more apt, definitions of accounting and auditing, where accounting students are taught to cope with uncertainty and able to adapt to hold companies accountable in a more sustainable world.

Current and prospective students who aspire to become effective accounting professionals need to understand the nature, roles, uses and impacts of accounting, opening up the full potential of the discipline, recently defined as “…a technical, social and moral practice concerned with the sustainable utilisation of resources and proper accountability to stakeholders to enable the flourishing of organisations, people and nature”, by Garry Carnegie, Lee Parker and Eva Tsahuridu in the Australian Accounting Review.

This definition and others like it drive teaching knowledge beyond accounting as a mere technical practice, developing awareness and understanding of the organisational and social contexts of entities of all types in which accounting operates. They focus on teaching skills such as critical judgement, coping with uncertainty, qualitative evaluation of evidence and the ability to recognise that knowledge is contextually driven.


	Resource collection: resources on the Sustainable Development Goals
	Sustainability accounting is coming: here’s how to navigate it
	Teaching business students how to prepare sustainability reports for SMEs


Similarly, students who are considering specialising as auditors can appreciate their vital role in inculcating trust and holding organisations accountable by considering a wider, more apt definition of auditing, such as the following, prepared in developing this contribution:

“Auditing is the independent authentication of accounts and key performance indicators, financial and non-financial in nature, designed for assurance purposes to inspire confidence and illuminate risks, increasing the trust of stakeholders in accounting as dependable multidimensional technical, social and moral practice.”

This definition sets out to depict the importance of being independent and being seen to be independent, rigorous in instilling and safeguarding trust and actively campaigning against the curse of greenwashing. It also means that students need to develop skills such as professional scepticism, the ability to triangulate evidence and adequately informed judgement to address incongruencies. They need to practise critical ignoring of weak forms of evidence and have a strong focus on the needs of the users of accounts, well beyond a limited “pleasing the client” orientation.

The above definitions indeed help shape the journeys of students between what they are, and what they have the potential to become in their professional lives. They allow them to redirect their energies and draw on broad-scope approaches to dealing with challenging issues to help shape a better world. 

There will be an exposure period after they are written (July 2024) and before they are confirmed (in 2025), but once they are published, be ready to consult them and contemplate what you want your students to become. These statements can act as catalysts for effectively educating our students and encouraging them to take up and play their part in creating a better, more sustainable world.

Jennifer Rose is a senior lecturer at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. Garry Carnegie is an emeritus professor from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.

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Embrace broader definitions of accounting 

Broader definitions of accounting help students redirect their energies and draw on broad-scope approaches to dealing with challenging issues to help shape a better world

Embrace broader definitions of accounting to help your students operate sustainably

Podcast interview: Kathryn Sikkink, Harvard Kennedy School 

Human rights scholar and award-winning author Kathryn Sikkink talks about her work with the Harvard Votes Challenge, how young people are more savvy about misinformation than older generations and why, in this year of elections, democracy needs protection 

THE podcast bonus episode: an interview with Kathryn Sikkink, Ryan Family professor of human rights policy at Harvard Kennedy School

“So much to do!” “So much to cram in!” “So little time!” This is a common trope from accounting academics, professional bodies and training providers responding to requests to embed sustainability into accounting and finance curricula. The good news is that there are many examples of successful, time-efficient ways to do so, drawing on over 30 years of academic and professional work. As well as material from individual academics, professional accountancy bodies, learned societies and academic networks (such as the&nbsp;RSA, the&nbsp;Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research, the&nbsp;Network for Business Sustainability), there are many global programmes supporting these efforts, like the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (UN PRME) &nbsp;and Education for Sustainable Development. Not only is embedding sustainability possible, it is an imperative if accountancy and finance professionals wish to future-proof their field and contribute to sustainability transformations.In this article, we highlight examples that can be adapted to different educational settings and illustrate what can be done &nbsp;– not the limit of what should be done – to mainstream the principles expressed in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and support the development of key competencies for sustainability.There are many accounting practices (and countless textbook exercises) that provide evidence of how to overcome limiting factors or resource bottlenecks – eg, limited labour hours, machine capacity constraints or sales forecast. A simple adaptation would be to replace these limiting factors with a water extraction licence for a brewery, greenhouse gas emissions for a cement factory or soil fertility for a food producer. Same sums, different problem, useful evidence. Or we could look to implement Mark Carney’s proposal in his recent book, Values: Building a Better World for All, that any financial cost produced should be accompanied by a carbon cost, producing meaningful evidence to move a business along its net-zero pathway. A good example of how to teach this is the carbon accounting mini-lecture series produced as part of University of Birmingham’s Carbon Accounting for Net Zero initiative.Three steps to designing online learning that supports a sustainable futureEngaging students in applied research to tackle Sustainable Development GoalsAll Campus’&nbsp;higher education resources to reach the sustainable development goals&nbsp;We can also revisit and reflect on the appropriateness of accounting techniques and valuation theories from the perspective of known sustainability risks. A good place to start could be seminars discussing the best way for oil and gas companies to value their stranded assets and the accompanying stranded liabilities of their bankers or shareholders. Similar risks to value, including known sea level rises, forest fires or flooding, could be integrated into the financial reporting and asset valuation modules taught in these courses. A more adventurous approach would be to extend consideration of these sustainability consequences into more active role-playing sessions or dramatic representations. Anne-Christine Frandsen and Nick Bailey at the University of Birmingham have honed this approach over several years and have produced a highly adaptable dramatisation that gets to the core of the intersections between accounting, responsibility and sustainability.&nbsp;&nbsp;Another way to efficiently embed sustainability into business reporting and assurance education is through an alternative accounting approach. Assign students an organisation or let them choose one and then task them with gathering and assessing publicly available evidence about the organisation from social media, news media and primary data. They’ll use this to conduct critical gap analyses of the organisation before recommending how it might improve the design and content of future sustainability accounts. Central to this activity is a concern with designing new and meaningful accountability mechanisms, rather than solely ensuring compliance with existing standards. This exercise empowers students to become sceptical assurers, forensic accountants, critical researchers, creative report designers and skilled in gap analysis, while also developing a sensitivity to a full range of stakeholders instead of being fixated on shareholders. This approach has been successfully adapted to different teaching contexts, ranging from a single tutorial exercise, a capstone assessment and even the basis for international collaboration. One iteration involved students auditing the sustainability of their university, presenting their accounts to the management and engaging in a discussion of their findings, allowing for mutual learning as well as providing a clear purpose for this work.A final source of inspiration can be found in national and international case study competitions within accounting and relevant disciplines of finance, economics and management. These challenges invite students to write a case or essay to address a predetermined problem. Recent examples include Accounting 4 Sustainability’s case competition inviting students to develop specific solutions to reflect a sound commitment to action on human rights within business and the 8th student writing competition from the UN PRME UK and Ireland. These competitions are relatively straightforward to integrate into accounting and finance programmes and often deliver multiple outcomes in an engaging, purposeful and collaborative activity.From valuation to costing and reporting, sustainability matters and will continue to do so. Given its importance, the approaches outlined above illustrate the continued collective effort across academia and the profession to ensure accounting professionals can effectively and ethically address the risks associated with unsustainability. For educators, it may seem as though there’s limited, if any, spare time to incorporate the teaching of sustainable practices. But if we come together and engage in a collective, not competitive, endeavour, then we can work smarter to embed sustainability. Not acting is not a sustainable strategy.Shona Russell is a senior lecturer in the School of Management at the University of St Andrews. Ian Thomson is a professor at the University of Dundee School of Business.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

There is an imperative for sustainable accountancy education

Finance and accounting educators have a moral obligation to embed the principles of the SDGs into their courses. Thankfully, it’s easier than ever to do, write Shona Russell and Ian Thomson

The climate crisis heralds an imperative for sustainable accountancy practices

Technical innovations alone cannot resolve the climate crisis. Solutions must emerge from grass-roots efforts that address the needs of entire societies.

Central to this effort is the representation of women in decision-making processes where policies and actions are crafted and implemented. Despite women comprising half of society, women’s voices and perspectives are often absent from crucial discussions. A case in point is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of Parties (COP) events, where the collective vision for combating climate change is shaped by 197 countries. At COP events in Glasgow, Egypt and the UAE, I have observed that men overwhelmingly dominate the discourse — 74 per cent of plenary attendees at COP26 in 2021 were men.&nbsp;


	What I learned from COP28:&nbsp;In-person events are still necessary
	Driving change: creating student-NGO partnerships for climate solutions
	A practical approach to tackling eco-anxiety


My observations at these events were sadly unsurprising. Three decades ago, I embarked on my professional journey in international development, during an era focused on “women in development”. My work, which centred on designing and implementing clean cookstoves for rural women in India, was addressing a climate-related issue, but we didn’t realise the significance of this at the time. 

Today, the disconnect between women’s needs and the solutions offered persists and underscores a fundamental issue: the absence of a gender-focused approach to problem-solving. While the terminology has evolved to encompass broader gender perspectives, gender parity in decision-making roles has not. Alarmingly, the relative position and power of women leaders have deteriorated over the years, exacerbated by their disproportionate exposure to climate change impacts and associated challenges, including gender-based violence and mental health strains. With the clock ticking on the climate emergency, urgent action is imperative.&nbsp;

Universities have a pivotal role to play in redressing gender parity in decision-making. They are well placed to foster awareness and develop the capability among students to approach climate science (and the area of sustainability more generally) with gender neutrality. This agenda must be central for our future leaders, no matter what their gender. 

The way forward, as I see it, is to build capacity among our student population. We need to consider embedding not just relevant support in terms of learning and teaching material within courses but positioning the concept of “inter-generational climate justice” at the core of what is being taught. Inter-generational climate justice is concerned with acting now to meet the needs of future generations. Our students are our future leaders, whom I believe can instinctively drive gender parity in the climate space. 

By way of approach, my advice follows three basic steps that revolve around co-creation, co-understanding and co-producing solutions via bottom-up rather than top-down thinking.&nbsp; 

The three steps need to be tailored and embedded around the specific subjects being taught, and the steps are also a good way of introducing the idea of gender neutrality.&nbsp; 

The first is a process of enquiry to understand the basics from students on their opinions and understanding of gender-nuanced thinking and climate change. 

The second is initiating conversations and discussions to uncover what they perceive as the challenges and which of these they consider to be important to overcome and break barriers. This could be policy, practice, behavioural change or attitudes.&nbsp; 

The third step is to co-produce solutions in the context of course and subject matter that can be taken away and put into practice. This could be immediate takeaways in day-to-day activities or carried forward, so that the inspiration and motivation remain as graduates move into their future careers.&nbsp; 

Ultimately, it is important to effectively communicate and demonstrate the relevance of gender balance in the subject being studied. Critical issues on gender should be integrated across a range of programmes to a point that our students become “gender-just intrinsic thinkers” in tackling climate change.

My experiences at events such as COP underscore the necessity for societal transformations that are both climate-smart and climate-just, with women’s leadership playing a central role. Achieving gender balance goes beyond mere representation; it necessitates a profound shift towards gender-sensitive decision-making processes. This entails prioritising training and awareness initiatives, particularly among the younger generation – our future leaders – who will shape the discourse in the coming decades. 

As an educator and advocate for climate justice, I am privileged to influence change through learning at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU). By sharing insights gleaned from my experiences across 16 countries, I contribute to fostering a climate-conscious mindset and empowering future leaders to drive meaningful change. It aligns with GCU’s commitment to climate justice and the common good, embodying the imperative for collective action in addressing the climate crisis.&nbsp;

Tahseen Jafry is director of the Mary Robinson Centre for Climate Justice in the department of civil engineering and environmental management at Glasgow Caledonian University.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus&nbsp;newsletter.

Empowering women leaders in climate action

Achieving gender balance goes beyond mere representation, writes Tahseen Jafry. Tackling the climate crisis necessitates a profound shift among the next generation of leaders towards gender-sensitive decision-making processes

Empowering women leaders in fighting climate change: a call to action 

During a recent online seminar seeking to help practitioners prepare for sustainability reporting, comments such as this appeared in the chat: “What has this got to do with accountants? It is political virtue signalling and a huge burden on business…this is a job creation scheme for accountants which, in my view, is completely unethical.”

There was also this: “…politicians can keep their busy-bodies out of private enterprise as far as I&nbsp;am concerned.”

It’s impossible to know if the contributors are climate change deniers or believe business has no role to play in sustainability. Perhaps they fear that their knowledge, skills and experiences are outdated. Regardless, such comments indicate the challenge facing politicians, regulators, professional bodies and educators tackling sustainability reporting and assurance. The greatest obstacles are not frameworks, regulations or disclosures. It’s hearts and minds that place accounting educators in a crucial position, at least for our future accountants and leaders.

Sustainability represents humanity’s biggest and most complex challenge since mass industrialisation. Every aspect of society worldwide is affected: environment, politics, economy, communities, jobs and lifestyles.

There’s an overwhelming body of accounting regulations and resources. Which regulations will apply to which entities or by when is also unclear. So the challenge for accounting educators is significant, important, urgent and unclear. Previous knowledge, skills and experience are insufficient. If you are not alarmed, you’ve not been paying attention.

Where to start with sustainability accounting

The first step is to accept that sustainability accounting is coming, whether you’re ready or not. Businesses are grappling with its challenges. It’s already part of the reporting landscape, and its importance will likely only increase. Very soon, every qualified accountant will need sustainability accounting competencies. If our students are to be “future-fit”, they’ll require a sustainability mindset. So will educators.

But where do you start? Our attention spans have limits, and there’s an overabundance of information. It’s no surprise if you feel unsure, hesitant and overwhelmed. But there’s no need to panic. You won’t become an expert overnight, and nobody expects you to.

The fundamentals of sustainability accounting are not complicated. It focuses on resource use, emphasising continued availability for current and future generations. This simple approach emphasises that resources are limited like an entity’s cash. Sustainability affects all businesses and not just energy-intensive or extractive industries.

Consider the way we teach accounting for inventories. Traditionally, we may have encouraged our students to think that accounting for inventory starts when materials are purchased. A sustainability mindset expands the focus and seeks to capture elements that financial accounting cannot. We can provoke questions about where inventories are sourced from and where they end up.


	Resource collection: How universities can work towards the SDGs
	Teaching business students how to prepare sustainability reports for SMEs
	In-person events are still necessary


For example, the fashion industry faces several sustainability and ethical challenges related to inventory:


	Many synthetic fabrics don’t biodegrade, aren’t easy to recycle, and release microplastics and greenhouse gases during manufacturing and decomposition
	Natural materials, such as cotton, use significant amounts of water and pesticides. Silk is woven by silkworms that are mostly boiled or gassed alive inside their cocoons
	Leather production processes also concern animal welfare and require harmful chemicals and energy use.


These are just a few of the issues relating to the materials. There are also ethical concerns related to animal welfare, working conditions, modern slavery, shipping and transport and the impacts of fast fashion.

Here are some examples related to the electronics industry:


	The manufacturing process demands rare earth elements, aluminium and lithium, and creates pollution and water contamination
	Short lifespans lead to increased electronic waste, affecting emissions and landfills, exacerbated by poor resource recycling and recovery rates
	Sending and storing data requires electricity to power cooling systems and servers.


Sustainability Accounting and Accountability by Matias Laine, Helen Tregidga and Jeffrey Unerman explains sustainability concepts brilliantly and establishes relevant connections within an accounting context.

Discussions such as those outlined above provide an opportunity to explore externalities, an important concept in sustainability accounting, and not a common consideration within conventional accounting. Externalities are impacts arising from the activities of an entity that are borne by others. We recommend Corporate Reporting and Accounting for Externalities by Jeffrey Unerman, Jan Bebbington and Brendan O’Dwyer for a clear and insightful discussion about them.

Emissions are a good example. We have compelling scientific evidence that, as a result of human activity, greenhouse gas emissions are a leading cause of a warming climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects “widespread adverse impacts related to losses and damages to nature and people”.

Accounting for externalities is one way to highlight the connection between businesses and climate responsibilities. Increasingly, it’s an area that some businesses are embracing. Puma is a multinational sportswear manufacturer that publishes an environmental profit and loss account that measures and quantifies its environmental impact. It’s an excellent example to use with students as it presents useful information but acknowledges that the methodology is imperfect.

An activity to try with your students

The discussion about inventory above might be a useful primer for students to explore an entity’s considerations when acquiring a noncurrent asset, say, a piece of manufacturing equipment. You might ask them to consider the purchase with a traditional accounting lens. For example, the costs of acquisition, installation, expected useful economic life and residual value.

Then add a layer using a sustainability lens. We have found that students are keen to engage in this type of discussion, raising insightful and intelligent observations. Discussion points might include:


	Estimated emissions from producing the asset
	Projected emissions from using the asset
	Will the equipment produce sustainable products?
	Do operators require training (health, safety, product cycle) that will improve the asset’s sustainability (emissions and useful economic life)?
	Will maintenance of the asset use sustainable resources?
	Can the asset be rectified, modified or enhanced or upgraded to prolong its life?
	What happens to any waste produced by using the asset?
	What are the environmental aspects of disposal? Can the equipment be repurposed?
	What are the trade-offs between sustainability and economic factors?


The answers are harder to provide than the questions, but that’s true for the sustainability landscape more generally. The available datasets for sustainability reporting are hard to identify, immature and often outside an entity’s direct control. It’s fair to say that sustainability reporting is vague and still being created. We can expect radical changes over the next few years. It might be hard to keep up, but developing a sustainability mindset for yourself and your students seems like a good place to start.

Sulaiman Aliyu and Toby York are senior lecturers at Middlesex University Business School.

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Sustainability accounting is coming: here’s how to navigate

We can expect radical changes in sustainability accounting over the next few years. Developing a sustainability mindset for yourself and your students seems like a good place to start, write Sulaiman Aliyu and Toby York

Sustainability accounting is coming: here’s how to navigate it

At the heart of the Empty Bowls Project lies a potent symbol of the hunger that afflicts individuals, families and communities worldwide. The handmade bowls that diners choose and use at this public event serve as tangible reminders of the need to address food insecurity and poverty and highlight our shared responsibility to help fill the plates of those in need.

In the fall of 2011, my students and I accepted the challenge to address food insecurity through a service-learning ceramics course. For the past 13 years, design students at Virginia Tech (VT) have worked to design and produce soup bowls in partnership with local organisations to raise awareness and financial support for feeding the hungry.&nbsp;

As part of this project, the students craft the bowls, of course, but they are also empowered to be actively engaged in all details of the event itself, in essence co-creating their own learning experience. For example, they source soup recipes from relatives or friends, prepare the food for the community dinner, think about what bowl shapes are best for the soup, advertise the event, design and screen-print T-shirts, and run the day-of activities. People come back year after year to participate in the meal. Students see first-hand the tangible impact on the local area and how their commitment improves the community’s well-being. 

Linking learning to community service and engagement

The phrase “service learning” is used on the VT campus to ensure that community outreach is part of course learning outcomes. Many of our service-learning projects are about improving health and wellness in Virginia. Bringing together community engagement and the eradication of food insecurity, in this case, demonstrates the capacity of our design students to address a vexing problem here and abroad and how design can empower people and their communities. 


	Creating a reusable takeout dish programme on campus
	Food insecurity and homelessness affect all our campuses. Here’s what we should do about it
	It’s crucial for universities to bridge the ‘town and gown’ divide


During the course, students choose a ceramics-making method that they will use over and over to create pinch- or slab-formed bowls using sheets of clay or bowls thrown on a wheel or made through moulds. As part of the process, they learn the fundamentals of industrial design, where objects must be replicable and the production scalable. 

At the end, we have hundreds of vessels for the local Empty Bowls project. Empty Bowls is a national grass-roots movement of artists and crafters who host community meals, donate their art and raise money to combat food insecurity. 

Community service is one of the four pillars of the department of design. When our students leave our university, they will have experienced some form of community engagement. I believe that most VT students who graduate feel empowered by design and engaged as activists towards a healthy, happy future for their communities and themselves. Bright students can apply their critical-thinking and advanced making skills and their specialties in design where they live. 

Universities’ responsibilities to their local area

As a land-grant university, we at VT have a responsibility not only to give back to our community but also to instil in students a commitment to civic involvement and community leadership. Food insecurity in Virginia is a result of economic disparities, geographical challenges, and social and systemic factors, and hunger perpetuates cycles of poverty and contributes to health disparities.

The act of serving food to others is deeply rooted in cultural, social and emotional contexts; it fosters connections&nbsp;and&nbsp;nurtures relationships. Design in food service is not just about crafting functional&nbsp;serving vessels but also about fusing aesthetics, sustainability and cultural expression into a nourishing event that can be memorable for all who share the table. Discussing rituals for eating with emerging adults is joyful and illuminating, as they are often navigating personal accountability for their own food intake. 

Through the Empty Bowls project, ceramic design students have raised more than $20,000 (£16,000) for Micah’s Backpack, a community programme that provides food assistance to area children. For the past four years, we have partnered with Plenty!, a farm and food bank in Floyd County, Virginia, boosting fundraising fourfold through collaboration with Tour de Dirt, a public bike ride in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Service-learning projects create meaningful and authentic connections between students and the community. VT has a formal programme for finding and expanding community outreach programmes – through VT Engage – and this is a model that other institutions can also adapt. I like to send my students off to internships, but I also like to use the resources we have on campus to better the community because a lot of our graduates will stay in Virginia. I think people need entry-level opportunities to become mindful citizens. If we are successful, through this project, our students learn that if we each give a little, the greater community benefits exponentially. 

Martha Sullivan is department chair and associate professor of practice in the industrial design programme in the School of Design at Virginia Tech. She received the School of Architecture + Design outreach award and an excellence in teaching award in 2022.

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Fostering student co-creation to give back to the community

Engaging in local civic projects offers students meaningful learning opportunities, fosters co-creation and supports the community at large. Here, Martha Sullivan outlines the benefits based on working with the Empty Bowls project

The United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) events have been criticised for the carbon emissions created when thousands of delegates take long-haul flights to get there. Some claim that Zoom meetings would be preferable. I worried about this myself and gave several virtual talks at COP27. 

However, my first in-person attendance, at COP28 in Dubai, has convinced me of the value of meeting physically. Everyone I met was in the climate game and had useful insights to share, enabling me to cross-check points made by others to see which ideas stood up to scrutiny. 

COPs attract international media attention as member states gather to agree policies associated with climate change. COP28, which was held over two weeks in November and December, had a record 84,000 attendees, including leading scientists, journalists and members of the public. It’s a key annual event in which the higher education sector has a clear role to play. 


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Here are strategies I have learned to maximise the benefits that in-person events can bring for individual researchers and HE. 

Make the most of incidental networking opportunities

We are all, rightly, under pressure to integrate the UN’s sustainable development goals into our teaching. In my view, the most pressing of these relate to the need to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions before we pass tipping points that we can’t come back from. 

However, to do this well, we need to stay up to date with the latest climate solutions. Many ideas that sound great in practice solve one problem by creating another. Some won’t work or will only work with trial and error and huge investment. But we must find a way to sort the wheat from the chaff. 

I’ve learned the necessity of this from experience. I’ve been running a sustainable hairdressing project for more than a decade and initially thought sustainable palm oil was a green alternative. It isn’t, and thinking it is matters when around half of the products sold in supermarkets contain palm oil. The green solution is using less – shampooing less often, supplementing with&nbsp;dry shampoo and using options such as leave-in conditioner. This reduces the carbon footprint of haircare by several thousand per cent, because most of the carbon footprint of hair care is in the energy used to heat hot water. Less resource-intensive hair-care routines are also better for the hair and skin, less time-consuming and save money. It’s a great example of how using less increases rather than decreases our quality of life. 

But this is not a message you will get from businesses that profit from unnecessary consumption. I had no sooner voiced the question of how to address the issue of marketing than the person sitting next to me on the metro home had a solution. His proposal was to charge a dollar for every dollar spent on advertising. The money goes into a central fund to be distributed to carbon dioxide removal projects. I loved it! I’d spent time throughout 2023, checking out the UN website, contacting the names of coordinators of the various pavilions at COP to see where I could usefully contribute, but I got just as much from these kinds of unplanned encounters by simply talking to the person next to me. 

Use speaking invitations to form or reinforce connections

I did a joint talk with a fellow climate fiction writer, engineer Steve Wallis, who has turned to writing novels to share details of projects that would make a difference, as well as a form of therapy for himself. I had worked with him on an anthology for COP27 called No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet. Our discussions led to development of a new novel, Fairhaven, with which we aim to present a vision of a workable future through the story of a young Malaysian engineer who works on a huge climate adaptation and mitigation project. Steve sees it as a blueprint for action for low-lying lands such as Penang.

Seek out like-minded scholars

Also at COP28, I bonded with a couple who ran the “extreme hangout zone” over our shared desire to engage wider audiences in climate action. They liked my Green Stories Project, and I loved their approach, which was to engage sports celebrities in spreading the climate message. I’m based at the University of Southampton, UK, and we have celebrity football players. We discussed hosting an extreme hangout where a local football player would bring in the crowds with a talk on what young people can do about the climate crisis. The advice here is to introduce yourself. People are there to network, learn and share. If they’re there, they’re almost certainly keen to talk about why. Despite the shared theme of climate, there was a clear division between those who thought we could continue with business as usual and those who didn’t. It’s easy to find those on your wavelength, but often you can learn just as much from those who aren’t. 

How to turn in-person events into successful engagement 

This is what COP28 offers – a chance to form alliances, learn from each other and share ideas for action. It is an invaluable forum for meeting kindred spirits, bouncing ideas around and forming collaborative partnerships. 

Take with you an open mind and eagerness to learn, and if you get tired, just sit on a bench and talk to the person next to you. The chances are that either you or they will learn something useful. 

Denise Baden is a professor of sustainable business in the Southampton Business School and lead on the Green Stories Project at the University of Southampton. 

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How to make the most of international in-person events

Should academics be travelling to events that could be done virtually? Drawing on her experiences at COP28, Denise Baden shares tips on how to make the most of these events – and why a chance to form alliances, learn from each other and share ideas for action make it worth being present

In-person events are still necessary

It was the student voice that provided the impetus for the initial scoping of a £6.45 million decarbonisation project at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). The conservatoire’s climate action group approached members of the executive team to ask the institution to declare a climate emergency – and we could not in all conscience do so without being able to say we were doing all we could to address it on an institutional level. 

So, the inciting relationship for the programme was the one between the RNCM and its students. Then, other robust partnerships were essential in delivering this ambitious work while keeping the institution fully open and accessible to students 18 hours per day, seven days per week. 


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The result was that in 2021-22, through the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) public sector decarbonisation scheme (and funded by Salix), the RNCM delivered a programme of works to decarbonise our building and radically reduce our carbon impact via the delivery of a full building retrofit, which was to include: 


	full roof replacement and cavity wall insulation to improve thermal efficiency
	a new building energy management system
	four-pipe hybrid air source heat pump solution
	high-efficiency replacement chiller
	replacement pumps and motors
	solar photovoltaics
	smart metering 
	significant upgrades to electrical infrastructure
	replacement transformer and 
	1 megawatt of battery storage. 


Build partnerships that tie funding to delivery

The process of securing significant programme funding from Salix was complex, for which a strong, joined-up partnership was critical to its success; going it alone was not an option. In particular, clearly defined links with GMCA’s low-carbon team were essential in providing guarantees to Salix that we could demonstrate strong feasibility and meet tight deadlines, as well as a clear idea of what the carbon outcomes related to their funding would be at a subregional level. 

At a time when other programme partners were forced to return money to Salix as their projects proved undeliverable, the RNCM’s ability to react quickly to additional opportunities helped us to demonstrate that we were able to spend their money considerately and effectively. 

Move quickly, keep an open mind, think critically

Once funding was secured from Salix, the deadline imposed by the scheme meant that we had to mobilise the project team and associated contractors very quickly. The creation of a cohesive, open-minded project team (see Additional Links) was crucial to the project’s development and delivery. The team fostered a critical-thinking culture where nothing was off the table and “no ideas are stupid”, necessitated by the need to deliver an ambitious and complex programme of works in a live academic facility. 

Detailed programming between the RNCM and its contractors was required to keep activity to a schedule that minimised disruption and noise within a live music-teaching environment. The project team used granular detail of what learning, teaching and performing activity was booked, where and when, resulting in an unconventional delivery pattern that included extensive out-of-hours and overnight work. 

Use measurable success to catalyse change

The success of the project partnership is evident in the delivery of the works and the results: the works will save an estimated 389 tonnes of carbon annually, lowering our on-site gas usage by 41 per cent. Current data shows in-year kWh savings for on-site gas use have already exceeded 50 per cent. 

The RNCM has retained the same project team for its next major capital project, to redevelop our library, again with the aim of securing Salix funding. Salix is increasingly looking for evidence-based research and evaluation in funding proposals; the experience and track record of delivery of the RNCM’s robust partnership places us in a strong position to maintain this funding relationship. 

The project has been a catalyst for change across the RNCM:


	By listening to the student voice at all levels of the institution, up to the principal, we put into action a cohesive programme that produced demonstrable results and led to the RNCM declaring a climate emergency as requested by our students. 
	The conservatoire’s board and finance committee are fully aware of the needs, opportunities and benefits of decarbonisation and other sustainability programmes, which is reflected in a new performance and programme theme for 2023-24, The Future Is Green. 


Finally, we hope to use networks and partnerships to inform the wider higher education sector’s activity addressing the climate emergency. As chair of Conservatoires UK, RNCM principal Linda Merrick has presided over the establishment of a new environmental forum to develop and share best practice across the sector, and we hope other conservatoires and HE institutions can learn from our experience. The approaches we have taken, through the partnerships we have developed, are replicable by other institutions, whatever sector they operate in.

Dominic Wood is head of environment and facilities at the Royal Northern College of Music.

The Royal Northern College of Music decarbonisation scheme has been shortlisted for Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership in the Times Higher Education Awards 2023&nbsp;#THEAwards. Click here for a full list of shortlisted candidates. 

Academics and university leaders from across the UK and Ireland will come together on 6-7 December at&nbsp;THE&nbsp;Campus Live UK&amp;IE&nbsp;to talk about institutional strategies, teaching and learning, the student experience and more.&nbsp;Join us&nbsp;for this two-day event in Liverpool.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

From listening to the student voice to creating joined-up partnerships, success on major capital works depends on teamwork. Here, Dominic Wood outlines key elements to ensure project delivery and reap long-term benefits

Using partnerships to establish and build on project success

Street homelessness is a global phenomenon and an extreme manifestation of social injustice with profound negative consequences for individuals and communities. Yet, until recently, international collaboration to address this issue was virtually absent outside Europe. In 2017, the Institute of Global Homelessness launched A Place to Call Home, the first concerted effort to eradicate street homelessness globally across an initial 13 “vanguard cities”, from Montevideo in Uruguay to Bengaluru in India and from Tshwane, South Africa, to Edmonton, Canada. 


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The role of Heriot-Watt University’s Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research (I-SPHERE), in partnership with the GISS Institute in Bremen, Germany, and funded by the Oak Foundation, was to provide the independent evaluation of the initiative. This involved monitoring progress towards the numerical goals set by each city but also, crucially, drawing out successful interventions and common barriers across six continents. Organising an evaluation of a project with this scale is a formidable challenge. 

Here are the seven lessons we learned.

Work collaboratively with resident researchers 

The benefit of working with resident researchers who were fully embedded in each city was immeasurable. The researchers brought on-the-ground community insights that added value throughout the process. Ensuring those working in front-line services were interviewed by resident researchers in their local dialects demonstrated our respect and consideration for the cities we were operating in. It can be damaging for relationships when researchers helicopter in, take information and helicopter out. While it takes considerable time to find, brief and build trust with resident researchers, we found that integrating this into the project timeline was invaluable. 

Contract your expectations

A clear set of expectations and deliverables, and a timetable, was agreed with each resident researcher at the project’s outset. This helped ease the challenges of working with partners across six continents with differing levels of experience. By agreeing protocols in contract format, we were protected legally, but this process must be respectfully managed. We took considerable time to get this right, seeking legal advice and support from our institution.

Stay nimble to changing events 

We scoped our evaluation before the pandemic, but as lockdown hit, we had to pivot rapidly and approach the research in a radically different way. We changed our approach to accommodate remote interviews and made changes to the timetable to adapt to Covid peaks in different countries. Our stakeholder relationships, including our close collaboration with resident researchers and the trust we built with local homeless strategy leads, meant that we were well placed to be agile and quickly adapt to a changing world without affecting the study’s success. 

Co-design your research instruments 

To enable rigorous comparative data that drew out common barriers and successful interventions, it was essential that we standardised our research instruments. However, this had to be balanced against highly diverse city and cultural contexts. Our instruments needed to make sense to all individuals taking part. Achieving this balance was, perhaps, our biggest intellectual challenge. In some cities, families with children were sleeping rough, while in others it was limited to single people. We consulted closely with our resident researchers on the local applicability of each tool to deliver the rich set of data we needed. 

Forge a two-way relationship

Before asking A Place to Call Home project leads in each city to take part in an evaluation, it is helpful to consider how their participation will benefit them. Initially, we faced wariness from some city stakeholders who were unaware that their work would be evaluated in this way. To win over hearts and minds, we reconsidered how we could give more back to the project leaders. Through discussions, we unearthed an appetite for bespoke feedback seminars, grouping relevant cities together so they could hear and learn from each other. These interim sessions proved essential when finessing our final outcomes and built lasting connections among and within each city. By the end of the study, we’d overcome stakeholder anxiety by making the evaluation of value to each city, focusing on lessons learned rather than judgement. 

Take control of the logistics

A global evaluation of this scale requires serious logistical considerations, including coordinating data-sharing agreements, local payments and translation requirements. The time required for logistics far outweighs a standard research project and the research lead can’t do it all. I highly recommend working with a dedicated project manager alongside someone with professional legal expertise. Working in seven languages as well as local dialects in some cities required trusted translation capabilities to interpret local language nuances. This required a bespoke service tailored by city. Perhaps most challenging of all was managing complex payment arrangements for resident researchers across six continents. Working with the CORRA Foundation, a facilitating charity, allowed us to effectively navigate these difficulties. 

Create a lasting legacy 

Our transformative evaluation findings, published in April 2022 and shortlisted for a THE Award, provided crucial evidence to local and national governments, giving local stakeholders a resource with which to lobby for change. It demonstrated for the first time that comparisons spanning diverse contexts in the Global North and South are both methodologically possible and invaluable when tackling street homelessness. With robust project management, expert legal advice and, perhaps most importantly, investing the time to build robust local relationships, we’ve created a lasting legacy for the next phase of A Place to Call Home and taken one step closer to ending street homelessness across the globe. 

Suzanne Fitzpatrick is the director of the Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research (I-SPHERE) at Heriot-Watt University. 

Heriot-Watt University has been shortlisted for International Collaboration of the Year at the&nbsp;Times Higher Education&nbsp;Awards 2023&nbsp;#THEAwards. See the full list of shortlisted candidates.&nbsp;Winners will be announced at a ceremony on 7 December in Liverpool.

Academics and university leaders from across the UK and Ireland will come together that week at&nbsp;THE&nbsp;Campus Live UK&amp;IE&nbsp;to talk about institutional strategies, teaching and learning, the student experience and more.&nbsp;Join us&nbsp;for this two-day event in Liverpool.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

How to carry out a large-scale international evaluation

From working with resident researchers to navigating local salary schemes, Suzanne Fitzpatrick offers lessons on how to carry out a large-scale international evaluation programme 

Case study: how to do an independent evaluation on homelessness on six continents

Celebrating failure and other advice for PhD supervisors

PhD researchers should be given space to work independently, share their results and test their own limits with the support of supervisors who see them as people first and scientists second, explains Hannah Cloke

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) produce about 60&nbsp;per cent of carbon dioxide emissions and about 70&nbsp;per cent of all pollution. Sustainability reports can help these organisations to realise their negative impacts and spur them to act to reduce excess energy use and curb waste and pollution.

Research has shown, however, that SMEs often lack awareness, time, financial resources and expertise to produce sustainability reports. To encourage SMEs to start on this journey, they require training and help.

We believe that the University of Southampton is the first institution to harness the power of the international, independent Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) to create a framework to teach students how to report sustainability for SMEs. By using the GRI, we can help SMEs become more transparent and take responsibility for their impact on people, the economy and the planet. Not only will this sustainability reporting help to fight climate change, but it will contribute to alleviating poverty, too. The GRI sustainability standards help businesses, governments and other bodies to communicate their impacts on issues such as climate change, human rights and corruption.


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Consistent with Southampton’s Triple Helix strategy of fusing research, education, and knowledge exchange and enterprise, our model, Kickstarting Sustainability Reporting for SMEs (KSSRI), involves students, academic staff and SMEs working together to produce sustainability reports.

Before we could start, our department of accounting had to secure GRI-certified training partner status. Academic staff were trained in sustainability reporting; they then developed the relevant sustainability modules and supervised students to help SMEs produce sustainability reports.

Teaching students to produce sustainability reports

Our syllabus consisted of:


	definition of sustainability
	the role of sustainability reporting in reducing global warming
	GRI sustainability reporting standards (GRI 1, 2, 3 and topic standards) and preparation of a sustainability report
	Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) regulatory framework and guidance
	sources and calculation of greenhouse gas emissions
	preparation of greenhouse gas emissions statement
	appraisal of sustainability performance based on a greenhouse gas emissions statement and a sustainability report.


Teaching can come in a variety of forms: lectures, case studies and presentations from guest speakers. Students can be encouraged to read publicly available sustainability reports to get ideas.

The benefits of teaching the module

Students gain valuable experiential learning to support their employability. We found that academic colleagues’ experience of working with SMEs enriches the lectures that they deliver to students.

Once a sustainability report is produced, an SME will experience pressure from stakeholders to reduce negative impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. This helps to fight climate change.

Challenges of teaching within the GRI framework

The GRI framework, which is the basis of our syllabus, applies to all companies, big or small, public or private. The course requires the students to collect three types of information:


	GRI 2: general disclosures 2021 information (the students capture information on: the organisation and its reporting practices; activities and workers; governance; strategy, policies and practices; and stakeholder engagement)
	GRI 3: material topics
	Topic standards.


Students may lack understanding of business management

The main challenge encountered is that some information required to prepare the sustainability report assumes a certain level of knowledge of business management structures and operations on the part of the students. Also, some information might not be applicable or the SMEs might not have it. For example, GRI 2-9 to GRI 2-21 require information regarding corporate governance, such as nomination and selection committees, delegation of responsibility for managing economic, environmental and social impacts, conflicts of interest and remuneration policies.

Students unfamiliar with corporate governance will struggle to understand the meaning of terminologies such as “nomination and selection” committees. Lack of understanding of corporate governance becomes problematic when the students ask for such information from SME owners/managers, who might also not understand the terminology or might not have such committees.

To overcome gaps in understanding of corporate governance and how businesses operate, we go through all the information required by GRI standards in preparing sustainability reports. We make sure that the students understand the nature of the information requested and that they can confidently explain it to an SME owner or manager.

We encourage students to have an initial meeting with the SMEs to find out more about their operations and management. Based on the meeting, the students will then eliminate questions from the GRI requirements that are not applicable to a particular SME. To make sure that the sustainability report complies with GRI requirements, students include reasons for any omissions.

Lack of textbooks on sustainability reporting

Sustainability reporting is an emerging area, so there are no textbooks that you can refer students to other than the GRI sustainability standards. The lecturers had to produce new material – such as videos and examples of published sustainability reports – so the students could better understand the module. The lecturers are now writing a textbook to address this shortage.

SMEs themselves don’t value sustainability reports

Awareness of the value of sustainability reports among SMEs is not universal. To address this, we invited SME owners/managers to a sustainability reporting awareness event at the University of Southampton that explained why sustainability reporting was important for their business.

SMEs tend to keep minimal records, but the first sustainability report does not have to have all the information required. What is important is to identify where the information gaps are and then take steps to get that information.

Students might lack reporting and design skills

Not only do students need to be fully conversant with GRI standards, but to complete the sustainability report, they will need to have adequate design skills to produce the brochure at the end.

To make sure that students can produce a professional-standard sustainability report, they are advised to learn publishing software such as Canva, Adobe InDesign, Microsoft Publishing or Visme. Students are given information that was used to produce sustainability reports and asked to use it to practise publishing a sustainability report professionally.

Impact of engaging with SMEs to boost sustainability awareness

The greatest benefit that this project will deliver is its contribution to fighting climate change. Given that what is measured and reported gets managed, working with SMEs to help them prepare sustainability reports will make them realise their negative impacts. Such realisation will spur them to act to reduce negative impacts such as energy use, waste and pollution. Thus, sustainability reports are critical in triggering action to fight climate change. But also, by producing a sustainability report, SMEs gain an advantage over competitors, reduce costs and attract new customers.

In our first year, we helped three SMEs to publish their first sustainability reports, and this year we added 15 more SMEs. We now have a model that can work internationally; and next year, we will start to work with universities in Africa and Asia to set them up so that they can adopt our model and make a difference.

Ven Tauringana is professor of accounting and sustainability at the University of Southampton Business School.&nbsp;This article was produced with editing support from Lesley Taunton, internal communications manager at the University of Southampton.&nbsp;Kickstarting Sustainability Reporting for SMEs Internationally was fully funded by Higher Education Innovation Funding.

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Teaching sustainability reporting to business students

In engaging with small and medium-sized enterprises, universities can raise SMEs’ awareness of their own climate impacts. Here, Ven Tauringana shares a model for teaching accounting students how to produce sustainability reports

Teaching business students how to prepare sustainability reports for SMEs

Knowledge exchange requires capturing your audience’s attention. Given that humans are hard-wired to enjoy stories, adapting your content as a story can bring it alive. We are 22 times more likely to remember information if it is presented in a story, according to reports. The learning is often subliminal, with audiences typically believing it was information they already knew and denying it was acquired from a story.

Drawing on my experience running the Green Stories project, I show how storytelling – with a protagonist and an arc that includes a goal, obstacles and a resolution – can be a creative means to facilitate knowledge exchange, public engagement and impact generation. This is crucial because&nbsp;impact case studies as much as publications now determine how universities are rated in terms of the effects of their research on the world. 


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My experience provides solid evidence that stories aimed at a mainstream audience with green solutions embedded can affect behaviour. I wrote the rom-com Habitat Man as a way to share information about sustainable practices with a wider audience. The story follows a man who gives up his city job to become a wildlife gardener. In the process he falls in love and digs up a body. Research revealed that 98 per cent of readers adopted at least one of the green solutions mentioned. These included wildlife gardening, composting and even changing their will to specify a natural burial, showing that embedding climate solutions within a rom-com or cosy mystery can reach wider audiences than writing them into an academic paper.

Using a writing competition to raise issue awareness 

The Green Stories project has run several writing competitions to raise awareness of topics.&nbsp;This has turned out to be an effective means to engage writers and readers.&nbsp;Clean vs Green, for example, encouraged writers to incorporate research on hygiene and optimal cleaning practices. The goal was to educate about the difference between viruses and bacteria and the importance of friendly bacteria. This had become especially relevant after Covid-19 led to over-cleaning in some. A survey of 77 readers of the top six stories found that messages embedded into the stories significantly changed attitudes and behavioural intentions one month after reading the stories. 

Using stories to illuminate research for policy impact

Putting research results into a story can also make it easier for politicians and policymakers to absorb and digest the information than theoretical explanation. Decision-makers are exposed to expert opinions from researchers from different disciplines, but what they need to know is how an idea might work in practice. For example, how might a climate policy affect all other systems? Who will benefit and who won’t? Politicians often need to get complex ideas over to a broad audience, but these are not easy to capture in a soundbite. Stories can draw on common schemas that we are familiar with and help us deal with complexity. 

An example is the interactive play Murder in the Citizen’s Jury, set in a citizens’ assembly, where eight people meet to debate climate solutions. The whodunnit provides an entertaining way to explore key climate solutions in depth. Each character considers how each proposed solution would affect them, and the audience is encouraged to vote on which climate solutions they like. The play, which is available royalty-free, is a fun way to educate the public about climate solutions and provide feedback for policymakers. For example, one solution proposed in the play is a system of personal carbon allowances, also known as personal carbon trading. (This idea was floated in 2007 but we didn’t have the carbon footprint knowledge that we have now to make it feasible.) The interactive play provides insights into the likely public reactions to such ideas.

Using stories to explore future scenarios

Science fiction is well known for anticipating technologies and helping us to imagine how they might interact with human societies. But what about more political or economic innovations? A recent Green Stories project teamed experienced writers (sourced from the Climate Fiction Writers League and our own previous competition winners) with climate experts (sourced from our own contacts) to create an anthology of 24 stories,&nbsp;No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet. 

Each story showcases transformative climate solutions, and readers can see how to help make them happen by following links to the accompanying&nbsp;website. The stories, in genres including romance, whodunnit and family drama, highlighted climate solutions ranging from nature-based carbon-drawdown projects and legal approaches to technical engineering-type stories and stories that addressed systemic aspects of our political economy and culture. They are already having an impact: three stories that explored the idea of giving nation status to the ocean were shared at a recent ocean summit and were proposed for the agenda at the next world ocean summit. These have led to a novel, Fairhaven, which is being shared at COP28. 

The format of the anthology reflects learning theory. When we first hear an idea, it has nowhere in our brain to go. But the next time we come across the idea, it is more familiar and ties into more connections. When we hear it a third time, it gains more credibility. In the anthology, we seed the key ideas in a couple of broad stories that cover a range of solutions. Then key solutions are explored in more depth in individual stories. The final story, like the first two, brings together many of these ideas again in a new way. This way the anthology follows the classic structure of introduction of an idea, in-depth explanation and consolidation. If the reader is enthused, we provide a link so they can go to a website to find out more how to progress any idea that engages them.

Denise Baden is a professor of sustainable business in the Southampton Business School (SBS) and lead on the Green Stories Project at the University of Southampton.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

Presenting sustainability research in a story – with a protagonist, goal and resolution – can bridge the gap between complex theory and real-world results for wider audiences and policymakers alike 

How storytelling boosts environmental impact and engagement

Imagine a scenario where students walk into a room and, without any introductions or explanations, they are assigned one of three roles: a team member, a worker or a buyer.&nbsp;

Then they move to their designated work areas, filled with uncertainty, and find lanyards, torn pieces of paper, scissors and cloth bags.&nbsp;

The students who drew “team member” roles learn that they must make as much money as possible by working to make products with the paper. Anything not sold and all other materials are then waste.

The “workers” are told their aim is to meet their given weekly household costs by picking up the waste generated by the teams and selling it to the buyers.

And the “buyers” are tasked to make as much money as possible by buying the waste from the workers and selling it to the recycler (a role played by a facilitator) for a higher margin.

Over the next two hours, students become immersed in their roles, moving around and completing their tasks.&nbsp;Without knowing it, these students are acting out the key roles in India’s informal urban waste-management system. And although it’s just a simulation, the emotions students feel during the activity are genuine. In the facilitated debrief after the role playing, students are silent and reflective as they see the faces and names of the waste&nbsp;pickers they had been playing. This is the moment when, for many, it goes beyond just a game.

Through experiential learning, such as this simulation, and also role play and gamification, global development challenges that often appear vast, distant and overwhelming can be brought into a safe classroom environment.&nbsp;


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	Experiential education through a simulated summit to combat human trafficking&nbsp;
	Serious play: building knowledge with Lego blocks


The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2019 showed that 47 per cent of Gen Z have ambitions to make a positive impact on the world. This active approach, supported by in-depth debrief facilitation, builds students’ confidence in believing they can contribute to impactful initiatives.&nbsp;We often hear students say things like: “This made the UN SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] come alive. They feel real and I feel I can make a difference.” And: “This has made me consider other avenues for my future career”, as well as: “Why don’t we learn more like this?”

Experiential activities also take students’ learning beyond intellectualisation of the issues and help them to make sense of their complexities. When they’re faced with real-world challenges in a simulation environment, students don’t jump to find solutions; they first build empathy with the people for whom this situation is a reality. And it’s skills such as empathy and social awareness that cannot (currently) be replicated by generative AI systems, making experiential learning even more vital to students’ career outcomes and in nurturing the next generation of change-makers and world leaders.

Our post-participation surveys show that 95 per cent of students want to engage with these issues further through research, internships or volunteering. Our role is then to open these pathways for them.

Here are steps you can take to build your own simulation, referencing our partner ProjectCHAKRA’s simulation experience:

Choose a real-world challenge

This should be something you have direct experience of working in as you’ll need to know the system well in order to create a simulation. A challenge that involves real people works best because people connect with people, and the aim here is to make your students feel connected to the individuals affected by the issue.&nbsp;

For example, the informal urban waste-management scenario was based on ProjectCHAKRA co-founders’ extensive work in India with a social enterprise that supports women waste pickers.

Identify the key stakeholders involved in the challenge or system

Keep things simple. Pick the stakeholders who make the most impact in the issue you’re aiming to highlight and map out how they are connected.

The key stakeholders we identified for the informal urban waste management system were:


	team members: everyday householders who generate waste on a daily basis&nbsp;
	workers: women waste pickers who pick up this waste from the roadside&nbsp;
	buyers: scrap shop dealers who buy the waste from these women.


By keeping it simple, you help students easily engage with the activity and know how their assigned role fits into the system.&nbsp;

Translate real life into the classroom using gamification

This is the creative part. Give your characters (key stakeholders) an aim (their “why”) and tell them what they have to do to achieve this aim, which should mirror what happens in real life.&nbsp;

In our example, the team members were producing sellable products to make money, the workers were collecting waste to cover their household costs, and the buyers were selling this waste at a higher margin also to make money.&nbsp;

Add detail

Once you have the economy of the system in place, the next phase is to add details to every aspect of the simulation to make it as realistic as possible.&nbsp;

For example, in real life as the women pick up more waste, the bag they carry gets heavier. To bring this dynamic into the classroom, we add weights to the workers’ bags as the simulation progresses.

Facilitate debriefs to support personal and collective reflection&nbsp;

The simulation game play is only half the experience. The remaining consists of a facilitated debrief process that gives time for students to self-reflect on their behaviours, emotions and dynamics of what they have experienced.

We go through four reflective phases that build on each other:&nbsp;


	Objective&nbsp;To begin, establish the facts of the challenge and engage the five senses by asking questions such as: what did you do? What did you see? What did you hear?&nbsp;This is an opportunity for all participants to understand everyone’s experience of the game.&nbsp;&nbsp;
	Reflective&nbsp;Next, encourage students to share their personal experiences of the activity to discover and share how they feel.&nbsp;
	Interpretive&nbsp;This is the time to explore how what participants experienced in the classroom translates to the real world.
	Decisional&nbsp;Finally, it’s time to take action. The overarching question you put to your group is: “So, what are we going to do about this?”


In our example, some students shared they would be more mindful of the everyday systems they lived in to see the whole from the parts. Others committed to volunteering locally and some students felt inspired to go to India to work on the ground with the social enterprise that supports these women.&nbsp;

At the University of Surrey, this engagement has opened opportunities to strengthen our international strategy. Following this experiential workshop, our students participated in a social leaders programme in India to continue to develop their global citizenship.&nbsp;

Anand Mistry is co-founder of ProjectCHAKRA.&nbsp;Kat Mack is student enterprise manager, and&nbsp;Shelini Surendran is associate dean (international) of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, both at the University of Surrey.

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Role play and gamification ideas to teach the SDGs

A case study showing how simulations, role playing and gamification can develop students’ global citizenship and help grand challenges feel more surmountable

Bring the SDGs into the classroom through role play and gamification

Students often feel disheartened by climate change, perceiving their contributions as insignificant compared with nations and corporations. Indeed, a 2021 Lancet Planetary Health study revealed that more than 50 per cent of 10,000 students experienced negative emotions when discussing climate change, with 82.6 per cent feeling that people had failed the planet. 

In order to empower students in this crucial area, however, it is worth considering a 2017 study by GlobeScan and the SustainAbility Institute, which rated NGOs and the United Nations above national governments in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 


	Moving beyond climate change to teach the climate crisis
	Circular impact: a call to action for research on grand societal challenges
	THE podcast: universities aren’t too small to lead the climate crisis fight


We have found that involving students in collaborations with climate-focused organisations can empower them to contribute to solutions. To guide you in initiating these collaborations and ensuring their effectiveness, we present eight steps for creating a project with students and NGOs focusing on SDG 13 (“Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”).

1. Talk to your class

Discuss your students’ interests and find out how they wish to engage in climate-related topics such as mitigation and justice. Show that you care about their concerns and explore these subjects in your class to help them determine their approach for collaboration.

2. Frame your class participation in climate action

Explore the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s publication on youth engagement for climate action. Read it in detail, focusing on part one for foundational insights for your class project. In part 1.2, you should gain clarity on your students’ potential levels of participation, whether that comes in policy, politics, community initiatives, climate justice or specific local problems. You can also consider asking different groups to focus on different functions or outcomes, such as research, community building, communications, even entrepreneurship. Remember that each of these is valuable, even if the entire class assumes the same role. If you’re uncertain, limit participation to a single function to simplify the project. 

3. NGOs as partners

When considering an NGO for collaboration, it’s important to choose one that aligns with your students’ characteristics and interests. Some youth-oriented options include the Youth Climate Action Network and Fridays for Future, but research or ask your students for recommendations that match their attitudes and interests. Regardless of your choice, prioritise creating a comfortable and empowering environment for your students, allowing them to express their agency, as recommended by the UNDP.

4. Think local, act local

Encourage hope by showcasing the results of students’ actions. Explore local climate crisis impacts and their causes, then collaborate with a community-focused NGO to address these issues through various activities and approaches.

5. Narratives

To drive real change, consider the UNDP’s narrative assessment approach. This involves challenging the status quo behind the climate crisis and proposing alternatives. Show your class what’s been done, why it hasn’t worked, key stakeholders and other relevant factors to reveal systemic issues. This also encourages critical thinking about prevention, mitigation and adaptation strategies and their impact on the crisis.

6. Working on the project: start small

First, start small. A good way to do this is by making sure your students know which target of SDG 13 (or any other) they’re working on. If different agencies or organisations are to be used, make sure everyone knows if they’re affecting different targets and the roles they will play in doing so. 

7. Working on the project: pedagogy

Check Unesco’s education for sustainable development road map, especially its advice on interactive, project-based, learner-centred pedagogy in the learning environment. Also, if you have questions about which topics and/or approaches to explore, consider reading the education for sustainable development goals’ learning objectives guide. 

8. Working on the project: what will they turn in?

This is linked to the role/function your class, or different groups, were asked to assume. If they were focusing on communication, their task might be the creation of a multimedia project covering the crisis context, key players, impact, reasons for the lack of change and necessary reforms. Alternatively, if they were focused on entrepreneurship, this could involve designing a sustainable product or service backed by scientific principles and ensuring equitable access. Regardless of their function, assessment should focus on their systemic analysis, adherence to scientific principles and consideration of climate justice.

Remember that the project needs to be as focused as possible yet also requires complex preparation so it ends with real climate action and students feeling empowered. If you need an example, consider ours: in an online class, 360 of our students collaborated with the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) to address sustainability issues, particularly ocean pollution in Mexico. Their #PorNuestrosOcéanos campaign involved creating videos (meaning they participated as communicators), with the top three shared on UNIC’s platforms and at Mexico City train stations. With guidance from 10 teachers, students completed these videos in a month, resulting in 100 per cent of them reporting feeling excited about contributing to ocean pollution solutions and 94 per cent expressing renewed hope for environmental impact. If you’re interested, here is the video that earned first position.

Luis Ricardo Fernández Carril is a professor and sustainability coordinator in the School of Humanities and Education, and&nbsp;Luis Gerardo Rojas Solorio is an associate professor of ethics, sustainability and social responsibility, both at Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico.

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Creating student-NGO partnerships for climate solutions 

Luis Ricardo Fernández Carril and Luis Gerardo Rojas Solorio reveal how to energise and empower students to take part in the fight against climate change 

Driving change: creating student-NGO partnerships for climate solutions 

“The worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival…It is not education that will save us, but education of a certain kind.” -&nbsp;David Orr.

A much wider social mobilisation is needed to impel decision-makers to deal with global heating and the related ecological crisis. This requires activism, advocacy, new careers, and an engagement with policy, details and political power at every level, and in every town, city and state of the nation. This also requires scaling up university education, not only on climate change, but on the climate crisis – a psycho-socio-political-economic analysis of the predicament and what to do. 

Based on my experience teaching the climate crisis, proposing a general education requirement in our local academic senate, organising on climate action with students and talking to colleagues at many schools, I see four ways that the scale-up of education is being attempted, or could be: 


	Institute an interdisciplinary approach by peppering the climate crisis through many different classes (philosophy, earth science, arts) and ensure that each student gets several of those classes. This has the downside of requiring a lot of coordination and increasing time-to-degree.
	To minimise extra effort, expense or time-to-degree, require students to pick one from a list of existing classes that deal with climate change. Unfortunately, this provides a narrow view. A more ambitious plan of broader education would install a committee that specifies criteria for classes to be on the list; criteria that include the components discussed below.
	Require a generic “Introduction to Climate Change” class, the kind already taught in many schools by earth scientists. While students in this class will have a strong grounding in the physical facts of climate change, they are unlikely to be exposed to the sociocultural-political dimensions or develop any sense of what to do about it. 
	Teach a broad spectrum curriculum through one class, covering the history, current and projected impacts and causes of climate change and potential solutions. The challenge for scaling this is that it requires teachers who feel competent delivering this broad spectrum content. Yet, if institutions take the imperative seriously, they could achieve this with workshops and graduate student stipends.



	Resource collection: Universities’ role in the climate change battle
	‘Embrace messiness’: how to broker global partnerships to tackle the Sustainable Development Goals
	Resource collection:&nbsp;How universities can work towards the SDGs


Whatever approach is taken, it should help the student find answers to these five questions: 

Is adaptation enough or must we still struggle to leave fossil fuels in the ground?

Our societies and infrastructure must adapt, but this is not easily achievable for people in the Global South who are already struggling. In any case, continuing to emit at present rates means we risk breaking through 1.5 degrees of heating in a sustained fashion in the early 2030s, which could soon lead to climate tipping points being passed, resulting in methane “bombs” from permafrost thaw and the collapse of the Amazon. This argues it is critical to still struggle now to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

What policies do we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground?

Students need practical insight into&nbsp;changes in agriculture, consumption reduction&nbsp;and&nbsp;the renewable energy transition such as electrification of buildings, transportation and industry, provided by renewable energy sources with storage. This material has to be discussed along with alternative technical approaches such as nuclear, carbon capture, carbon offsets and pricing. Discussion must be done through a climate justice lens which is alive to the extractivist mentality that brought us the climate and ecological crisis in the first place. Technical approaches must be compared by cost, speed and amount of environmental damage and exploitation Yes, the Inflation Reduction Act escalates the renewables transition but it also expands the fossil fuel industry. We cannot save the world without a confrontation with that industry. 

What are the barriers for those policies to be implemented?

The barriers that need to be discussed in class include: the decades-long campaign by fossil fuel and investor-owned utilities to seed doubt over man-made climate change; greenwashing by organisations that promote sustainable practices while relying on fossil fuels; the everywhere-evident social licence to keep on polluting, be it planes dragging adverts through the sky to garbage trucks emblazoned with “powered by clean natural gas”; the social norms that make many of us feel entitled to high carbon intensity lifestyles; and the obsession with economic and institutional growth. 

A fundamental issue to highlight is that many policy goals are set way too little, way too late, and use “net zero” and “carbon neutral” language that tends to license more extraction now on the promise of removing atmospheric carbon later. Even when local elected officials promise climate action, they scarcely implement it – not only due to entrenched interests but because they are not impelled by the public. 

How can we help overcome those barriers locally?

Beyond scepticism about the human cause of global heating, many people are sceptical that they can mount a useful response, or that any response is possible by their community. Students can be encouraged to overcome this skepticism, and model new social norms, by engaging in individual actions such as electrifying a home, shifting personal banking, reducing consumption and being a good climate communicator. They can be taught how individual actions done in concert with many others does become system change. Above all, they can be taught and encouraged to practise collective action, using the principles of organising theory, social movement theory and the psychology of collective action. Local collective action is critical to drive policy implementation for buildings, transportation and grid electricity, and for ensuring that the renewables transition happens as much as possible under democratic as opposed to for-profit control.

Why is it worth acting locally when this is a global problem?

Some people do little because they expect that internationally binding resolutions or federal and state action will drive local policy: a global to local theory of change. By contrast, acting locally has a different theory of change: flowing from local to national to international. Motivating this local theory of action requires covering the United Nations climate process, the politics of national climate action, and above all, the history and social science of environmental and social movements. For example, covering the story of how the Nixon-era regulations of the 1970s and the Inflation Reduction Act of last year were partly triggered by local action.

Saving the biosphere requires going beyond teaching students about the climate predicament itself: they must develop core knowledge about the kind of energy transition that is worth fighting for in timescales that matter. They must understand the blocks to policy, and they must build their belief, partly through practice, that local collective action can help give us the social tipping point that forestalls climate tipping points.

Adam R. Aron is professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego.

This advice is drawn from his textbook, The Climate&nbsp;Crisis: Science, Impacts, Policy, Psychology, Justice, Social&nbsp;Movements.

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Ways to scale up education relating to the climate crisis and the questions it must guide students to answer

Moving beyond climate change to teach the climate crisis 

Choosing a parking spot can be tricky when there are lots of options. Perhaps a space closest to the supermarket entrance is the best when carrying large loads. Or one at the side with plenty of shade on a hot, sunny afternoon. Maybe a slot in the furthest corner works well if your daily step count is below par. Or an extra wide bay if the chance of door scrapes and dings are to be minimised. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

The eventual choice will reflect the priorities of the driver – whether they are convenience, comfort, fitness, or defensiveness. Much less trivial, development of a climate adaptation plan for a university requires shortlisting and ranking risk management options according to specified criteria. However, unlike the parking options, which are clear, adaptation decisions contend with a great deal of uncertainty about the future pace and sometimes direction of climate change impacts on people and institutions.


	Resource collection:&nbsp;Universities’ role in the climate change battle
	Building futures: how estates directors can deliver net zero
	Accelerating towards net zero emissions: how to mobilise your university on climate action


In part three, we closed with a set of illustrative actions that could protect students and staff from more severe heatwaves. These included upgrading problematic buildings with cooler, more reflective materials, and better ventilation; incorporating more vegetated spaces and water bodies into campuses; targeting vulnerable groups via weather forecasts and heat health advice; and rescheduling academic and sporting activities to cooler periods. In practice, there are probably insufficient resources to introduce all these measures at once. So, how might they be ranked and implemented in the most effective way?

Steps five and six of the UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) framework on strengthening the climate resilience of higher education institutions address the prioritisation and evaluation of climate adaptations.&nbsp;Step five focuses on prioritising and implementing the most urgent climate actions. Step six ensures that monitoring and evaluation processes are in place to track outcomes on the way to resilient net zero:

Step 5: Implementing adaptation actions

Let’s imagine that we have identified the most urgent climate risks faced by the university, using step three of the framework, and compiled an inventory of responses in line with step four. Feasibly, the priority is flash flooding. Now consider a particularly vulnerable asset – such as a ground floor laboratory – that has been flooded many times. Potential structural solutions would be to improve local drainage and permeability of open surfaces, construct a levee or retention pond, raise the whole floor level, retrofit with flood-resilient materials, or relocate the facility. Alternatively, high-resolution flood forecasts could be used to trigger evacuation, movement of valuable equipment and deployment of temporary flood defences. To do nothing and live with the recurrent damage and disruption is also an option. Rating criteria for adaptation options might be safety, cost, effectiveness, functionality, adaptability, longevity, ease of implementation, social acceptability, carbon footprint and wider environmental benefits.

The most cost-effective option could be to install temporary flood barriers but these depend on timely and accurate forecasts as well as on qualified personnel for their operation. Access to the building would be impeded so functionality, and ease of implementation, would be low. Instead, a retention pond would be expensive to build and afford protection up to a point so is less cost-effective, although it offers improved biodiversity and amenity value. The cost of moving the laboratory is prohibitively high even if this option delivers most on safety, functionality and longevity.

From this hypothetical case, it is clear that the criteria are not regarded equally. On a scale of 0 (least preferred) to 1 (most preferred) we might weight safety and cost as 1, and effectiveness and longevity as 0.8, with lower scores for the remaining characteristics. These weights would be highly contextual and should be negotiated as part of a transparent adaptation planning process, with input from stakeholders across the university community. So far, we have considered only the single climate risk of flash flooding and its impact on one building – ideally multiple risks and multiple receptors would be evaluated in this way at an institutional level, including for off-site climate impacts. Multi-criteria analysis is widely used in these kinds of complex situation. The tool provides a systematic way of blending expert input and stakeholder consultation when scoring multiple adaptation options against agreed criteria. The output is an overall ranking of tabled adaptation options.

Step 6: Monitoring progress towards resilient net zero

Now let’s consider the following adaptations for a flood-prone lab, sequenced according to their cost-effectiveness: (1) a local flood action plan reliant on forecasts and temporary barriers; (2) retrofitting the building with hard floors and raised electrical circuits; (3) replacing exterior paving with permeable surfaces; or (4) decommissioning the site and constructing a new building outside the flood zone. Note: from the perspective of achieving resilient net zero, options (1) to (4) have increasingly large carbon footprints. At what point then should option (1) be augmented by (2), then by (3) and eventually (4)?

This depends on the severity of climate change impacts, institutional resources and appetite for risk. Hence, a long-term monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework is needed to track evolving climate hazards as well as progress in implementing adaptation activities. Critically, this would focus on adaptation outcomes in terms of improved climate resilience. This requires locally relevant indicators of climate-related risks and actions. In the case of flash flooding, these might be on-site records of heavy rainfall, surface water flooding, cost of damages and hours of disruption. Ideally, such indicators would be reported annually to senior management and benchmarked against historic data. These metrics would also sit alongside those charting movement towards net zero emissions. As the climate risks grow, so new adaptation and mitigation actions are brought forward.

Closing remarks

Our four-part series has outlined the steps that can be taken by universities to achieve resilient net zero – that is, reduce the impacts of climate change whilst also shrinking carbon emissions. 

Read the previous three articles here:

Start your university on a path to resilient net zero

Setting scenarios for a university adapted to climate change

A guide to evaluating and managing climate risks to universities

This is a long-term, technical endeavour that should involve all communities working and living on and around the university site and beyond. Even if the work is outsourced to consultants, we all have roles to play. These might be as informed managers, providers of information and knowledge, or beneficiaries of actions taken to safeguard people, property and university operations from climate change. The whole process of adapting to climate change is an iterative and collective effort so you may like to return to the first part of our series or even join a community of practice on managing climate risks.

Rob Wilby is professor of hydroclimatic modelling at Loughborough University and Shona Smith is head of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.

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In the fourth and final part of their series, Rob Wilby and Shona Smith explain how universities can implement adaptation measures and monitor their progress towards resilient net zero

How to select and monitor climate adaptations for universities

The concept of impact has gained traction in academia since its introduction in the UK Research Excellence Framework nearly 10 years ago, which places emphasis on research that brings about positive societal change. However, as we confront increasingly complex societal challenges, there is a need to move beyond the retrospective lens on impact and embrace new ways to understand and achieve change. Circular economy research is an evolving field that brings together experts from various disciplines to address grand challenges, with an ambition that by closing the flow of resources in a system, so they keep circulating rather than generating waste, we are able to regenerate our environments and build thriving economies.

Here, I explore the transformative potential of applying this same philosophy to impact, resulting in circular impact as part of research. This means delving into the fundamental implications of research to better assess what changes emerge as a result. The concept’s effectiveness hinges on collaborative efforts spanning government, industry and academia, and the establishment of cross-sector and interdisciplinary networks.

By embracing circular impact, we can build narratives around our work for evaluation and monitoring purposes from the outset and use evaluation as a learning and improvement mechanism to design projects that rejuvenate and restore social, economic and environmental systems.


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	Resource collection:&nbsp;How to chart a course through crisis


From critique to action

Much has been said about the “impact agenda” in UK higher education, both positive and negative. A lot of criticism highlights shortcomings in the way impact has been evaluated in exercises such as the REF, with authors citing the transactional nature of the process, the difficulty for certain fields and disciplines to reconcile the kinds of quantifiable evidence required and the lack of accounting for outcomes that might emerge over longer time periods. For an overview of these debates, the book The Impact Agenda is a good place to start. 

However, critique is not the focus here. Instead, I want to think positively about impact through the lens of practice. It is something our team often thinks about, for two reasons.

First, in the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)’s National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research&nbsp;(NICER) programme, we work on scaling capacity and capability for the circular economy in the UK. Alongside eliminating waste and circulating products and materials at their highest value, regenerative practice is a core principle in the circular economy community. Just as we strive to regenerate natural resources and create positive feedback loops in our work, we also aim to generate sustainable and long-lasting policy and industry impacts that benefit society and promote positive change over time.

Second, to do this, our team has embedded an impact, monitoring and evaluation process co-designed with colleagues Żaneta Muranko, from the University of Exeter, and Madeline Smith, of Glasgow School of Art, that allows us to take stock of and co-produce our “theory of change” in real time – connecting activities to outcomes in line with the change we would like to see as a result of our research. This moves us beyond static mapping activities common at the beginning of a project and sees us continually and critically reflecting on monthly actions in line with broader goals and ambitions. By reviewing activities on an ongoing basis, we can make fine-tuned adjustments to ensure our work is reaching the best people and generating impactful outcomes. Evaluation needs to be developmental and evolving to match this reflective process. How we do this is addressed below.

An additional consideration is the emphasis placed on impact by funding bodies such as UKRI, which break down impact into categories and provide toolkits for building impact into research projects.

Impacting policy

Circular economy has gained traction in policy circles, recognised as a viable solution to pressing issues in UK government strategy such as the recent Critical Minerals and MedTech strategies, the Skidmore Review of Net Zero, plans for growth outlined in Build Back Better, the Resources and Waste Strategy for England and many more in the devolved administrations. But while it is a hot topic, policy impact does not generate itself.

The need to address complex challenges cannot be captured by publication metrics alone. It calls for a shift in mindset and practices, emphasising whole-systems approaches and sustainable research that draws on diverse knowledge. In short, the goal of circular impact is to shift mindsets from impact as an effect of research to impact as a purposeful act planned for upstream.

How do we do this?

“Theories of change” function as useful roadmaps that describe how programmes are expected to work, outlining how certain actions lead to certain impacts. However, this kind of linear causal thinking often does not reflect the complexity of real-world situations. To ensure we achieve the impact we desire, we cannot wait and see. Rather, we must practice circular impact, using reflective learning and adaptation to allow adjustment and improvement in real time. 

While it may seem a daunting prospect, as a team we follow some simple steps on a monthly basis that may serve as a useful starting point for others:

1. We developed a tool: This could be relatively simple like a spreadsheet capturing basic information on events and publications, or a more comprehensive collection of evidence on audience numbers, alignment to performance indicators, reflections on the process and so on. The important thing, though, is to have a dedicated place to consistently record information that is accessible to all. In our tool, we have categories to capture data on activities, how they were initiated, who was reached, mechanisms for extending reach, and forecasting potential medium and long-term outcomes. 

2. We meet regularly: Each month, members of the team responsible for documenting our theory of change meet individually with others across the project to discuss the month’s core activities. During this time, we consider how activities – such as presenting at a conference, attending a workshop, publishing a paper –&nbsp;align with our broader goals and explore potential for extending otherwise short-term events into longer-lasting opportunities. This could include translating an academic article into a piece for a general audience or appearing on a podcast to increase the reach of the findings. 

3. We strategise, then act: During monthly discussions, we may identify further mechanisms to generate reach such as translating a technical academic article into a general audience blog post or opinion piece. Regularly strategising in small groups is fantastic for generating new ideas and uncovering otherwise unknown links – that call for papers or seminar you missed might be spotted by your colleagues and can be passed on as a result of regular discussion. Plus, finding ways to engage audiences beyond academia is key to building meaningful impact. 

4. We adapt and evolve: Because this is part of our regular practice (don’t be fooled, it took some work to embed), we are able to evaluate what we are doing systematically over time. When things work well, we do more of them. When they don’t, we do less or we alter the course. In other words, circular impact for us means putting our theory of change into practice.

Meaningful impact

With circular impact practices we are able to foster research that is not only academically rigorous, but which contributes to a regenerative and sustainable future for society and the planet by positively engaging with policymakers and broader society. Let’s embrace evaluation as a learning process and impact as a positive force, shaping a better world through our collective efforts.

Ryan Nolan is a postdoctoral research impact fellow in the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Hub at the University of Exeter and a member of the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN).

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How to enact a ‘circular’ approach to research and impact so outcomes feed back into the work to inform ongoing planning and improvement

Circular impact: a call to action for research on grand societal challenges

Attitudes to risk are highly personal. One individual’s exhilarating mountain scramble may be another’s terrifying glimpse into the abyss; some will swipe a wasp away unflinchingly whereas others fear a sting. Consciously or not, a risk calculus is performed on the chance and consequences of something bad happening. The likelihood of tumbling from the slope may be low, but the consequences would be catastrophic; the possibility of being stung is higher but, for most, unlikely to be fatal. Objectively, a fall is the greater risk.

Risks faced by universities vary as do institutions’ appetites for risks to people, property and operations. Depending on the region, the main climate-related hazards in the UK are extreme heat, flooding (by rivers, surface and groundwater), droughts, wildfires, poor air quality, strong winds and storm surges. The frequency, duration and severity of high-impact weather events are expected to increase over coming decades, according to Met Office UKCP18 projections, depending on global efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Extreme weather could impact vulnerable groups of students, staff and visitors to university sites as well as fieldwork. Transport, energy and IT systems may be disrupted, or buildings and facilities damaged. For example, a flash flood in June 2019 caused around £20 million of damage to University of Stirling teaching spaces, accommodation, sports facilities and contents. Adverse weather&nbsp;may also affect&nbsp;university supply chains and sport events.


	Resource collection:&nbsp;Universities’ role in the climate change battle
	Charting a shared path to net zero universities
	Resource collection:&nbsp;How universities can work towards the SDGs


Given the many potential climate hazards, and direct and indirect impacts, how do complex organisations such as universities begin to evaluate their key climate risks in a systematic way? Steps three and four of the UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) framework on strengthening the climate resilience of higher education institutions address this task. Step three is about rating climate risks to specific “receptors” such as critical assets. Step four then seeks out adaptation options to manage identified climate risks:

Step 3: Assessing climate risks

Start by agreeing the scope of the assessment and appetite for risk with stakeholders. The initial focus might be on a few critical assets or campus buildings, then extend to the wider estate, and eventually to off-site risks to the university. Next, review the major climate risks identified for your region. The most recent UK Climate Change Risk Assessment provides useful information about projected changes in climate and associated impacts. Academic staff may have access to more local climate data on historic and future conditions. For instance, long-term weather records collected on Loughborough University campus show that local flooding can occur in summer when 24-hour rainfall totals exceed 25mm. Media reports may also help with gauging the frequency of notable events such as droughts. These sources can be combined with available institutional data on damage and disruption caused by past extreme weather to produce a climate risk matrix, as below.



  
      
  
    Image
                



          

  

An illustrative risk matrix for a coastal location showing the likelihood and consequences (cost £) of six climate-related hazards affecting facilities in the 2020s and 2050s (arrows). Colours are the risk level: low (blue), moderate (yellow), high (orange), and severe (red)



In the above case, the likelihood and consequence of hazards are each given a score on a scale of one to five. The former may be expressed as the number of times the event happens in a given period; the latter might be gauged in terms of cost (as here) or another metric, such as the number of hours of interrupted service. For this hypothetical coastal location, under present conditions (2020s) droughts occur on average once every five years and accrue only minor costs (£1000s) from irrigation of playing fields. However, by the 2050s, climate change is expected to increase the likelihood and severity of droughts ‒ and attendant hazards such as wildfires ‒ so the risk rating goes up. The likelihood of heatwave, floods and storm surges is expected to increase (denoted by the upward arrows), whereas the chance of a heavy snowfall decreases, and wind storms are unchanged.

By multiplying the likelihood and consequence scores, it is possible to calculate the risk of each hazard. For floods, the risk score is 12 in the 2020s and 16 by the 2050s; for heatwaves, the assessed risks are 12 and 15 respectively. Hence, by the 2050s the priority order of the six hazards would be floods (16), heatwaves (15), drought (12), storm surge (10), wind storm (4) and snowfall (3). This scoring provides a basis for focusing adaptation actions on the most important risks. Once key climate risks are identified, they should be acknowledged within university risk registers, with assigned accountabilities. The universities of Cranfield and Nottingham provide helpful examples of climate risk and resilience assessment.

Step 4: Identifying adaptation options

List the measures that could be taken to counteract the identified climate risks. Fortunately, this has been done many times before, and much effort is saved through peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. This is because adapting to climate change is so often about learning by doing. Useful resources and case studies for getting started are available from the C40 Cities, the searchable portal of Climate-ADAPT, and the compendium of Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects. As far as we are aware, a bespoke adaptation inventory has yet to be developed for the education sector. Nonetheless, the suggested platforms offer a variety of options. For instance, the GEF actions cover investments in human capacity and behaviour, governance, monitoring and warning systems, “hard” and “soft” infrastructure, financial instruments and technology. Let’s unpack an adaptation option set for one of the most likely hazards faced by UK higher education institutions – heatwaves.

What practical steps could universities take to protect staff and students from very high temperatures? Oxford Brookes used the redevelopment of their Clive Booth Student Village as an opportunity to upgrade building fabrics to reduce energy demand for cooling and incorporated more naturally ventilated spaces. Surrounding woodland landscapes provide shade while contributing to biodiversity. Other options for improving resilience to heatwaves include raising awareness through access to information campaigns and local heat-health alerts&nbsp;or changing behaviours around hydration, clothing and physical activity. Teaching and exam schedules could be adjusted to avoid the hottest part of the day. Over the long term, the estate might incorporate more green spaces and water features, retrofit buildings with more blinds, adopt more reflective building materials and minimise heat gain through large glass facades.

Next steps

This is the third in a series of articles offering advice on how universities can build climate change resilience while also working towards net zero. Read the first and second article here:&nbsp;

Start your university on a path to resilient net zero

Setting scenarios for a university adapted to climate change

In our fourth and final part of the series, we will suggest ways of rating adaptation measures according to their cost-effectiveness and other criteria. The aim is to deliver a final set of actions and monitoring systems that will enhance our institutions’ resilience to climate change, whether confronted by more heat, floods or droughts.

Rob Wilby is professor of hydroclimatic modelling at Loughborough University and Shona Smith is head of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds.

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In the third part of their series, Rob Wilby and Shona Smith explain how universities can determine their climate risk exposure, then identify actions to reduce associated threats to people, property and operations

A guide to evaluating and managing climate risks to universities

Our students, particularly Gen Z, report feeling under pressure to solve the climate crisis. While we have successfully embedded sustainability-related issues into many academic modules, this often increases students’ eco-anxiety while falling short of providing practical actions they can take. To address this challenge, Green Consultants provides an extracurricular opportunity for students to take action, while developing new professional skills. 

Why it helps 

Primarily an employability programme, run by the Career Zone at the University of Exeter, Green Consultants is composed of three elements. First, students from any discipline and year group are trained to work as sustainability consultants with a variety of soft and technical skills. They can then work in groups for the university’s sustainability team to deliver real projects on campus, such as auditing out-of-hours electricity use. Finally, students can undertake a week-long internship with an external organisation. The students gain valuable work experience, the university moves towards its net-zero goals, and knowledge and skills are spread throughout the community. 


	Resource collection:&nbsp;Universities’ role in the climate change battle
	Ease students’ climate anxiety by encouraging climate action
	THE podcast: universities aren’t too small to lead the climate crisis fight


Originally designed for up to 20 students, all of whom completed all three stages, with training delivered face to face, the training was&nbsp;relaunched online in September 2021. More than 400 students have now participated, with 250 finishing the training. The huge growth in engagement was thanks to increased capacity enabling more students to learn about this sector outside their academic studies.

Action against anxiety

Students lack awareness of sustainability employment opportunities, and often the problems are taught as too big to solve alone, which can be a paralysing combination. Taking action is the best offence against anxiety, and students can access the Green Consultants programme at any time. 

Anxiety can also be amplified by loneliness, so we have built community into the programme. A Viva Engage group is used for frequently asked questions, and through a bespoke LinkedIn group, we nurture community, promote opportunities, encourage networking and engage with alumni. We share graduate-level roles, training opportunities, posts from industry advisory group members, and relevant LinkedIn posts to keep the group informed. Alumni are encouraged to continue engaging once they have graduated, to support current students’ development.

Students and employers often have unrealistically high expectations of what can be achieved in the limited time available. Managing these expectations without crushing enthusiasm and drive is a balancing act with both parties. Initially, some organisations believe our students will solve all their sustainability problems in one internship. We have been asked to prepare a company for B Corp certification in one week. At the same time, our students think they can do it. While it is often a hard knock to students to learn to accommodate policies, board members and budget limitations, these tools make them attractive graduate candidates and great sustainability champions in their careers. 

We manage expectations when designing internships with employers by promoting SMART objectives and giving suggestions on what it is reasonable for students to undertake in a week. Previous projects have included a student devising a social media campaign to communicate sustainability actions to an organisation’s clients and calculating the carbon emissions for small organisations.

Impact and next steps?

Our sustainability work is driven by the career aspirations and values expressed by our students. A massive 88 per cent of our students think sustainability education is important, according to Responsible Futures research undertaken this year. We hope schemes like this can empower them with the confidence to make the greatest difference they can. 

By taking our training online, we have scaled up the reach and enabled more students to engage as part of their career decision-making process. Each student who undertakes Green Consultants can progress as far as they want. About 50 per cent of those who complete the programme go on to work in the sector, taking up roles as graduate sustainability consultants and solar specialists, for example. 

Students who complete the programme can demonstrate how they have made a difference to the university and an employer and that they do have the power and agency to make a difference. Students will take this learning with them whether they go into the green sector or not. 

Helen Hicks is programme officer and Dawn Lees is student employability and development manager at the University of Exeter.

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We induce eco-anxiety by teaching students about climate change, so training them in practical and achievable solutions to it are needed, too, write Helen Hicks and Dawn Lees



A practical approach to tackling eco-anxiety

An organisation can signal its commitment to sustainability through green certification and labels, or via marketing campaigns with messages of environmental stewardship. However, making bold statements and focusing solely on operational changes such as the eradication of single-use plastics is not enough to drive meaningful change. Instead, it’s the setting of specific and achievable goals and ensuring organisation-wide involvement that are more important.&nbsp;

Some organisations embark on the sustainability journey with 1) lofty, non-specific goals or without getting all levels of the organisation involved; 2) haphazard implementation of a sustainability blueprint; 3) lack of technical skills to measure GHG emissions or to conduct materiality assessments; or 4) insufficient alignment of the sustainability plan with key business goals. These factors lead to problems that hinder organisations from reaching their sustainability goals.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have opportunities to foster sustainability and to become carbon neutral. What does it take to engage constructively with sustainable development and to contribute to the well-being of planet and people? Here, we share insights from a recent study of one of Asia’s foremost garden destinations to illustrate how embedding sustainability into induction training can support organisation-wide change.

In our case study,&nbsp;Enhancing the Sustainability DNA of Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay through Induction Training, we highlight sustainability-related challenges and develop induction-training solutions that can be applied by human resource teams in support of the overall mission and vision of the organisation.&nbsp;

This endeavour has broader significance: developing a positive sustainability mindset among participants of an induction training programme is one thing, but to make it stick so that staff initiate greener actions towards a more sustainable future once they have completed the training is another.


	THE podcast: universities aren’t too small to lead the climate crisis fight
	Charting a shared path to net zero universities
	Setting scenarios for a university adapted to climate change


While higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing specific challenges in this regard, such as resistance to change, unsustainable travel patterns, the lack of a whole-institution implementation approach or the emphasis on mono-disciplinary research, they also have opportunities to address sustainability-related issues. Examples include improving the environmental performance of campus buildings, establishing effective governance structures such as transdisciplinary task forces, setting up a regional HEI sustainability network so that latecomers can catch up, and supporting new forms of research and teaching such as citizen science or living energy labs. 

Linking induction training to the organisation’s sustainability action plan can help to motivate employees to implement achievable change initiatives, which in our Gardens by the Bay case study included responsible printing, meeting sustainability reporting requirements, participating in the organisation’s tree-planting scheme, reducing water and energy use, and composting.

One key takeaway from this learning journey was that sustainability cannot be an afterthought; we need to be conscious of how we operate and manage institutions and businesses and how these will impact the environment, society, community and stakeholders.&nbsp;

Sustainability-based induction training programmes have a role to play in creating meaningful change, and how businesses, including HEIs, can inject sustainability into their organisational DNA.

Starting on the right foot

So, the question now is, why are sustainability-based induction training programmes important? Induction training programmes, conducted when an employee joins the organisation, establish a shared language and platform for organisations to efficiently manage and communicate the importance of balancing economic growth, social well-being and environmental care.&nbsp;

All too often, organisations start and end with the environment in pursuing their sustainability efforts. They should, instead, approach sustainability from the inside out, starting with organisational culture change and their employees.&nbsp;

Singapore Management University (SMU) also engages with stakeholders and partners to further the discourse on sustainability through initiatives such as its sustainability blueprint, professional training that links career advice to sustainability, and postgraduate courses to equip students with key competencies for future green jobs across industries and sectors.

Aligning students, faculty and staff on the same page and ingraining sustainability into the organisational culture is never easy. Taking small, well-planned steps such as sharing best practices – such as environmental, social and governance (ESG) frameworks – internally, rolling out needs-based courses on sustainability topics for employees or appointing champions to execute and monitor strategic actions can help to achieve sustainability goals and strengthen accountability. &nbsp;

If we look at sustainability from the perspective of being thoughtful and mindful about how organisational activities (whether doing business or creating new research knowledge) affect and impact our stakeholders, then we will start to think more deeply about our decisions, actions and omissions in a responsible manner.

By incorporating sustainability principles into policies, plans and programmes and engaging new hires in experiential activities (such as carbon-offset quantification, hands-on waste segregation and treatment, or tree-planting), organisations emphasise to their employees the priority, importance and significance of sustainability. This approach ensures that new hires not only understand but also embrace the organisation’s commitment to sustainability, setting the stage for a workforce equipped with the skills to support green transition efforts.

Three tips for organisations

Here are three tips for organisations that want to integrate sustainability DNA into their operations and create meaningful change:&nbsp;

1. Increase understanding of the crisis of sustainability&nbsp;


	Be aware of&nbsp;sustainability issues and their effects on planet and people
	Share “good”&nbsp;and “best”&nbsp;sustainability practices
	Appoint sustainability champions and run pilot programmes in order to lead by example and celebrate small wins.&nbsp;


2. Ensure that induction training programmes:&nbsp;&nbsp;


	Enable staff to understand the organisation’s strategic approach to sustainability, and how they can contribute to the achievement of relevant sustainable development goals (SDGs)
	Cover trends around emerging skills in the green economy
	Incorporate ESG&nbsp;initiatives and commitments
	Empower new hires to support aspirational sustainability goals of the organisation by engaging them in experiential activities (such as tree planting).&nbsp;


3. Explore&nbsp;programmes as starting points&nbsp;


	Know the 17 SDGs of the United Nations and the resources provided by the UN&nbsp;Global Compact
	Make use of government resources and grants to support your sustainability journey (in Singapore, examples include&nbsp;the Enterprise Sustainability Programme&nbsp;and SkillsFuture Singapore)&nbsp;&nbsp;
	Check out the&nbsp;sustainability-related courses offered by Institutes of Higher Learning (both online and in person)
	Learn from educational institutions that offer professional training programmes, such as online course providers, sustainable finance academies and umbrella bodies.


Thomas Menkhoff is a professor of organisational behaviour and human resources (education) and Kevin Cheong is an adjunct teaching mentor, both at Singapore Management University. 

This is an edited version of “Cracking the code: An introduction to incorporating sustainability into organisational DNA through induction training”, which was first published on City Perspectives on 26 June 2023.

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Meaningful change comes from embedding green practices into every aspect, and every member, of the institution, starting from induction training  

Making sustainability part of university DNA

It’s easy to feel hopeless in the face of climate change, but, in this episode, two experts offer ways universities – and individuals – can make a difference to their local area and the planet

THE podcast: universities aren’t too small to lead the climate crisis fight

The role of accountants is changing rapidly, putting them in leading positions where they can help to save the world from accelerating environmental crises. The accounting students in classrooms today are the business leaders of the future. They need to be prepared for accounting as a “technical, social and moral practice concerned with the sustainable utilisation of resources and proper accountability to stakeholders to enable the flourishing of organisations, people and nature,” write Gary Carnegie, Lee Parker and Eva Tsahuridu in their paper, It’s 2020: What is Accounting Today.

But how can this practice be taught if the sustainability standards are not yet set? Financial reporting standards took decades to develop and reach general agreement on an international scale. Once consensus was reached, stakeholders could rely on the principles of relevance and reliability to compare financial reports throughout the world. Sustainability standards are now following that route with the first few ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board) pointers being issued, but as not all standards have been issued how can we possibly teach our students?

The answer is Freirean dialogic teaching.

In this form of teaching the teacher must put their ego aside and learn alongside students. It was suggested by Ian Thompson and Jan Bebbington back in 2004 but has a particular relevance today when considering how to teach the rapidly evolving subject of sustainability. Freirean teaching means focusing on discussion with students, finding out their views, challenging them on their assumptions, explaining the possible wider-reaching implications of the solutions they create. In his 1970 book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire states that: “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”


	Resource collection:&nbsp;How universities can work towards the SDGs
	Transformative not transmissive education for sustainability
	Studying sustainability by applying systems thinking to news stories


To be able to engage in invention and reinvention, students need three elements: knowledge, intellect and support. First, they need to know the terminology and basic principles of financial and sustainability reporting to form questions for meaningful enquiry. Second, they need the intellectual maturity to consider multiple viewpoints and synthesise evidence. Underlying this they need the security, support and encouragement from teachers and peers to have the confidence to voice their thoughts. 

This can be done in an accounting classroom by:

1. Using texts such as The Routledge Handbook of Environmental Accounting which have conflicting views in them.

2. Explaining the conflicts, challenges and trade-offs that lecturers see in the world of sustainability and financial reporting.

3. Presenting with another lecturer and arguing different intellectual viewpoints.

4. Encouraging students to talk to one another to diversify their viewpoints and learn to challenge respectfully. 

5. Exploring and explaining the relationship between established financial reporting principles and emerging sustainability ideas.

6. Discussing the latest developments of sustainability standards, questioning if they are achieving their aims to show how authority can be challenged.

7. Analysing the extent to which different well-known companies are responding to sustainability standards.

8. Immersing students in simulations like Accounting BISSM where they get to make business decisions, especially when weighing up profit and environmental impact.

9. Considering red flags for modern day slavery in case studies and what happens when these are ignored.

10. Discussing the wider role of accountants and attractiveness of the profession – for example, using this article entitled “How should we redefine accounting?” from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). 

11. Empowering students to develop intellectually by reflecting on their work using active feedback.

12. Welcoming questions and coaching students rather than having the teacher as the only source of knowledge.

By creating Freirean dialogue in accounting teaching, future generations can be empowered to truly make a difference when they enter the workplace. They can understand the roots of sustainability standards through financial reporting and use this to interpret the standards as they emerge. They will have the intellectual development to synthesise information to make decisions that allow people and nature to flourish. They will have had the support in developing confidence to become professionally sceptical and critically challenge authority. In this way they will be able to hold organisations accountable for their environmental and social damage and show how accountants can better the world.

Jennifer Rose is a senior lecturer in the Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS) at the University of Manchester. 

If you’re interested in finding out more about the issues discussed in this resource and talking about embedding sustainability in accounting, please register your interest for an upcoming forum at AMBS, University of Manchester on 1 November here: Embedding Sustainability in Audit and Accounting Education – a forum for professional accountancy bodies, academics &amp; training providers.

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Accountants of the future will need to respond to as yet unknown sustainability reporting standards. Freirean dialogic teaching where lecturers learn alongside students through discussion helps build the skills to respond to such change

Accounting for sustainability: we need to change how we teach

It was an immensely proud moment in Western Sydney University’s (WSU) history to be named number one in the world, for the second year in a row, in the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings. While other rankings may inspire competition and comparison, we feel the Impact Rankings are an opportunity to share, learn and collaborate and to help create a more just and equitable world. So in the spirit of collaboration, here are some of our takeaways on how curriculum, operations, research and engagement can be aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

If sharing these tips makes for greater competition to remain number one in the world, well, we couldn’t be happier.

Use the SDG goals as a framework for strategy and planning

Our first tip is to set ambitious targets to address sustainability issues such as climate change and social inequality, plan actions, and track your institution’s progress against the SDGs.

Since 2015, Western has produced annual institutional sustainability reports that track our commitments to the UN-led Race to Zero for Universities and Colleges. Last year, Western also produced a sustainability decadal ambition, Sustainability and Resilience 2030, which sets out a road map to address climate adaptation and mitigation, and social inequality. Our sustainable energy plan sets targets for campus operations to be carbon neutral by 2023 and climate positive by 2029.

The university has fast-tracked these targets into action, with electricity supply across all its campuses now 100&nbsp;per cent GreenPower accredited, four years ahead of target. Other operational initiatives that have come from these strategies include:


	the development of a five-year carbon transition plan and a carbon-farming portfolio
	roll-out of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, solar car parks and rooftop PV
	transition to Green Star-accredited CBD campuses and buildings (an accreditation awarded by the Green Building Council Australia).


Produce sustainability-literate graduates

Targeted education offerings allow students to better understand the global purpose of the SDGs and provide opportunities for students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to the goals and promote sustainable development. Embed sustainability across the curriculum ­– from undergraduate courses to microcredentials – for students locally and globally.


	Setting scenarios for a university adapted to climate change
	Ease students’ climate anxiety by encouraging climate action
	Charting a shared path to net zero universities


Our collaborations with international partners in India, which deliver dual higher degree research programmes in agriculture, are equipping our students to tackle some of our greatest global threats, including climate change and food security.

Our 21C curriculum renewal initiative is committed to developing resilient and sustainability-literate graduates across almost all our degree programmes. New offerings for all undergraduate students include specialisations in climate justice, equitable technologies, eco-social design and manufacturing, water for life and urban evolutions for smart green cities. We have also developed a microcredential, Sustainability: Think, Care, Do, to provide the building blocks for sustainability thinking, values and action.

Our goal is that by 2030, all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.

Lift research metrics

Support innovative and world-leading research that provides solutions to the grand challenges of sustainable development, climate change, social injustice, integrity and good governance. Ways to lift SDG-focused research include:


	Badge your publications portal with SDGs
	Distribute SDG-related keywords to researchers (Elsevier has published the criteria used to identify and categorise publications for each SDG based on publication title, abstract or keywords. Western’s Research Services team publish links to these lists on the internal research portal website. Authors can refer to these lists to see if their publication will be assigned to their intended SDG, and revise their draft title, abstract or keywords if required.)
	Celebrate SDG research (for example, WSU’s research magazine, Future Makers, publishes SDG-specific issues)
	Track alignment with SDG goals. WSU tracks the number of publications, field-weighted citation index of papers, proportion of papers in the top 10&nbsp;per cent of journals as defined by Citescore; for SDG 5 (gender equality), we track what proportion of our publications have female co-authors.


Capitalise on partnerships and thought leadership

Working closely with a wide range of local and global partners can create impact and deliver on the SDGs, as WSU has shown. Research that breaks new ground and offers solutions to the challenges faced by the modern world often starts as a hyper-local project. Globally, the power of research empowers communities.

An example of this is WSU’s work leading the Australia India Water Centre (AIWC), which aims to address the critical challenge of water security, sanitation, water management and distribution in a warming climate. Among other things, projects led by the centre engage village communities to monitor and manage groundwater at the village level and have had profound impacts on regional communities in India.

WSU is also committed to using our rankings success to mentor several universities in Australia and across the globe – through intensive workshops, analytics and presentations – on how they can better align their curriculum, operations, research and engagement with the SDGs.

Our thought leadership extends to the community, where we make visible the work being undertaken across the university as part of its Sustainability and Resilience Decadal Strategy 2030. This is done through activities such as our Thought Leadership Event Series, involving free public events that engage both the Western and wider community.

The achievement in the Impact Rankings recognises our sector-leading efforts in driving important social transformation. We have used this accolade with distinction and conviction to urge the sector to take responsibility for these goals. The dot points above are only a few of the measures contributing to our success. Please feel free to reach out to Western, via e:odvcrei@westernsydney.edu.au for more information. We would be happy to work with you to better equip the next generation of thought leaders and civic-minded citizens solve the complex challenges of our times.

Deborah Sweeney is deputy vice-chancellor and vice-president (research, enterprise and international) and Kevin Dunn is pro vice-chancellor (research), both at Western Sydney University, Australia. 

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Top-ranked Western Sydney University combines immediate action with long-term planning to drive progress in achieving impact aligned with the SDGs. Here, Deborah Sweeney and Kevin Dunn share insights learned from their institution-wide approach

A whole-university road map to sustainability impact  

What would a well-adapted university look like? Perhaps there are fewer weather-related disruptions to power supplies and transport routes. Maybe offices, laboratories, and student accommodation are comfortable during heatwaves. Or flood damage to buildings and critical infrastructure is less costly than present. Supply chains remain intact and biodiversity is thriving across campus.

All these assume adaptations to universities as we would recognise them today. But higher education institutions could look very different in the future&nbsp;as a result of&nbsp;megatrends in education shaped by demographics, technology, policy and evolving labour markets.

Scenarios can help us envision how adaptation, plus net zero plans, might perform under plausible yet contrasting futures. Here are four scenarios for universities in 2050 imagined by ChatGPT and the authors:

Sustainable and community-engaged education: Universities take a central role in addressing global challenges and sustainable development. Community engagement and experiential learning are core features as students work on real-world projects with local partners. Campuses prioritise environmental sustainability and serve as hubs for sustainable research and innovation.

Skills-based and lifelong learning: Universities shift from degree-based education to greater focus on acquiring specific skills. Microcredentials, digital badges and continuous education programmes are prominent. Universities partner with industry and professional bodies to offer targeted skills development. Lifelong learning is needed to upskill and reskill to adapt to evolving job markets.

Technologically integrated education: Advances in technology transform the learning process. Virtual and augmented reality, with artificial-intelligence-powered adaptive learning platforms integrate into educational practices. Students engage in immersive virtual environments, collaborate with peers globally, and receive personalised instruction from avatar professors. Campuses are hubs for practical experience and social interaction.

Decentralised and globalised education: The rise of online learning and global partnerships leads to decentralised education. Universities collaborate across borders, offer joint degrees and share resources. Students access diverse courses taught by AI lecturers and study at multiple institutions simultaneously. Campuses focus on specialised programmes and research centres.


	Part one:&nbsp;Start your university on a path to resilient net zero
	Transformative not transmissive education for sustainability
	To offset or not to offset – that is the question


These potential scenarios – or more likely a fusion of them all – would reshape the roles of academics, support services, teaching spaces and campuses. Redundant buildings might be converted to new uses such as apartments; emptier campuses could be rewilded. Rather than physical climate risks to people, primary threats might be to critical IT systems and knowledge repositories. 

Timescales matter. Planning and procurement for the next academic year is challenging enough but what about for the coming 10, 20 or 50 years? Such horizons might sound fantastical but they are certainly within the expected lifetime of a new hall of residence or learning lab being built today. When Henry VIII founded Christ Church, Oxford in 1546 it is unlikely that 21st-century climate conditions were at the forefront of his mind (despite the severe 1540 heatwave and drought). Yet, heritage buildings are still integral to many universities and present all sorts of weather-proofing headaches to estate managers.

Hence, we need foresight of the intended outcomes and benefits of adaptation actions plus visions of the socio-techno-economic context and time frame over which plans may materialise. These are covered by the first two steps of the UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) framework on strengthening the climate resilience of institutions. As elaborated below, the first step is about setting adaptation objectives. Step two is then focused on gathering essential information for the later phases of planning:

Step 1. Set adaptation goals

Start with stakeholder mapping, strategy and policy reviews – including scope for alignment of institutional, national and sector-wide adaptation plans. This gives a sense of who and what is already active in the space. For example, nationally, any vulnerable buildings must comply with climate change allowances set out by the Environment Agency for flood risk management. At regional and city levels, universities may be engaged in community actions such as the Leeds Climate Commission and the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Action Plan. The Cities &amp; Regions Working Group of UUCN is also convening a community of practice for university staff and academics.

Next, consider the following guiding questions:


	What are the strategic goals and desired outcomes of my university? 
	What community, industry and government support has been secured? 
	What other policies and strategies align with the adaptation plan, such as for carbon management and sustainability? 
	What is an acceptable level of risk?


Such queries are best addressed by early engagement with stakeholders. This could be via outreach and focus groups that build trust and mutual understanding; forums can also catalyse local interest and save time when collating data.

These activities would help to shape a statement of intent for the plans such as:

To identify potential risks caused by existing and expected climate change; to understand how these interact with university operations; to account for climate resilience in net zero delivery; and to identify key actions to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on people, critical assets and operations in 2050.

Such ambitions can then be viewed through the prism of the most relevant or likely mix of scenarios. For instance, who or what might be most vulnerable under a “Sustainable and community-engaged education” or “Technologically integrated education” scenario?

Step 2. Gather essential information

Diverse sources of information are required to build a robust adaptation plan. Again, a few guiding questions can really focus efforts:


	Are there previous climate risk analyses and adaptation plans for the university?
	What weatherproofing or risk-reducing actions have already been taken? 
	What technical and financial resources are available? 
	What baseline socio-economic and climate data exist? 
	What (if any) data have been compiled on historic weather impacts, losses and damages? 
	What local climate change scenarios are available for evaluating future risks?


Typical building blocks for an adaptation plan include: high-resolution elevation data; detailed maps of land use and critical infrastructure; inventories of building type, fabric and performance; local weather, river flow and biodiversity records; information about any historic impacts by, for example, floods and heatwaves on people, facilities, and operations; model projections of future climate conditions, such as rainfall and temperature extremes; strategic development plans for student numbers, research, teaching and supporting estates. 

Much information will be held within the institution but requires integration. Student and staff research and expertise can support this and add new information on, for example, biodiversity and habitats around the campus. Data on past and future climate can be accessed through portals such as the UK Climate Projections. Other environmental data sets and key literature may be signposted by compendiums of information sources. Once the available resources are collated, you will be better placed to spot any gaps and judge the technical sophistication that can follow.

Next steps

In our next resources, three and four in the series, we will describe respectively how to use the above data and scenarios to evaluate future risks, then prioritise actions that build resilience to climate change. Throughout, we should be envisioning not only future climate conditions but also the likely reshaping of education by other major drivers. These include disruptive and assistive technologies such as the AI used to enhance this article. 

This is the second in a series of articles offering advice on how universities can build climate change resilience while also working towards net zero. Read the first article here:&nbsp;Start your university on a path to resilient net zero.

Rob Wilby is professor of hydroclimatic modelling at Loughborough University, and Shona Smith is research and innovation development manager for the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.

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In the second part of their series, Rob Wilby and Shona Smith explain how running institutional plans through different scenarios can help improve a university’s resilience to future challenges relating to climate change

Setting scenarios for a university adapted to climate change

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) serve as a global framework to address pressing social, economic and environmental challenges. As an institution we have used the SDGs to gauge our sustainability progress, both internally through our Strategy 2030 and externally through the THE Impact rankings – in which the University of Exeter came 18th globally for progress.

However, there can be challenges in implementing the SDGs. The SDGs call for universal sustainable development, but this is difficult to achieve when operated within systems that privilege few and oppress many. Decolonisation, as a transformative process, breaks down these systems by empowering grassroots change to work towards creating an equitable world – a shared vision of the SDGs. Decolonial efforts focus on uncoupling from colonial legacies that perpetuate power imbalances and are therefore essential in creating meaningful and lasting change that prioritises sustainable development for all. Below are four examples that demonstrate where decolonial action foregrounds progress on the SDGs.&nbsp;


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	Supporting student action on sustainability
	Engaging students in applied research to tackle Sustainable Development Goals


SDG 4: Quality education&nbsp;

SDG 4 emphasises improving infrastructure to enable all young people to have access to education. However, within education institutions we need to consider what quality education means beyond access. Quality education should enable students to have both a depth and breadth of knowledge in their chosen fields. For students to experience this breadth, we need to expose them to many ways of thinking so that they can independently form their own views of the world.

Decolonial, postcolonial and Indigenous scholarship contributes towards this through unsettling the perceived objectivity and centrality of Western thought. From this, students quickly learn the essential threshold concept: history is not fact but an interweaving of different stories and versions of events. Decoloniality therefore encourages students to question what they assume as “fact”. Ultimately, criticality is key to embracing a breadth of knowledge and supports students to become agents in developing their own opinions as part of their quality education. 

A recommended initial step for this process involves studying the historical and colonial origins of climate change, including the effects of imperialism and economic expansion. This can support a critical assessment of prevailing Western narratives and strategies regarding the mitigation and adaptation of climate change. Throughout this process, it is important to encourage students to delve into alternative frameworks and knowledge systems, such as ecofeminism, Indigenous philosophies and postcolonial perspectives.&nbsp;

SDG 10: Reduced inequalities&nbsp;

The legacies of imperialism, colonialism and slavery have deeply affected our society, leaving power imbalances, the erasure of cultural identities and economic disparities. To reduce inequalities it is necessary to critically examine the histories and systems that have shaped how and what we learn, how we treat each other and how we “help” – including the formation and delivery of the SDGs.

Decolonisation involves examining and dismantling systems that bias the white, male, upper-class heteronormative, Anglocentric perspective. Decolonial work rebuilds these systems, not to exclude these voices, but to situate them in a framework that appreciates all. A crucial aspect of this process is promoting a sense of belonging. This means ensuring that students and staff feel safe, welcomed and represented in their learning communities. 

We can encourage students and colleagues alike to explore their own privilege and to question the structures around them.&nbsp;A practical approach to this would be to bridge theoretical concepts with real-world examples of discrimination and power dynamics within the university setting. By examining instances of unequal treatment, biases or exclusion that occur in classrooms, student organisations or administrative decisions, we can foster critical awareness and facilitate meaningful discussions on these issues. Making things personal, questioning our experiences and positioning, and understanding the power we do and do not have foregrounds action. Without this action, we cannot hope to make meaningful progress towards SDG 10.

SDG 11: Sustainable cities and communities&nbsp;

Sustainable cities and communities need to work with, not against nature. Underpinning this is the need to connect with our natural world to appreciate what the Earth provides. Educating through Indigenous frameworks can contribute to this greater sense of interconnectedness and help to alleviate alienation, ecological grief and anxiety. This is because Indigenous knowledge systems emphasise the interconnectedness of all living beings, fostering a deep sense of belonging and responsibility towards the environment, because we are a part of it. Integrating this holistic worldview can help to develop a stronger connection to nature, nurturing an empathetic approach to environmental stewardship and sustainable cities and communities. 

Embracing experiential learning is a great way to begin this process, moving beyond passive knowledge consumption to active engagement with the environment. Through hands-on experiences such as field trips to local ecosystems, students develop a profound understanding of sustainability. By immersing learners in sensory interactions, we forge a deep connection to the natural world. 

SDG 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions&nbsp;

SDG 16 offers an overarching approach of using inclusivity as a tether to peace, justice and sustainable development and institutions. Inclusivity, however, cannot be taken as a given. Inclusivity must be actively engaged with to empower our communities.

Educators should play a crucial role in fostering meaningful engagement by involving students in community-based and participatory projects that address sustainability through a grassroots approach. Educators can encourage students to conduct research and inquiry on climate change impacts and adaptation strategies specific to their local regions as equal partners and active participants rather than mere facilitators or recipients of knowledge transfer. In this participatory process, community voices are prioritised and solutions are developed in a democratic and contextually relevant manner. Here educators are drawing on the same foundations as decolonial work that advocates for empowering communities, using local knowledge and fostering collaboration. This shift away from top-down approaches and encouragement of co-creation and contextually relevant, culturally sensitive solutions will ultimately lead to strong and just institutions.

These four examples show that fulfilling the SDGs requires us to engage with decolonial and Indigenous practices. Educators in higher education institutions play a crucial role in integrating decolonisation into the SDGs, using their authority to teach where it is appropriate and, more often than not, to ask questions and seek the guidance and expertise of others – both within and outside academia.

Sean Porter is an academic developer (transformative education) and Eleanor Cook is transformative education assistant, both at the University of Exeter.

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How decolonial approaches can underpin and drive work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals across higher education

Decolonisation as a driver for the Sustainable Development Goals

When it comes to climate change, hope seems to be in short supply these days. It’s not hard to understand why, with regular “doom and gloom” front-page reports and post-apocalyptic films. Indeed, it’s hardly surprising that a 2021 global survey found that nearly 60&nbsp;per cent of young people were either “worried” or “extremely worried” about climate change. Students consistently tell me about their climate anxiety – and even climate despair – which is characterised by researchers in The&nbsp;Lancet Planetary Health as a “severe and debilitating worry about climate and environmental risks”, which can cause “loss of appetite, sleeplessness, and panic attacks”.

There are two main reasons for universities to address this pervasive issue: first, our students’ ability to take action against climate change (or any positive action at all) is hampered by anxiety – in this case, climate anxiety – which can make them feel paralysed and overwhelmed. Second, climate anxiety is a student mental health and well-being issue in its own right.


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	A practical approach to tackling eco-anxiety


In an attempt to deal with the issue, we in the office of sustainability at New York University (NYU) spoke to more than 10,000 students throughout the spring 2023 semester, engaging them in conversations about the university’s sustainability efforts, in which many students expressed their fears and concerns about the future.

To begin with, we wanted them to know that at NYU, a collective effort to become more sustainable is well under way. In 2012, NYU reached its first landmark goal in confronting climate change when we achieved an emissions intensity reduction of 30&nbsp;per cent, relative to a 2006 baseline. This was five years ahead of schedule, thanks to energy-efficiency projects as well as upgrades to our co-generation plant. NYU is working hard to meet its net 50&nbsp;per cent reduction goal in the next two years by employing many of the same strategies, including low-emissions construction and retrofits, efficiency projects and behaviour change, such as turning off equipment when not in use.

We are also moving towards our Coolfood Pledge goal of 25&nbsp;per cent reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from food purchases by 2030. Building- and food-related GHG emissions account for more than half humanity’s contribution to climate change. By 2040, NYU has pledged to be completely climate neutral. This knowledge will hopefully build our students’ confidence and motivation for individual change.

Then, this past April, we launched 2040&nbsp;Now, a week-long experiment to draw students – and the entire university community – into working together towards this collective effort. We held more than 70 events over five days, including interactive panels with faculty, training sessions, giveaways with sustainable menstruation products and eco make-up options, as well as hands-on, experiential events where students could try plant-forward cuisine, learn to ride a bike, grow shiitake mushrooms at home, and send feedback to their elected officials. However, the ultimate goal of 2040&nbsp;Now was to show the university community that they are not alone, and to guide students in transforming their climate anxiety into climate action.

In fact, taking action to address climate change is one of the best ways to address the stress it causes. A study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology states that engaging in “pro-environmental behaviors […] has been shown to attenuate climate anxiety”, and the Anxiety &amp;&nbsp;Depression Association of America lists getting involved as one of the main ways to address anxiety in general. Having the president, provost and many deans attend, alongside students and faculty, also helped us show our students that climate change is an issue that the whole university community must work on together to address.

In many ways, 2040&nbsp;Now was a successful pilot initiative. Not surprisingly, events that gave away food or swag had great attendance (a climate-focused concert featuring the bandleader from Saturday Night Live also attracted hundreds). But attendance isn’t the only measure of engagement. Our Ask the Expert tabling sessions attracted a few dozen students, but those conversations were long and rich. I&nbsp;heard one student begin a session in an anxious and divisive tone, questioning why NYU wasn’t doing more composting. After nearly an hour of conversation with the head of the university’s composting programme, the student switched from critic to collaborator, proposing solutions they could help execute in a hopeful and motivated manner. Other students reported feeling inspired to volunteer with local environmental groups or surprised by how delicious plant-based meals tasted. Participating in these individual actions, and being part of a community, proved key to begin addressing their own eco-anxiety.

Universities are a leading source of research on climate change and how to mitigate its effects, and have acted boldly with steep greenhouse gas emission reductions. To educate, engage and encourage our students to take action is one of the most important roles we have as university leaders. In fact, multiplying our impact by positively influencing the actions of thousands of students may be the biggest contribution we can make when it comes to addressing climate change – the great global challenge of our time. And by doing that, we are helping students navigate their own climate anxiety and sense of hopelessness, too. We have no other choice. Our planet – and our students’ mental health and well-being – depends on it.

Cecil Scheib is chief sustainability officer at New York University, a licensed professional engineer, a certified energy manager and a LEED&nbsp;AP.

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Ease students’ climate anxiety by encouraging climate action

Climate anxiety is a mental health issue and universities can help students overcome it through climate action, multiplying their own impact along the way, writes Cecil Scheib

Universities’ vast campus infrastructures and large populations of students, staff and commercial tenants can make them seem like miniature cities. And, like cities, these campuses contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions.

However, universities are well positioned to demonstrate crucial leadership in the global race towards net zero. They generally have control of their campus environment (unlike most city precincts, where assets are owned and operated by different parties), which gives them the ability to transform into net zero precincts at speed.


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They can demonstrate community leadership, innovate scalable solutions and address long-term financial and environmental risks. And they can form partnerships across research, industry and public institutions that amplify climate action. Universities also have engaged staff and students who are dedicated to combating climate change.

Reducing emissions on campus

Universities can act as living labs, testing solutions at scale within campus precincts. These solutions can then be deployed more widely, by amplifying success stories, driving knowledge and translating research to successfully replicate initiatives within our cities.

Initiatives that universities can undertake on campus to reduce emissions include microgrids, circular-economy principles and acting as change agents.&nbsp;

Develop campus microgrids and adopt renewable energy sources 

A microgrid is an option if renewable sources are not already available in the local energy grid. This energy system serves a specific geographical footprint, such as a university or college campus. Typically, a microgrid consists of renewable energy generation (such as solar, wind or geothermal), energy storage and a smart grid. Often, it is paired with load management, ensuring that energy-intensive appliances and equipment are only used when the grid is generating electricity.

Universities can also: partner with other universities or local governments to establish a power purchase agreement (PPA), providing more substantial opportunities for investment; buy a green electricity plan (or similar) through an energy retailer; or install renewable energy infrastructure on campus (such as rooftop solar panels or biomass units). Institutions can look at innovative financing methods, which will help provide funding for such projects.

Other energy-wise actions include: promoting sustainable commuting, switching to zero-emission vehicles; encouraging eco-friendly business travel; and retrofitting campus buildings to be more energy-efficient by upgrading HVAC, lighting and other energy-consuming appliances.

Embrace circular-economy principles and implement material recovery initiatives

Circular-economy initiatives on campus can include material recovery, responsible procurement or diverting waste material from landfill through extensive recycling and composting schemes.

Circular business models initiated by staff, students or the local community (such as swap shops, selling campus furniture at discounted rates, donating books and clothes, renting machinery and tools) can be incubated on campus.

Universities can adopt sustainable procurement practices and influence emission reduction from their suppliers.

Serve as change agents

Universities can serve as change agents, engage with student bodies and foster net zero-aligned education, research and innovation.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 

Universities can also use their partnerships and reputation to encourage emissions reduction across the broader community and amplify change. Initiatives discussed in the Net Zero on Campus guide can be tested on campus before being projected to the surrounding community.

Students play a key role in developing bottom-up initiatives and bring their passion, energy and innovation to strengthen emissions reduction projects. Students are also able to take their learned behaviours and expertise in decarbonisation through to the workforce and their communities.

Universities play a key role in fostering the innovation needed to address decarbonisation via contributions to fundamental research, combining existing knowledge, education and training of engaged citizens and the next generation of leaders, creating space for open exploration of ideas and community involvement.

Other ways to build on research and innovation 


	Build accredited teaching programmes at all levels of study&nbsp;and research activities; prioritise developing advanced curricula on decarbonisation solutions
	Develop training events focused on staff and/or students
	Lead public initiatives to communicate climate change&nbsp;mitigation and adaptation with the wider community
	Work with state and private sectors to build evidence-based policy and innovation centres.


Collaboration is critical

To overcome common barriers to implementation (such as difficulty in financing or resourcing initiatives or complicated institutional structure and management), net zero initiatives can be advanced through industry collaboration.

Universities can leverage their research capabilities to develop and deploy cutting-edge technologies and solutions.

By sharing lessons from their implementation of on-campus decarbonisation initiatives, universities can equip students, community and industry partners with the skills and knowledge necessary for replicating these successes.

Sharing best practices, resources and tools allows universities at the forefront of climate action to support those who are just beginning to decarbonise their campuses and cities.

Supporting net zero universities

More than 1,000 universities worldwide have joined the&nbsp;United Nations Race to Zero&nbsp;campaign to decarbonise their campuses. However, each institution will embark on a unique path to net zero. What’s been lacking until recently is the ability to bring universities together to share best practices, resources&nbsp;and tools, so that pioneers in the area can assist those beginning their decarbonisation journey.

To this end, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), in collaboration with Monash University’s Climateworks Centre and Monash Energy Institute, has published a&nbsp;Net Zero on Campus guide&nbsp;and&nbsp;online toolkit&nbsp;comprising case studies and resources. These resources detail campus initiatives to reduce emissions across energy, transport and mobility, buildings and facilities, waste management, and value chains through specific actions such as those outlined above.

Additionally, SDSN is fostering a&nbsp;vibrant community of practice, supporting its own network of more than 1,000 universities worldwide in aligning their campuses with net zero principles and technologies.

The guide, online toolkit and global community of practice through this initiative will provide invaluable support to universities and colleges worldwide. These resources empower educational institutions to accelerate decarbonising their operations and leverage their strengths as global change agents during this critical decade of action.

Shreejan Pandey is general manager of the Monash Energy Institute, and Bec Powell is a project manager in the Cities team at the Climateworks Centre, both at Monash University.

This is an edited version of the article “How universities can spearhead the net zero revolution”, which was published on Lens by Monash University on 20 April 2023.

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What’s been lacking in the decarbonisation journey is the ability to bring universities together to share best practices, resources and tools, so that pioneers in the area can assist those just starting out. Now there’s a toolkit

Charting a shared path to net zero universities

Between exams, papers, labs and extracurriculars, the last thing on students’ minds is garbage. 

It’s not that we don’t care. We know that mountains of trash are clogging oceans, hurting wildlife, endangering human health and more. It’s that taking action to cut waste can be an uphill battle. 

During my undergraduate degree in immunology, I would ask the University of Alberta (U of A) restaurants to serve me food in glass containers that I brought from home. They often obliged, but carrying clunky containers everywhere I went was not convenient.


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I knew there must be an easier way to reduce waste on our campus – something that was built into the university restaurant system and took the onus off individuals on campus. That’s why I and a group of like-minded students created DishZero. 

DishZero is a by-student-for-student reusable takeout container and mug-share programme that our team piloted for three months in early 2023 in two U of A restaurants. It will launch again in September with the support of at least three more vendors. 

The way it works is simple: campus food vendors sign up to receive our mugs and clamshell-style polypropylene takeout containers. Restaurants serve their food and drinks in our dishes, and customers sign the dishes out using a QR-code system. They return them to bins labelled with the DishZero logo in campus cafeterias. 

It’s not flashy, like some waste-reduction technologies can be; it’s not the first nor the only programme of its kind; and it’s not (yet) in every restaurant on our campus. But it is an effective way to keep university garbage bins from overflowing with disposable takeout containers. During our pilot, we diverted more than 480 containers from landfill. 

We believe programmes such as ours have the potential to eliminate waste from takeout containers if applied on a large scale. Although we are still refining DishZero, we learned much in the three years we spent researching and preparing to launch the programme, during our three-month pilot and in the time since the pilot ended. 

We believe the following tips will be useful to you, whether you’re a student group looking to do something similar or decision-makers in charge of cutting waste at your institution.&nbsp; 

Tips for starting a reusable dish service


	Incorporate sustainable practices into your service. Consider how your programme can embody environmental, social and financial sustainability. Choose dishes that are robust enough for repeated use without breaking and are sourced as locally as possible. Don’t insist on an ecologically perfect system or one that requires an expensive buy-in or deposit – these will make it unsustainable from an economic standpoint.
	The container matters. We spent a long time choosing the right containers. The key things to look for are: a container that is made from a sustainable material and is safe to eat from. We also wanted them to withstand multiple washes, tolerate rough handling, clean easily and be fully recyclable. And we wanted the dishes to become carbon-neutral after only a few uses. Not a single container was damaged during our pilot period, even though some users treated the containers like footballs. After reviewing many lifecycle analyses, we went with North American supplier Huber, although you could&nbsp;find success with other companies. We chose locally produced dishes in polypropylene plastic that are BPA free and microwave/dishwasher safe.
	Know your student body. Students will be using this service more than any other campus demographic. That means you should understand what your student body wants before you launch your reusable-dish programme. We ran surveys and determined that students wanted to be able to check dishes out using their phones. We used a QR code, but other universities have been successful using token systems or manual sign-out sheets, or even forgoing dish-tracking entirely. The programme should be adapted to your school and what your student body desires. 
	Use the programme to support student learning and provide students with work experience. The entirety of DishZero was prepared and implemented by current students or recent grads. We had so much to learn to start the programme: drafting bylaws, logistics, marketing, web development, negotiating with building managers and outreach to vendors, to name a few elements. Students across faculties and departments pitched in to help us in areas where we lacked expertise. In turn, we offered work on a real non-profit project where students could apply the skills they had&nbsp;learned in their degrees and which they could&nbsp;list on their résumés. 
	Market the service to students who might be neutral or uninterested in sustainability. Students who are highly motivated to act sustainably will not need much convincing to use your reusable-dish service. But those who are neutral might ask themselves: “Will taking this reusable dish add an extra layer of complexity to my day?” So&nbsp;it’s vital to ensure your dishes mimic the single-use alternative and are as simple, or nearly as simple, to use as containers that go in the trash. Highlight this simplicity in your marketing. 
	Be flexible. During our pilot we lost about 10 per cent of our circulating inventory. Our drop-off bins were too similar to the U of A’s Zero Waste stations (despite our research into branding and design); students would accidentally recycle DishZero dishes and place trash in DishZero drop-off bins. Regardless of the amount of pre-pilot preparation you have done, you will&nbsp;face a high attrition rate as the campus adjusts to your programme. In response to this, we plan to use more distinct drop-off bins in the fall.&nbsp;Similarly, in preparation for our pilot, we spent nearly a year creating our tracking system, which allows users to sign in by scanning a QR code and confirming a cached university login. However, many users still struggled with the system, finding it slower and more tedious than web standards. To address these concerns and promote new and sustained usership of the programme, we have teamed up with the U of A chapter of Blueprint to create a seamless web app. Users will be able to create an account, will only need to log in once, and will receive personalised waste-diversion reports and dish-return push notifications if desired. 
	It’s OK that this work isn’t glamorous. Exciting waste-reduction technologies might captivate imaginations more than a reusable takeout service – but are many university campuses ready to set up bioplastic composting facilities or cultivate labs of garbage-eating bacteria? Operational sustainability initiatives are easy to start, simple to operate and, most importantly, they work. 


Rojine McVea is a co-founder of DishZero and a graduate of the University of Alberta, Canada. 

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Want to reduce single-use waste at your university? In this guide for students and administrators, Rojine McVea offers tips for how to set up a reusable dish service based on her own experience

Creating a reusable takeout dish programme on campus

The case for decarbonising universities has been made, and many have begun their journey towards net zero emissions by 2050. The same cannot be said for progress on adapting to a changing climate even though costs are already accruing from extreme weather events. Many of our institutions have been damaged by storms, floods and heatwaves, or been disrupted by associated power outages, failure of IT systems, loss of water supplies or broken transport links. Such impacts are expected to grow unless significant steps are taken now, according to the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2022.

So far, decarbonising and adapting have been largely viewed as separate tasks by universities. Sustainability planning may be regarded as a third work stream. Yet, these should be approached as closely aligned activities in order to maximise co-benefits and minimise trade-offs. For example, restoring and expanding green space reduces impacts from floods and heatwaves by providing drainage and shading while also enhancing biodiversity and capturing carbon. Conversely, installing more air conditioning to control heat in offices, halls of residences, and teaching spaces, will add to carbon footprints.


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How then can institutions start to shape integrated plans for decarbonisation, adaptation and sustainability? To answer this question we are providing a series of resources drawing on a briefing paper published by the UK&nbsp;Universities Climate Network (UUCN). The paper was co-authored by us and 17 colleagues from across 13 institutions. Here, in part one of our series, we outline five steps to help universities get started with their journey towards resilient net zero:

1. Take collective ownership for climate and sustainability action

A senior colleague should report directly to the vice-chancellor and the university senate, with a cross-function remit, clear responsibilities and targets. Immediate tasks would be to consult with stakeholders across the university and with neighbouring communities about their views on climate risks and opportunities. All groups within a university should be engaged – professional staff, academics and researchers, students or business partners – when raising awareness of the need to act, forming an initial vision and identifying priorities. Then, a&nbsp;team can be assembled that understands the institutional governance, processes, core activities and services. Delivering a resilient net zero transition will require ownership and participation by the whole community, not just the senior leadership team.

2. Seek opportunities for climate action within institutional processes

Start with an audit of university procedures and regulations to identify entry points and “hooks” for climate action. Possibilities might include the institutional risk register, business continuity plan, crisis management plan, estates strategy, procurement policies, performance monitoring and reporting of weather impacts. By embedding resilience within corporate processes and structures rather than making it the remit of individuals, progress can be made regardless of staff turnover or changes in leadership. This approach also recognises that climate change is just one among many complex risks that must be managed by universities.

3. Pick a framework for evaluating climate risks and planning adaptations 

There are many climate risk frameworks to choose from. They are all designed to help managers set goals, evaluate physical climate risks and prioritise actions in systematic ways. As far as we are aware, a bespoke framework has yet to be developed for the higher or further education sector. The UUCN briefing paper refers to a six-step framework (shown below). We will unpack how to use it in the articles that follow this one. Meanwhile, a key point to note now is that climate risk assessment is proactive and an ongoing process. We are seeking to anticipate and prepare, rather than react to extreme weather events and climate change. We must also reassess risks as the institutional context and climate impacts evolve.



  
      
  
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The UUCN briefing paper’s six-step framework



4. Recognise and engage institutional expertise and knowledge

Climate risk frameworks are not straightforward to apply. Some universities might decide to outsource this technical work to consultants. But to be effective, inputs will still be needed from teams and specialists across the institution, including: teaching and learning, research centres, finance, facilities management, IT services and other perspectives. Project management teams should draw on colleagues with specialist knowledge in climate policy, information and science. Postdoctoral researchers, interns and undergraduates could be involved in data collection, too. Where there are substantial demands on staff time, this should be acknowledged by formal workloads and incentive structures.

5. Connect with other communities of practice

You can take heart from the fact that you are not alone in navigating the unfamiliar territory of climate risks and resilience building. Although climate action is highly context-specific, much can be gained by sharing and learning from the experiences of others. This “show and tell” approach is taken by the EAUC Managing Climate Risk Community of Practice. Members are invited to show how they have approached a climate-related task, such as undertaking their first high-level campus climate risk assessment. Case studies of actual projects can also showcase the diversity of adaptations in tangible ways. Other resources and examples of good practices have been developed by the Sustainability Exchange.

Next steps

In the next part of this series, we will explain how to define adaptation goals, source key information and involve stakeholders in a university-wide climate risk assessment. Parts three and four will describe, respectively, how to evaluate key risks, then identify and implement adaptation actions to build resilience to climate change. Even if our universities hire consultants to develop plans for resilient net zero, we must still be well-informed and engaged clients.

Rob Wilby is professor of hydroclimatic modelling at Loughborough University, and Shona Smith is research and innovation development manager for the Priestley International Centre for Climate at the University of Leeds.

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Practical tips on how institutions can improve their resilience to climate threats while on a path towards net zero emissions, by Rob Wilby and Shona Smith

Start your university on a path to resilient net zero

Why would a new food bank volunteer bring a stack of canned tuna to her first shift? It’s not a riddle – many of our volunteers at the University of Alberta Campus Food Bank are past or current food bank clients. One of our student volunteers had been collecting the canned tuna she received from her food hampers. She didn’t like tuna, but she was too shy to reject it at our pick-up counter. 

This incident told us two things: at least some of our donated food was going to waste, and our clients were receiving food they didn’t want. In 2023, when food banks around the world are struggling with shortages due to global supply chain issues and inflation-related spikes in demand, we can’t afford to waste anything.


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Our food bank has not been spared from these shockwaves. In March 2021, we supplied 200 food hampers to students in need. Last March, we supplied 470 hampers. This March it was 1,100. As early as 2021, we saw a spike in food bank usage, which indicated that if we did not make changes we would not be able to give the best support to our clients, the majority of whom are international students (70 per cent) and graduate students (60 per cent). 

That’s why we decided to adopt a grocery-store model. 

In the past we operated like a traditional food bank, offering standard hampers to our clients. We kept donated food and toiletries behind closed doors, created hampers made of North American food bank staples such as canned tuna and pasta, and gave visitors the choice to swap out only certain items for alternatives.

The grocery model, which is becoming more popular in food banking, allows visitors to browse food banks’ shelves as though they were visiting a grocery store, pick which items they want to stock in their kitchen and interact more closely with food bank staff.

Since we made the switch in November 2022, we have gone from serving an average of 10.4 kilograms per visit to an average of 6.8 kilograms per visit. Our maximum limits have not decreased, so we attribute this change to clients shopping only for what they and their families will eat. 

Tips for switching to the grocery-store model

The switch to a client-choice model has allowed us to stock specific items in smaller quantities. It has also allowed clients and volunteers to develop stronger relationships that help us discover new ways to serve clients.

But we have encountered challenges along the way and had learning experiences. Here are five tips for post-secondary food banks looking to make the switch.

1.&nbsp;Plan logistics with a lot of visuals&nbsp;

We thought about our hamper contents and how we might organise and display each food category so clients who were used to our hampers would find the transition simple. We created “shopping lists” – laminated lists with maximums for each food category – for clients to carry with them when they visited. The route clients take through our store is arranged in the order of the list and we have maps posted throughout. We also created signage that uses graphics to communicate maximums per household size, as English is a second language for many of our clients. 

2.&nbsp;Take your time

We recommend, if possible, closing down for a week to allow time to prepare for the transition. Because demand for our food hampers was starting to exceed supply, we knew we had to try something new, and fast. If we had felt less pressure from increasing demand, we would have closed rather than switching our office layout between opening hours. Your team could also use the extra time to work on adding suppliers before the switch; this is something we only had time to tackle afterwards.

3.&nbsp;Experiment with stock and suppliers&nbsp;

Closer interactions with clients, combined with the flexibility of a grocery store, has prompted us to explore new supply chains for both existing and new items. For example, we simply can’t keep halal meat in stock. This has led us to adjust our store layout so that halal meat is less likely to be taken by clients who do not need it, and we are also exploring partnerships directly with ranchers and other local food producers to increase our stock with lower per-unit cost. You also get a deeper understanding of what people want to take, which means you might have to adjust your ordering to reflect what is more in demand. Don’t be afraid to mix things up.&nbsp;

4.&nbsp;Experiment with the aesthetic to make your food bank&nbsp;more welcoming for visitors&nbsp;

Many of our clients find the experience of visiting our space stressful and embarrassing. With this in mind, we tried to mitigate the feeling of being inside a food bank when we designed our space. We created a bright, colourful lobby with a multilingual welcome sign, painted the new space in calming pastels with bright signage, created a resource posting board and set up a speaker to play music during shopping hours. We also adjusted on-shift volunteer duties to make sure we engage clients while also keeping the space clean and tidy. We have found through client feedback that all these things put visitors more at ease. 

5. Use the extra time that volunteers and staff spend with visitors to gain a deeper understanding of visitors’ needs&nbsp;

When we used the hamper model, volunteers, staff and visitors interacted briefly and only in the moments when visitors received their food hampers. In order to transition to the grocery model, we had to convert office and storage space into a welcoming shopping space. This change invited clients into parts of our office formerly reserved for staff and volunteers. 

Because we were interacting more closely with visitors, we learned that many international students using our service had anxiety about Canada’s tax system and wanted to know more about filing their taxes. Our student volunteers booked a tax expert to run a clinic for clients of the food bank, and 200 campus food bank clients attended this event. 

The main theme in our observations since switching to a grocery-store model is that we feel more like a community now. This adjustment has made our relationships with our clients more personal and allowed us to learn about the many other ways our clients need support. 

We are very proud of the work our staff and volunteers have done to make this grocery model work, and we are happy to share more lessons with any post-secondary food banks considering the change. 

Erin O’Neil is director of the Campus Food Bank at the University of Alberta. 

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A move from pre-packed hampers can make university food banks more efficient and the space more welcoming – and build a stronger community. Erin O’Neil offers tips for switching to a grocery-store model

A ‘grocery store’ model can help your campus food bank reduce waste

A new type of global academia is emerging, embodied by what we call the “fifth-generation” university. Such universities integrate research, teaching and knowledge exchange for widespread societal benefit, underpinned by cross-sector strategic alliances. 

These partnerships are vital for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) by 2030, while driving economic growth. The SDGs represent a $12 trillion (£8 trillion) global opportunity for sustainable business growth, according to a 2017 World Economic Forum and Accenture report. More recently, the US Federal Sustainability Plan has promised incentives to “green” companies focused on the net-zero carbon transition up to 2050.

Time is running out to achieve the 17 SDGs. At the UN General Assembly’s 77th Science Summit in September 2022, we argued for a novel approach to cross-sector collaboration to boost progress towards tackling these global challenges by 2030. 

Although the pandemic and increasing geopolitical turbulence have hindered progress, universities can boost efforts towards meeting the SDGs by doing these two things:


	Improve capacity for building transformational cross-sector partnerships.
	Grow trans-disciplinary research and “team science”.


Here, we explain how this can be done through examples and tools that we have found useful.

1. Improve capacity for enabling and building transformational cross-sector partnerships

Cross-sector partnerships should seek to “bake in” transformation from the outset. We use an SDG canvas as a strategic planning tool to help all partners stay focused. This canvas enables universities and industry partners to consider what complementary assets they can leverage together to tackle complex challenges. 


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Our canvas tool (Figure 1 below) offers a planning matrix that uses the lens of the SDGs to map opportunities for building value against partner assets and the university’s strategic priorities. It enables universities to explore and envision potential trans-disciplinary research themes for an alliance, drawing on institutional strengths and industry domains. The canvas can also help to create vision-sharing documents to build internal support for the alliance. 



  
      
  
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Figure 1. UN SDG engagement canvas for university-industry alignment assessment



Universities must consider the following questions alongside those in Figure 1 to move partnerships beyond transactional and short-term:


	Do the other cross-sector organisations share our vision and values?
	What capacity do these cross-sector organisations have to co-innovate and find tangible, appropriate and workable solutions to challenges such as tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and creating a zero-carbon circular economy?
	What opportunities are there for a novel approach that combines trans-disciplinary programmatic activities, such as joint research or executive education, with philanthropy, to build a long-term, challenge-focused strategic alliance?


2. Grow trans-disciplinary research and team science

Fifth-generation universities are marked by the ability to leverage trans-disciplinary research and a “team science” approach. Team science brings together insight from academics, professionals and knowledge exchange practitioners across sectors to address scientific challenges. They integrate expertise from across university departments and disciplines to drive creative problem solving and design thinking that accelerates transformative and translational research. 

Forward-thinking universities should initiate Disrupt workshops to help identify opportunities across sector and disciplinary boundaries. The Disrupt tool is focused on achieving SDG 17, “partnerships for the goals”, which underpins all other SDGs. This tool should be used within a one-day multidisciplinary and multisector “sandpit” workshop. The session should start with an introduction from an institutional leader on the importance of the SDGs. There should be no more than 35 participants so that there are seven tables with up to five people per table, representing different academic disciplines, professional services teams and guests from industry, government and civil society. 

Each table is given a large letter representing each of the categories within the word “disrupt”: digital; infrastructure; society; region; unique; possibilities; trends.

It is useful for each table to have a card with graphics summarising all 17 SDGs and a whiteboard. The groups discuss, explore and record their ideas about how the university can work across disciplines and sectors to achieve its mission. Discussions should relate to each table’s letter:


	Digital – consider how digital technologies are transforming the university internally and can bring transformation externally to wider society, through alliances that achieve the SDGs.
	Infrastructure – consider how your university infrastructure, campus facilities&nbsp;and built environment can provide opportunities for new alliances to address the SDGs.
	Society – consider how your university is seen in society and how it can form alliances to achieve gender equality and inclusive positive change for all.
	Region – consider how your university is currently contributing to achieving the SDGs in your region and how it can achieve more through alliances.
	Unique – consider what is unique about the university and how all the university’s assets can complement those from other sectors.
	Possibilities – set your mind free to explore the possibilities of new alliances between academic disciplines that have not worked together much before, as well as from across different sectors.
	Trends – consider the current political, economic, sociological, technological, legal&nbsp;and environmental trends that might enable new ways of working together. 


Every 10 minutes, people rotate to another table so they cover all seven throughout the workshop. The tool facilitates conversations and uncovers interesting insights and perspectives from cross-sector stakeholders. 

Training should be included, covering topics such as team science, human-centred design, systems thinking, the circular economy, storytelling, pitching, and inclusive, responsible and “frugal” innovation. 

Teaching-focused universities could use the tool to find real-world case studies and possible student projects. Research-focused universities could use the tool to find partners for collaborative funding bids for government funding.

There are just seven years left to achieve the Global Goals by 2030. We need to work across governments, industry, civil society and academia through research and innovation ecosystems that span the whole planet to make the world a better place for our children and generations to come. 

This advice is drawn from Tim Bodley-Scott and Ersel Oymak’s recently published book&nbsp;‘University-Industry Partnerships for Positive Change: Transformational Strategic Alliances Towards UN SDGs’.

Tim Bodley-Scott is strategic alliances director and Ersel Oymak is strategic alliances adviser and innovator in residence, both at University College London.

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How universities can develop strategic cross-sector partnerships and trans-disciplinary research in order to boost progress towards the SDGs 

Building blocks of university-industry partnerships for positive change

While planning a recent reception, my colleagues in the organising committee scrutinised food catering options to ascertain whether packaging materials were biodegradable. Although seemingly minute in global impact, such procurement practices reflect our ethos as a university. These kinds of daily actions and decisions testify to how, in our efforts to cultivate a greener university, we seek to encourage and embed sustainability&nbsp;as&nbsp;a mindset.

Sustainability is&nbsp;the&nbsp;buzzword of our times. More than a trending search term, it is lingua franca. Regardless of where we sit in the global order, protecting the world’s resources needs little justification.


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So, how can universities connect their sustainability plans to the wider world?

Integrating sustainability at an institutional level

Universities can integrate sustainability targets into institutional plans. About 700 universities in the US and Canada, for example, participate in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System (Stars). Aligned to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this system encourages universities to self-report their sustainability performance.&nbsp;

Sustainability&nbsp;efforts can also focus on environmental protection and preservation, where&nbsp;targets are set to reduce carbon emissions from campus buildings, reduce water usage or waste and expand sustainable purchasing and investment.&nbsp;The University of Oxford’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy, for instance, aims for net zero carbon emissions&nbsp;by 2035, addressing biodiversity impact from its operations and supply chain. Princeton University’s framework highlights energy conservation with operational snapshots of reduced consumption and increased take-up of alternative energy sources.

Beyond metrics: taking a holistic approach

These objectives demonstrate resolve to improve environmental outcomes. However, if&nbsp;sustainability plans are positioned using only metrics, they are at best reductive and limited.

To move the needle, we must deep-dive into what sustainability really entails. Instead of compartmentalising decisions about infrastructure or resource allocation, we need a holistic approach that shifts attitude&nbsp;and&nbsp;behaviour. This requires sustainability plans to be aligned with the university’s broader strategic agendas, rather than left in silos.&nbsp;

At Singapore Management University (SMU), our sustainability blueprint amalgamates behavioural and mindset change. Aligned to SMU Vision 2025, the blueprint outlines four strategies for sustainability: cultivate a greener university; develop change agents; drive impactful research; and foster resilient communities. Targets are mapped onto relevant SDGs, giving focus and tangibility to planned action.

Integrative curriculum&nbsp;and change agents

To generate creative solutions and build talent, universities can increase research and curricula – from undergraduate level up – in sustainability. We should ensure this is not merely token representation of the sustainability agenda.&nbsp;

To develop change agents at SMU, we aim to embed sustainability across the curricula – from foundational digital resources that all freshmen are required to access to a sustainability management major in the School of Business, which offers courses such as Corporate Sustainability and Product Value Proposition Design, and Sustainable Operations.

Universities can also encourage students to participate in community projects that are socially conscious and sustainable, and address specific SDGs.

Such intentional programming will build the talent pipeline for green industries and engender solutions for complex environmental challenges. We believe they will also have transformational impact on knowledge, attitudes and behaviours.

Resilience and social sustainability

Educating students means preparing them for leadership in organisations that will inevitably encounter economic and technological disruption.&nbsp;Acknowledging this reality of more frequent economic, social or political upheavals,&nbsp;the World Economic Forum launched the Resilience Consortium in May 2022 to build global resilience&nbsp;and&nbsp;secure a sustainable future for all.

In the same vein, universities should set targets for building resilience and social sustainability. To foster resilient communities, we must adopt a multi-pronged framework that considers the inter-related dimensions of wellness – physical, intellectual, social, emotional, career and financial. For students, we have developed a framework to guide programme development.&nbsp; This is premised on three dimensions: education, encouragement (via professional and peer support platforms) and experience (exposure of students to authentic learning environments).

Alignment to country-level objectives

Finally, universities’ plans can gain traction when aligned to their city’s or country’s sustainability agendas. In many ways, SMU’s blueprint is underscored by the Singapore Green Plan 2030, which rests on five pillars: city in nature, energy reset, sustainable living, green economy and resilient future.

By prioritising research in areas such as urban infrastructure and sustainable finance, universities can contribute to economic and social priorities. One example is the Singapore Green Finance Centre, a collaboration between Imperial College Business School and SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. It conducts multidisciplinary research and talent development opportunities in the areas of sustainability, climate and green finance to support and transform businesses in Asia.

It is imperative that universities join the sustainability cause because we impact economies and societies of the future. With an expanded perspective that establishes equilibrium between economic growth, environmental stewardship and social well-being, we can anchor belief systems and build competencies to maintain this delicate balance over time.

Lily Kong is the president of Singapore Management University.

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Instead of compartmentalising decisions about infrastructure or resource allocation, universities need a whole-system approach to sustainability that shifts attitudes and behaviour, writes Lily Kong

A holistic blueprint for sustainability

Since the 2015 Paris Agreement, thousands of net-zero pledges have been set by companies, investors, countries, states and cities. Now, representing 92 per cent of global GDP, these commitments can collectively bring a 1.5°C world back from life support, but only if they go from intent through integrity to implementation.

There is a long way to go. The explosion of corporate climate pledges, combined with the fragmentation of approaches, has led to “a deficit of credibility and surplus of confusion over emissions reductions and net-zero targets”, according to UN secretary general António Guterres.


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Until recently, gauging the integrity of net-zero pledges has been a guessing game. Some include all emissions; some don’t. Some include short-term targets that will drive immediate action; others don’t. Some are embedded in clear plans and accountable institutions; most are not.

Separating sincere climate plans from ‘blah, blah, blah’

To address this deficit of credibility, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit and Oxford Net Zero, an interdisciplinary group of researchers at the University of Oxford, teamed up to form the Tracker consortium with the aim of building a “home page of net zero” that anyone – from policymakers to campaigners, and investors to media – could visit to understand the sincerity of commitments.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Data Driven EnviroLab and non-profit research organisation the NewClimate Institute joined us to build the Net Zero Tracker, a platform that uses citizen scientists to gather data and assess the robustness of climate commitments and their potential to drive real and timely decarbonisation.

The engine of our core database is a cohort of around 250 volunteers, mainly made up of students at the University of Oxford. Volunteers come from every corner of the university, from first-year undergraduate to final-year doctoral students. Our stand at Freshers’ Fair is a forum for students to air their climate concerns and offers a route to personal action. Individuals are often diverted to us when their interest in climate action surfaces through their studies, or through involvement with Oxford Net Zero.

Their academic backgrounds are varied – from physical climate science to English literature – but all students share a passion for holding the biggest emitters to account. There’s no criteria for involvement and we provide training on our tracking methodology, as well as the key indicators, and our review process ensures that every target that is reviewed is double-checked by at least one other person. Volunteers work together at in-person “code-a-thons”, or from home, to wade into an ocean of publicly available data, which includes scrutinising the robustness of targets of 200 countries and the world’s 2,000 largest publicly traded companies.

Through our logical assessment framework, more than 50,000 individual data points have been created so far. Media outlets including Time and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight have reported our findings. And decision-makers, from British prime minister Rishi Sunak to commissioner Caroline Crenshaw of the US Securities &amp; Exchange Commission, have relied on our data. 

A passion for personal climate action

We support volunteers’ passion for climate action by helping them to specialise in the types of entities that interest them, such as African cities or Brazilian states. Showing volunteers the impact of their hard work is also key. For that, we host volunteer get-togethers as well as sending out a regular newsletter including updates on how the tracker data is being used across the world, key media coverage, job listings and events that might interest them.

The most common feedback from volunteers is that their knowledge of net zero rises steeply, as do their research skills. They also get that sense of fulfilment that comes with personal action. Some volunteers have even considered changing the direction of their studies or careers after volunteering with us. In the near future, we will be introducing a certification scheme to recognise volunteers for their work. This should open doors for them in the future, given the increasing demand for net-zero literacy in the growing professional climate community and workplaces aiming to be “net zero-ready”.

Over time we expect the standardisation of target-setting to improve comparability. And as regulatory frameworks for mandatory carbon disclosure improve, so too can the speed and accuracy of net-zero tracking. Supported by advancing AI techniques from the Data Driven EnviroLab, our vision is to track commitments as soon as they become available. Through this, we could equip stakeholders with near real-time assessments, helping them to acknowledge good practice and to marshal bad actors to improve target ambition.

Scrutiny of net zero is rising on all fronts and we’re helping students improve their net zero literacy. In an era of increasing uncertainty, misinformation and polarisation, the tracker is evidence of a shift towards the democratisation of science that empowers our student volunteers by giving them a voice on humanity’s defining issue.

Camilla Hyslop is the Net Zero Tracker data lead and a PhD student at the University of Oxford.

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We’ve engaged 250 students to track net-zero pledges

The Net Zero Tracker taps into students’ passion for climate action, teaches them net-zero literacy and builds their employability. Here’s how we work with them

We’ve engaged 250 student volunteers to hold climate emitters to account 

Since the term was first popularised in the 1987 Brundtland Report Our Common Future, “sustainable development” has become the dominant framework for reconciling the value systems and world view of modern societies with the constraints of living on a finite planet. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a concrete action plan for making this global vision a reality. 

It is hard to quarrel with the ambitions expressed in the SDGs, which cover such basic human needs as food and water, health, education, housing and work, along with the protection of land, oceans and the atmosphere. Yet there is an assumption running all the way through Agenda 2030 (the UN’s action plan) that progress will necessarily be incremental: year-on-year improvements in various measures of human and planetary well-being.

Through my work in a Canadian faculty of education, I am familiar with this kind of thinking, which is pervasive in mainstream approaches to educational change. The self-preserving tendencies of the legacy institutions of the industrial age are exemplified in public schooling. So many of the latter’s basic parameters are locked in, from the design of school buildings and grounds to age grading, student-teacher ratios and the core subject divisions of the curriculum, that the system acquires an aura of inevitability. Whatever the improvements we want to make, the overall picture will remain pretty similar to what we have. 


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Now, this is not a problem if one believes that our existing institutions are basically doing the job we need. By pointing to successful cases of incremental change, we will always be able to convince ourselves that gradual improvement is both a realistic possibility and, extended over time, adequate to address the most pervasive and deep-seated problems. Something like this seems to be the default assumption in both the sustainable development paradigm and in mainstream thinking about education, including the thinking of many of my faculty colleagues. I suspect that underlying both is a metaphysics of continuous progress, embedded in both the “unfolding” metaphor of development and the “leading forth” metaphor of education.&nbsp; 

But what if the assumption of continuity is false?

The current UN secretary general, António Guterres, has emphasised more and more forcefully over his term of office that transformative change is needed in the global community’s response to the climate and ecological crises. “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,”&nbsp;he told delegates at the COP27 conference in Egypt in November 2022. “It is either a climate solidarity pact or a collective suicide pact.” Weeks later, he told delegates at the COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal that “humanity has become a weapon of mass extinction”.

A career diplomat, Guterres surely does not use such language lightly. His advisers are telling him what scientists from a vast range of disciplines are saying: the current global social and economic system is unsustainable. That is, it will soon be over, one way or another. Which means that gradual improvement is no longer a realistic option, if it ever was.

The global reality we face – as humans generally and professionally as university faculty – is one of impending, catastrophic climate change and ecosystem collapse. Our established ways of thinking about education and development, however nuanced, evidence-based and socially relevant they may appear, are not designed for a time of planetary crisis. Does this seem overstated? Take a look at the structure and content of the UN’s SDG4, the goal focused on education. Of seven identified “targets” for education, six basically commit to preserving and improving formal, state-run education systems of the kind we are all familiar with. Tacked on at the end, we find target seven, “Education for sustainable development, peace, global citizenship” – a perfect encapsulation of the idea that our relationship to the Earth is subordinate to the demands of national economic, political and societal continuity.&nbsp; 

We need to reverse this assumption. The era of incrementalism has made it certain that the coming decades will be an era of unprecedented stress on our communities, societies and institutions. Massive change and upheaval are coming, whatever we do. This should prompt us – as both active citizens and responsible humans, and as academic professionals – to radically rethink the purposes and processes of education and development. Our legacy institutions are not just radically unsuited to the challenges of transformative change, they are at the heart of what needs to be changed. 

One way of framing this is as a problem of design. Imagine what education would look like if our relationship with the Earth – at levels ranging from individuals and families to communities, societies and humanity as a whole – became a central design principle. How would our goals for development shift if we saw it as a process of becoming more and more deeply attuned to and part of the diversity and flourishing of life on Earth, both human and more-than-human? And what are the implications for our universities, including the faculties and schools of education that must help prepare the current and coming generations for a lifetime of drastic social, economic and ecological change?

One key shift may be conveyed in a phrase often used in the context of Canadian debates on Indigenous issues: “Nothing about us without us.” If efforts to establish honourable, healthy relations between Canadian settler society and Indigenous peoples require the centring of Indigenous voices and perspectives, then Earth-centred education requires both learners and teachers to spend more time listening to the voices of the natural world. Requiring children and young people to spend thousands of hours in built environments swept clean of biodiversity is a fail-safe recipe for instilling anthropocentrism as our civilisation’s default setting. Education, including higher education, needs to be taken outside; it needs to get its knees and hands dirty, to be soaked by rain and tousled by wind. We must learn to know and love the world up close or risk losing it forever.

How to bring such changes about? How to adapt the vast and complex knowledge systems of industrial modernity to Earth-centred ways of knowing? These are questions that are difficult to grapple with, admittedly. But they are the kinds of challenges we need to take up, in countless ways and at a vast range of scales, in order for the comforting chimeras of “sustainability” to make way for daunting but finally more hopeful processes of transformation. 

Mark Fettes is associate professor in the faculty of education at Simon Fraser University, Canada. He is also scientific director of the Centre for Imaginative Education.

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The time for incrementalism is over. As responsible humans and academic professionals we must radically rethink the purposes and processes of education and development

Transformative change is needed to deliver Earth-centred education

The service model for academic libraries has changed, but there is more work to do. This is not about the digital shift dominating the conversation in higher ed. It is about the important social&nbsp;shift happening in tandem, part of the larger turn towards participatory culture in the network society where, as the sociologist Manuel Castells defined&nbsp;it, “the key social structures and activities are organised around electronically processed information networks”.

Libraries have supported institutional initiatives in widening access, public engagement, academic entrepreneurship, lifewide learning and student well-being. They have become campus champions for open research and decolonising the curriculum. But to secure their future on campus they must switch from a transactional to a relational model of librarianship.

New ways of working need new tools for thinking. The new book I co-edited with Tim Schlak and Paul Bracke,&nbsp;The Social Future of Academic Libraries: New Perspectives on Communities, Networks, and Engagement, uses state-of-the-art surveys, conceptual introductions and real-world cases to show how intellectual capital concepts and social network theory can supply the strategic framework needed for organisational transformation in academic libraries. Here are seven thought starters gleaned from our research.

1. Revisit your guiding principles and explain your commitment to values-based practice

Most library values have an enduring quality. Some, such as access and integrity, have acquired stronger resonance in the changing scholarly landscape. Others have ongoing relevance, but are being expressed differently to reflect current concerns: adding sustainability to stewardship; extending diversity, equity and inclusion to promote belonging; and complementing access with agency. A key move in recent statements is the shift towards agentic and communal values, such as community, participation, collaboration and partnership. Consider how to present your values. The University of Arizona Libraries website does this effectively with a nice graphic highlighting five core values, linked to a poster explaining what they mean. 

2. Put partnership front and centre in your vision, mission and strategy

Outward-facing university libraries (like those at the universities of Lancaster, Leeds and Manchester) have made a public commitment to partnership in multilayered strategic statements setting out their vision, mission, priorities and plans. Phrases such as “horizontal and vertical collaboration”, “collaborating across silos”, “cross-sectoral partnerships”, “deeper partnership”, “connected connectors”, “collaborative spirit” and “cultural shift” signal their intentions to forge partnerships and their commitment to community.

3. Evaluate your service style and assess your progress towards democratic professionalism

Participative managers, transformational leaders, student-centred teachers, engaging liaisons and embedded librarians are shifting the style of academic librarianship towards a democratic relational model of task-sharing, knowledge-sharing and power-sharing. Crowdsourcing, data labs and decolonisation demonstrate that librarians can partner successfully with citizens, researchers and students. But for the social shift to become embedded, the whole library must accept collaboration as the norm for everything from strategy-making and service design to backroom activities and front-line services. Transactions are necessary for library use and self-service saves time, but people often want more than a brief encounter, especially first-timers feeling anxious or alienated in a large scholarly institution.

4. Assign roles and responsibilities for developing and managing your library relationships 

Librarians have so many internal, external, local, regional, national and international alliances, associations, coalitions, consortia, federations and other networks that they are finding it hard to track all their resource-sharing, service-sharing and system-sharing partnerships. Understanding the breadth and depth of sharing relationships is crucial for managing sustainability. Partnership managers and teams in institutions typically provide central coordination of external linkages, but libraries also have multiple internal connections on campus with partnership potential. Social network theory tells us people acting as liaisons between different groups are vital for building bridges and brokering relationships by sharing and synthesising interests, problems, practices and ideas. Collaborative libraries are extending their liaison programmes beyond academic departments to campus units that provide academic skills, careers advice, disability support, international activities, residential life or student well-being in addition to teaching centres and research offices. 

5. Organise your space, content and people with collaborative working in mind

Libraries are repurposing physical and digital spaces to facilitate interdisciplinary and multiprofessional research and learning. Some librarians have co-designed community archives and content portals to support institutional partnerships, knowledge exchange and citizen scholarship. 

The big issue, however, is in positioning information professionals as essential partners in academic activities. The traditional model distributes subject-based teams focused on areas such as the arts, social sciences, health or engineering and physical sciences across campus to embed resources in courses and projects. Alternative arrangements consolidate technical expertise in groups of functional specialists covering areas such as data management, digital humanities, open access and research impact or instructional design and learning technology. While these functional structures have increased the visibility of library competence and strengthened connections with central services, the enduring relationships of subject liaisons can create shared value by connecting functional specialists with academic colleagues and mediating disciplinary practices in research projects. Structures and cultures that combine, blend and remix subject and technical know-how at points of need in the scholarly lifecycle can empower librarians to advance from legitimate peripheral participants to trusted project partners.

6. Redesign your systems, processes and workflows to support a social future

We found three critical areas where improved frameworks, tools or methods could assist the transition from transactional to relational working: library assessment, knowledge management and team collaboration. Reframing the whole library as a relational service makes assessing relationships the priority. Library leaders are debating how to evaluate and reward the invisible work of relationship building. Evaluation frameworks based on social capital concepts can offer a nuanced appraisal. For example, Virginia Tech Libraries used social network analysis to investigate the intensity, multiplexity and reciprocity of student relationships in different studio spaces. Others are using customer relationship management tools or library engagement platforms to document interactions with faculty, share knowledge within subject teams and uncover opportunities for deeper connections. Exchanging knowledge across library teams and with other professional services is necessary to join up and integrate interventions involving subject and functional specialists.

7. Acknowledge relationship-building as a threshold competence for the whole library

Collaborative relationships demand more than “soft” personal and social skills. A culture of collaboration requires shared understanding that working with others has evolved from service and consultancy to teamwork and partnership, within and beyond libraries. People need to know how connections and continuous interactions build the trust necessary for durable networks. The capacity to develop relationships is a prerequisite for turning academic libraries into network organisations with a social purpose. Motivating staff to invest in connections requires a shared vision of a relational service model.

Academic libraries are relationship-based institutions, morphing into social organisations that are connected to networks and groups on and off campus as collective collectors and connected connectors. Collaboration is the go-to work mode&nbsp;for on-site and online activities, but the shift from service to partnership demands holistic change to align organisational culture and capability with strategy, structure and systems.

Sheila Corrall is a former professor of library and information science at the University of Pittsburgh

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With increased mental health problems stemming from the pandemic now being compounded by the cost-of-living crisis, we are all invested in finding ways to help our students access well-being services and tackle feelings of loneliness and isolation. Having those services and resources available is one thing, but how can universities ensure students truly know where to turn if they need help?

If you want to engage students and raise awareness about your well-being services, consider running a campaign as opposed to simply relying on campus advertising or one-off social media posts. A campaign is an organised strategic effort to achieve a specific goal, in this case to promote your well-being services. In addition, while advertising tends to focus on one-way communication, a campaign can be more interactive. In this sense you can take a two-pronged approach: helping mitigate isolation among your students through interactive campaign experiences while signposting them to the campus resources that will support their longer-term mental health.

Here are a few ideas to help you create and run an effective student well-being campaign with long-lasting results:

Use a relevant hook

Time your campaign to tie in with a related event such as World Mental Health Day. This annual event, which takes place on 10 October, presents a great opportunity to launch a timely campaign at the beginning of the academic year – thus catching the attention of new and returning students without risking important well-being information getting lost in the excitement of welcome week or freshers’ events.


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Make it hybrid

Using a combination of online and on-campus events makes for an inclusive campaign that has a greater chance of reaching more of your students. For each in-person event, think about how you can best capture the spirit of the occasion and share any important resources with an online audience as well.

Use your communication channels strategically

The communication channels available to you fall broadly into one of four categories: owned; shared; earned; and paid. For a campaign of this kind, you’ll primarily want to focus on your owned and shared media channels. Start by promoting your well-being campaign on your owned media. This may include your website, your intranet and your blogs or newsletters. From there you can move out to shared media, such as your social media channels. Plan a series of Facebook posts, Instagram Live events, reels and stories or TikToks to launch the campaign, advertise any competitions, share student experience videos, live-stream events and post photos.

Involve your ambassadors

People trust recommendations coming through a third party or from their peers more than they trust direct advertising. This is where your student association or student ambassador team can really shine, whether it’s through sharing their own experiences through spotlight videos on issues pertaining to disability or inclusion or providing step-by-step explanations for their peers about how your student support service works and how to access it. Combine these student-led aspects with activities run by your counselling and well-being staff for maximum impact.

Make it interactive

Interactive elements are not only fun and engaging but have the secondary benefit of being an authentic way to engage with students and mitigate feelings of isolation. Interactive campaign elements can take various forms. During our recent “Well-being Week” campaign, we put “Share the Kindness” pop-up booths on campus, encouraging students and staff to take two chocolate bars (from a selection of milk chocolate, vegan and free-from) – one for themselves and one to pass onto someone else. We also promoted a treasure hunt on social media, where students were encouraged to explore campus and find a hidden “golden ticket”. The prize was a voucher to spend at a selection of local bars and restaurants, enabling students to indulge in some enjoyable self care.

Lean on your partnerships

To encourage student engagement in any campaign competitions you run, find out if any of your institution’s partners are willing to donate a product or experience as a prize. Through one of our partnerships, we were able to give away a pair of tickets for an international rugby match. All the students who responded to a call for top wellness tips for their fellow students were entered into a draw for the tickets.

Reach out to the local community

During our Well-being Week, we ran a pop-up event on campus where our counselling and mental well-being team welcomed visitors from some of the major services in and around the local area that offer mental health support. Students were able to have an informal chat to find out a bit more about what was on offer locally as well as learn about the in-house support available directly from our staff. 

By integrating some of these ideas, hopefully your wellness campaign achieves the goals you set out at the beginning – but the benefits don’t have to end there. Think about whether you can build towards creating a takeaway product that will continue to be a resource to students long after the campaign wraps up. We will be using the many top tips submitted during our campaign competition to produce a well-being pocketbook, created by students for students. This portable guide will continue to be a mental health resource for our community that we can adapt and build on for years to come.

Christina Chant is corporate communications officer at Edinburgh Napier University, UK.

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From reaching out to the local community to making it interactive, Christina Chant offers seven tips for effectively promoting your university’s well-being services

How to run an effective student well-being campaign

Universities that align their transformation strategy to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can demonstrate research impact and community engagement while attracting a climate-conscious generation of students.

Mark Tweddle, director of consultancy at Times Higher Education, recalls a comment from Dawn Freshwater, vice-chancellor at the University of Auckland, that explains the benefits of tying institutional strategy to the SDGs. Freshwater says this approach helps universities switch mindset from “not trying to be the best in the world, but being the best for the world”.

THE’s Impact Rankings, which assess universities against the SDGs, also show a university’s sustainability credentials to prospective students. A THE survey of prospective international students found that 82 per cent of respondents said it was “important for them to live their lives in a way that is consistent with being a sustainable citizen”. For 7 per cent of respondents, a university’s “commitment to, and reputation for, sustainability” was the most important factor in deciding which universities to apply to. 

“I know universities have found the SDGs really useful as a way to help them communicate what it is that they do in a language and a framework that shows how they’re addressing the key challenges of our time,” Tweddle says. “That helps you having conversations with audiences, beyond just students and parents, but also with government entities.”

Institutions should take a “holistic approach” to the 17 SDGs to reflect the diverse areas they cover, says Kay Hack, lead consultant for education at&nbsp;Advance&nbsp;HE. “Understandably, universities will focus on the goals that address their key research interests in terms of output. But I think in terms of their overarching strategy, they need to take a joined-up approach,” she says.

“A lot of universities have a central purpose statement that might include sustainability. It’s how that gets embedded in the teaching and learning strategy, the research strategy, the civic engagement strategy, the outreach strategy [that’s important]. And making sure that everything has a reporting line in it, so all teams are coming back to the central question of, ‘are we making progress against the SDGs?’”

Aligning institutional strategy with the SDGs can aid universities’ civic engagement, enabling opportunities for outreach with local communities and beyond to explain and show impact. Institutions can effectively engage with local businesses to co-design research projects, work together on sustainable solutions and, more broadly, be a role model for sustainable practice within the community.

Collaborating with industry and other universities is essential to collectively investigate solutions to global challenges, Hack says. “Some of the most effective ways that I’ve seen in the learning and teaching spaces is where you have two cohorts of students studying the same discipline – they might both be doing health science – one in the UK and one in the Global South,” she says.

“They can come together and say, ‘we are doing a vaccine rollout. How do we do it? What does it look like here? What does it look like there? What are the challenges?’ Having realistic and authentic learning experiences working on big sustainability challenges together can be incredibly effective.”

Find out more about how Advance HE and Times Higher Education Consultancy are supporting institutions with their sustainable transformation strategy.

With institutions under pressure to demonstrate their value in an increasingly competitive sector, having a strategy that focuses on the world’s biggest challenges can drive sustainable success

Universities turn to UN’s SDGs to demonstrate impact

Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) more formally into university curricula allows students to build on knowledge that they leave school with and apply it to their degree programmes in novel and innovative ways. I will describe here how I have started to incorporate the SDGs into my teaching of English for academic purposes in the context of my own sustainability “journey” at the University of Edinburgh.

My sustainability ‘journey’

Over the past five years, I have tried to turn a personal interest in sustainability into something more formal. This started when I became aware of the university’s department for social responsibility and sustainability (SRS) through an Introduction to Sustainability course for staff. Through SRS, I became a sustrans active travel champion, which involved promoting sustainable travel initiatives and helping out at events. Sustrans also supports new ideas and initiatives relating to sustainability and travel. This led to greater awareness of events happening in the area as well as access to funded courses, such as the Cycle Leader and Jog Leader awards, which support participants to start up clubs and groups related to physical activity with more knowledge and support. These courses gave me the confidence to start a lunchtime jogging group in 2018, which introduced some students to jogging for the first time. I then organised a Friday-morning coffee meet-up for colleagues, which is ongoing.


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Sustainability and English for academic purposes

Two of my goals have been to embed the SDGs more explicitly into my teaching, and to make students and colleagues appreciate that there is much more to sustainability than recycling. My work principally involves teaching English for academic purposes (EAP) to students whose first language is not English. Many of my students have not heard of the SDGs and are unaware of issues such as recycling and climate change because they are not in the public eye or conscience in their home countries. To build awareness of these issues, I set essays on topics such as population growth, the impact of meat consumption on climate change, and plastic pollution. This encourages students to consider current and relevant issues, select appropriate source material, and describe and evaluate potential solutions, with each stage developing critical thinking and academic skills through a sustainability “lens”. 

As part of the online pivot in March 2020, we used an e-book called Develop EAP: A Sustainable Academic English Skills Course. As well as developing students’ academic and soft skills, it uses the SDGs to frame the topics and issues and encourages students to think about what it means to be a global citizen. Feedback from students and tutors was positive and the final presentations, essays and reflections were interesting and enlightening. For their final presentation, each student selected an SDG and created a short presentation that summarised the chosen goal, justified their choice and analysed the extent to which the targets could be achieved in their own countries or home universities.

A renewed enthusiasm for sustainability projects

With students and staff back on campus, there is a renewed desire to get projects off the ground, particularly regarding community building and engagement. There have been discussions about community bulb-planting, biodiversity walks and e-bike lunchtime rides. I hope to arrange sustainability and carbon literacy training sessions for staff and students to raise awareness of issues such as climate change, plastic pollution, active travel and responsible consumption.

Four ‘take home’ pieces of advice

Based on my experience of incorporating sustainability work into my professional practice, I would highlight four points:


	You cannot realistically become an expert in every SDG and nobody would expect you to. Therefore, think about the goals that&nbsp;interest you most on a personal level and on a professional level. Any that&nbsp;overlap would be a good place to initially focus your attention. You are likely to have more impact talking to colleagues, students&nbsp;and managers about something you feel personally invested in.
	Find out if your place of work has a dedicated sustainability department or individual. See if there are any courses you can complete, preferably&nbsp;free but if not, see if funding is available. Examples of courses I have completed include (but are not limited to) those on FutureLearn, EdX, Coursera&nbsp;and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. I also found useful resources provided by WWF, Learning for Sustainability Scotland&nbsp;and Zero Waste Scotland.
	Speak to your line manager about your interests. I am fortunate to have a manager who actively encourages me to get involved. If they are not on board initially, then persevere. For the first two or three years, I just did things anyway, but it was a boost when it was recognised and I was eventually allocated&nbsp;time for it. Just stick at it. Last year, goals related to sustainability were included in my annual appraisal for the first time – five years into my sustainability journey.
	Find things happening at your place of work relating to sustainability such as talks&nbsp;and conferences. Sign up for local sustainability newsletters. Be enthusiastic about things but keep your enthusiasm focused where possible. I found that many of these “extra”&nbsp;activities could be worked into my job commitments in some way (for example, in providing discussion prompts), and the voluntary nature of it made it easy to step back if I felt it was impacting negatively on my work.


Hopefully this advice will inspire you to incorporate your personal interests in sustainability into your professional practice and inspire others to engage more with these important issues.

Peter Buckley is English for academic purposes teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh.

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Incorporating sustainability into your university work

Practical advice for embedding sustainability issues into broader professional practice, taking lessons from teaching English language that are applicable across other disciplines

From personal to professional: incorporating sustainability into your university work

Back in the day the UK Government’s Manpower Services Commission enabled a flotilla of community-based projects, undertaken as retraining, by people out of paid work. In Northumberland, for example, a community trust enlisted the help of tens of unemployed people to regenerate the village of Allenheads (in England’s North Pennines). Wouldn’t it be amazing to repeat such success stories, and – at the same time – build the capacity of those yet to go to university? 

This suggestion is built on the back of my own post-school gap year in 1975, during which I worked as a community service volunteer with a London borough’s social services team. Boy, aged 17, I sure grew up fast. The experience has never left me, and that’s why I piloted the Big Green Gap Year (BiGGY) during 2015, supported by the NUS and University of Gloucestershire.

Simply put, the BiGGY enabled about 10 Gloucestershire-based school leavers to undertake two placements, in which the “gappers” undertook community or environmental projects that organisations would otherwise be unable to proceed with. 


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Placements included helping a constituency Green Party assemble its election material; another student researched and published findings for a GP practice on social prescribing – that is prescribing community work to alleviate mental health disorders; a third helped assemble a conservation strategy for an SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest). 

Each project sponsor, in tandem with an NUS Green Fund grant, ensured that individuals on the BiGGY were paid a living wage. This was an important principle: that each teenager was not just used as cheap labour.

As the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education noted, participants “explicitly commented on the deepening of their sustainability understanding, knowledge and skills as a result of the training and experience gained throughout their BiGGY experience. This, combined with the early integration into university life, demonstrates BiGGY’s role in promoting transformative learning for sustainability to support development of forward-thinking, engaged learners who will become proactive members of their universities.”

The 2015 BiGGY pilot evaluation noted that “100 per cent of placement hosts stated the BiGGY participants added value to their organisations; that they would recommend BiGGY to other organisations…the contributions participants made to Gloucestershire organisations supported them to become agents of positive change…whilst gaining employability skills and bridging the gap between school and university.”

The positive impacts of the BiGGY were that it enabled school leavers to make a smoother transition to independence and university life. In the process it was also a practical means by which to address the democratic deficit – that is, the perception of disaffected teens, disinterested in helping others or taking part in civic life.

The Big Green Gap Year harnessed the enthusiasm of youth and their engagement with society, drawing on their creativity and vision. Furthermore, it facilitated cross-generational work and – in modest ways – accelerated the “attack” on climate change while helping improve community cohesion and social welfare. The exchange of public peacetime service for university fees or a “working wage” is a fair trade and not exploitative. Finally, the BiGGY’s pilot evaluation showed it to be a means of providing purposeful “employment” in a time of recession and austerity, while enabling students, at graduation, to demonstrate that they have had experience of practical work linked to their degree. 

What the BiGGY needs in 2022/23 is to be scaled up. As mentioned previously, this was a highly successful, but modest, pilot undertaken across Gloucestershire. Funding could come through chambers of commerce and trade or via umbrella organisations such as Business in the Community. Or it could come from an appropriate private sector source/s – for example, at one time a mobile phone company supported a similar venture that it called “Orange RockCorps”. Or perhaps the Endsleigh Insurance Company – which still does a significant portion of its business with students – could be a lead financier for such a national venture. 

As Ucas comments, a “gap year offers you the opportunity to gain skills and experiences while giving you time to reflect and focus on what you want to do next.” In the US, “service learning” – learning from work in the community – is an established fixture in higher education provision.

In conclusion, the BiGGY already trialled in Gloucestershire demonstrated how the dropout rate in students’ first year at university can be addressed and reduced. Gappers had time to reflect on whether a degree really was for them; second, they gained skills essential for study in higher education – critical thinking, problem-solving, working with others and time management, to name but a few. There is no reason why students on gap experiences could not undertake reflective assignments that count toward their degree – before they have even set foot on a campus. The need to tackle climate change is urgent, and who better than young adults, with all their creativity, dynamism and vision, to make a significant contribution?

James Derounian lectures on community governance. He is a national teaching fellow and visiting professor at the University of Bolton, UK.

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James Derounian makes the case for a gap year in which school-leavers can engage with university while tackling climate change and helping with community development

Offering students a ‘Big Green Gap Year’ has multiple rewards

No one paying attention needs reminding that universities are “in crisis”. We are beset by critiques of their complicity with neoliberal and extractive capitalism, dispossession of First Nations, top-heavy administrative regimes, and pedagogical shifts away from critical thinking toward so-called job-ready, marketable skill sets.

When we turn a critical eye toward the history of universities – especially in settler colonial nations such as Australia – we find an uglier truth: universities are not only in crisis; they are of the crisis. That is, universities have been key drivers in the shifts that critical academics, including ourselves, oppose. 

Confronting this reality led us to look beyond universities’ institutional and ideological bounds for solutions to the problems plaguing them. What we discovered was complex and hopeful, with projects straddling the inside and outside of universities in creative and subversive ways. Here, we touch on some examples detailed in our book, Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good.


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Decolonising higher education

A primary motivation for our research revolved around decolonising the university. Is it possible, we asked, for an institution that perpetuates settler colonialism in myriad ways to truly support Indigenous sovereignty? If so, how? 

Enter the Dechinta Centre for Research and Learning, formerly the Dechinta Bush University, one of a growing number of Indigenous-led institutions. Located on Yellowknives’ Dene land in Canada, Dechinta focuses on the traditional pedagogies and bodies of knowledge of Northern Indigenous people. 

The Centre uses learning as a way to reconnect people with the land and offers traditional skills such as harvesting medicinal plants and tanning animal hides alongside more conventionally academic training in reading, writing, discussions and presentations. These academic skills, however, are oriented toward issues identified by Northern Indigenous people as of concern to them, including land and self-determination, gender justice, and Indigenous storytelling. In doing so, Dechinta pushes back on centuries of colonial domination in education via the imposition of Western knowledge systems.

At the same time, Dechinta engages with the settler state in productive ways. It leverages funding from various state and private organisations, redirecting resources toward its students and programmes. It has partnered with the University of Alberta, the University of British Columbia and other tertiary institutions to offer formal accreditation to graduates. In this way, the centre can maintain Indigenous sovereignty over curricula and pedagogies while resourcing participants by diverting settler capital toward its operations. We see this as a hopeful model for how conventional universities can engage in decolonisation by supporting Indigenous intellectual sovereignty on its own terms.

Freeing learning and research from profit

Concerns over the streamlining of learning and research towards neoliberal capitalist agendas of employability and profit, eclipsing the place of civically engaged critical thinking, was a key driver of our research. These shifts often go hand in hand with the intensification of administrative power &nbsp;in ways that recast universities as business enterprises, rather than centres of scholarly pursuit. We are not alone in these concerns; there is a plethora of projects that push back on these dynamics in creative ways.

Many fall under the umbrella term “free universities”: projects of collective learning that are open to anyone, free to attend, gather in physical, offline spaces and take an egalitarian approach to education. Free universities orient classes toward explicit political engagement, such as by studying critical histories of settler colonialism, refugee rights, workers’ struggles or racial politics. 

There is much to be learned from the alternative approaches to education and learning that free universities create. Many refuse grading and accreditation but develop curricula and pedagogies based on the premise that everyone has something to teach and to learn, therefore teacher and student roles can be fluid rather than fixed. 

Free university “classes” and learning communities – which range from one-off gatherings to groups meeting regularly over years – tend to define learning outcomes in ways that revolve more around issues of social and ecological justice than the cash economy. In this way, free universities push back against modern universities’ orientations toward profit, as well as top-heavy administrative regimes.

While offering a utopian vision for learning, free universities often leverage resources from formal institutions in ways that are, we argue, full of potential. Many free university organisers are also employed by traditional universities, and therefore have a degree of access to institutional resources. This allows free universities to informally use university-owned classrooms and equipment for their operations, or to disseminate knowledge beyond the university by inviting staff, faculty and students to offer classes and discussions that are accessible to anyone, not only university affiliates. It might also include making books, articles and other materials available to the broader public that otherwise sit in university libraries or behind paywalls. This redirects resources from the formal institution toward underserved communities and movements that often have pressing needs for such support. 

Ecological awareness and regeneration

A third focus of our research was on projects that orient learning toward principles of ecological awareness and regeneration, while upholding, when possible, First Nations’ sovereignty over lands and waters. We found many promising examples, including the Earth University in Costa Rica and Schumacher College in the UK, among others. Crucially, these projects embody ecological awareness in what they teach, as well as how they teach. Not only do students learn practical Earth-based skills that support biodiversity or growing organic food; they learn in ways that are attuned to seasonal shifts, for example by focusing more on intellectual development during the winter, and hands-in-the-ground work such as planting or harvesting during spring and autumn. 

These projects, in their own ways, offer practical ideas for transforming universities from the outside in and the inside out. By looking beyond the formal institution, we can find new paths toward decolonisation, egalitarianism, critical thinking and ecological regeneration for tertiary education. We can find new ways to lend material support to communities and projects beyond traditional university walls. To remain on the current trajectory of global higher education is to reproduce agendas that are tailored to the very system that is leading us to the existential brink. Radically altering this trajectory is vital as we confront the interlocking crises before us. 

Richard Hil is adjunct professor in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work at Griffith University and the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts at Southern Cross University; Kristen Lyons is professor of environment and development sociology at the University of Queensland; and Fern Thompsett is a PhD anthropology scholar at Columbia University. Together they co-authored the book&nbsp;Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good,&nbsp;published in 2022 by Routledge.

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If we are to radically transform universities, we must seek solutions from diverse learning projects that have historically been excluded from, or remained separate to, higher education, argue Fern Thompsett, Kristen Lyons and Richard Hil

To save higher education, we must look beyond traditional university models

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the coordinated action of groups like Science for Ukraine and the Council of At-Risk Academics (Cara) proved critical to ensuring the safety of scholars displaced by the war. The importance of such efforts cannot be overstated. At the same time, it is crucial to couple such efforts with support aimed at maintaining the integrity of the Ukrainian post-secondary system, both during the active conflict and beyond. This autumn, over 230,000 students took the national university entrance examination, conducted online for students inside and outside of Ukraine. Supporting these students, along with faculty and staff unwilling or unable to leave, is imperative.

Among the main challenges facing Ukrainian colleagues are enormous infrastructural losses, power outages, limited human resources due to staff displacement, and a lack of suitable bomb shelters – all of which severely disrupt basic teaching, research and administrative tasks. Support strategies must encompass both short-term solutions to ease the tremendous strain currently facing academics, staff and students, as well as long-term strategies to help sustain and rebuild the Ukrainian post-secondary sector. 

We created the Twinning Initiative with this goal in mind. Twinning is an institution-to-institution collaboration framework initiated and coordinated by Cormack Consultancy Group with the support of Universities UK International. After registering to participate, international partner institutions are paired with a Ukrainian university of a similar educational profile, mission and size. The twinned institutions engage in a series of facilitated meetings to discuss the immediate and long-term needs and challenges faced by the Ukrainian peers. Together, they build a collaboration strategy based on their respective needs, resources and strengths. 

One of the main lessons from the Twinning Initiative is the great potential of “like-to-like” aid and cooperation. Despite organisational differences from one system to another, universities understand each other’s basic functions, and are thus well positioned to provide targeted support in areas such as student support services, class delivery and research. We believe this approach can be extended to organise collective action in the tertiary education sector in future crises.&nbsp;Here are recommendations for twinning based on our experience.

Resist traditional understandings of “academic collaboration”.&nbsp; While twinning can include typical collaboration strategies, such as joint degrees and student exchange, its guiding principle is to support colleagues at times of unimaginable crisis. Considerations of institutional prestige, rankings and “the way things are done” cannot be the driving force behind participation in twinning. Students may need remote access to specialised coursework that their own institution is temporarily unable to provide; a medical school may need targeted technical expertise (eg, trauma surgery or mental health support services) to help their communities. It is essential to centre the needs and perspectives of distressed colleagues and approach the process flexibly, creatively and humbly.

Don’t discount the importance of non-material aid. If your institution is unable to offer direct financial support, the simple act of extending a thoughtful collaboration proposal based around shared expertise, or access to online coursework and library resources, can provide vital moral support at a time of crisis. Similarly, a relatively low-cost, high-impact type of support is offering professional development opportunities (eg, webinars and workshops) to help university staff lay the groundwork for a renewed tertiary education system with strong international connections beyond the crisis. 

Coordination is key. System-wide twinning initiatives like that in Ukraine require intensive management, coordination and facilitation.&nbsp; In such cases, having dedicated staff managing these tasks can be the most efficient way of fostering successful partnerships. This facilitating role could be fulfilled or sponsored by an academic or professional association, consortia or other organisations with which the institutions have an existing connection. Two conditions are vital: releasing personnel from other duties to take on this coordinating role to help prevent work overload, and ensuring that the coordination team includes experts from the country or region in distress with a thorough understanding of its post-secondary system, sociocultural norms and language.

Couple immediate action with long-term perspective. In volatile environments it is crucial to keep one’s finger on the pulse of day-to-day developments and respond to challenges as they arise.&nbsp; The most efficient twinning partnerships follow a scaffolding approach – focusing on the most immediate support that the international partner can reasonably provide, while setting the stage for long-term, mutually beneficial collaboration. For example, research focused on rebuilding and renovating different aspects of Ukraine’s economy, education system, ecology and infrastructure will be critical. Such projects require mutual trust and an understanding of each institution’s strengths and capacity, which can be facilitated through work on other projects that are part of the twinning relationship. &nbsp;

Build cross-sectoral support networks. Twinning-participating institutions in Ukraine and abroad are not competing against each other. Rather, they are working for a common purpose, and in doing so building new networks and connections that otherwise may never have come to fruition. Significantly, this includes cross-sectoral collaborations with local communities, non-profit organisations, government agencies and the private sector. Many of the twinning activities, such as delivery of medical supplies, classroom furniture and computers, require logistical expertise beyond what universities can manage. Involvement from allies in the non-profit and private sector, including charities such as Jisc in the United Kingdom and the Ruscovan Association in Romania, have been instrumental in this regard. Moreover, engaging local governments and communities through cultural events, fundraising and other activities helps to spread word of the collaboration and keeps the distressed partner at the top of the public agenda.

We hope these recommendations help institutions looking to build sustainable, reciprocal relationships that go beyond traditional international academic collaboration, and that open the way for new forms of mutual aid in the post-secondary sector at times of crisis.

Charles Cormack is the founder and chairman and Blanca Torres-Olave is the director of research at Cormack Consultancy Group. 

A framework to help Ukraine’s universities

There is great potential for like-for-like aid among institutions during times of crises. Here are five lessons from a project that pairs institutions in Ukraine with partners around the world

A collective action framework to help Ukraine’s universities survive and rebuild

Identifying, starting and sustaining a university-community collaboration can be challenging. But with planning and communication, projects can connect with local organisations, solve a problem or build trust well beyond their initial proposal. Based on our experience developing a farmers market in rural Indiana, we wanted to share a few pointers that might help others looking for ways to do similar outreach.

The Muncie Food Hub Partnership (MFHP) was formed in 2016 to develop solutions to our city’s food insecurity issues, while also working to support local produce farmers who lack access to markets and other places to sell their goods. MFHP was developed by a collaborative partnership of Ball State University (BSU) faculty, Muncie residents and students attending the university, among others. After a year-long food security assessment and consultation with community members, emergency food organisations and farmers, MFHP decided to develop a mobile farmers market to help residents in low-income, low-access neighbourhoods connect to fresh local food. The market has been in operation for five years and has had significant success in providing locally grown produce for people in Muncie and East Central Indiana through market sales in food deserts and donations to area food pantries, preschools and community centres.


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Originally funded by the Ball State University Foundation, MFHP is integrated into the environment, geology and natural resources (EGNR) department’s curriculum at BSU. EGNR faculty, including myself, along with postgraduate and undergraduate students operate the MFHP during the growing season, which runs from June to October. Students have the option to take the Community Engagement: Sustainable Food Systems course each summer or autumn semester to learn about food-system sustainability. The course has an intensive field component, in which students are integrated into mobile market operations. Funding from donations, produce sales, competitive grants and the EGNR department is used to pay for student wages during weeks when the course is not being offered, and to pay farmers for produce and other general operational costs.

The following tips are a few things we have learned that have led to longer-term success.

How to develop a relationship with a community partner

1. Spend time with potential partners. This will help develop the trust, mutual respect and shared commitment that are key to both organisational and academic outcomes. Community partners can vary greatly in size, function and experience in working with universities. Some may understand the constraints and timelines associated with academic semesters, but others may not be aware of these things at all.

2. Manage stakeholders’ expectations with regard to timelines and approaches to work. This can be helpful as the project both begins and as it matures. Universities, non-profit organisations, corporations and other bodies can have very different cultures, thus timelines, attitudes and problem-solving can also vary greatly. Nothing leads to stinging disappointment more than when a collaborator feels let down by something that didn’t work the way they thought it would. For community partners, often this has to do with the reality that change takes time. It is also true for students and those who are new to collaborative partnerships and larger projects.

3. Frequent and honest communication is essential. Be transparent with your community partner about how your university and/or your students are approaching the project and how you expect things to go as you move forward.

4. Seek out whatever information you can about potential partner organisations’ mission, culture, role in the community and services provided. Do you have colleagues who have worked with this company before? A&nbsp;conversation with them about their experience can be valuable. Your university may also have an office or unit that has worked with this partner before who can share why this particular organisation is valuable to your students and/or your scholarship.

5. Remember that partners do not just want to play the role of “community partner”; they want to enter into a partnership knowing that they bring value to the relationship and are important.

6.&nbsp;Document the scope of work at the beginning of the project. This can help with:


	selling the project to stakeholders such as employees, volunteers and board members
	managing expectations to avoid disappointment (“I&nbsp;thought the class was going to…”)
	ensuring that the collaboration can survive changes in staff and faculty.


Keys to project sustainability

Some projects are designed to only last a semester, others for a year or longer. The MFHP was a three-year project with the goal of becoming something that would go beyond that initial period. Here are a few strategies that might help you think about project sustainability:

1. Listen carefully to your partners’ needs, the needs and interests of their stakeholders and, if appropriate, those of the community at large. The more you can bring others’ wisdom to bear on the situation, the more this will be a “community”-engaged project. Listening to residents, the community and your partners, and acting together, places the project in everyone’s hands. This can bring strength and support. For MFHP, this was key – to avoid being a university-funded project barging on to the scene to do “X” work (and make the world a better place).

2. Start small and build momentum through consistent forward movement, even if it is in small ways. This will help your community partner and the community itself gain confidence in the work you’re doing. Too often, university-sponsored projects start&nbsp;then quickly fade for a variety of reasons: funding runs out, goals and strategies to achieve them are mismatched, community partners struggle with unrelated issues and do not have the time or resources to continue to commit, for example. Continuously (and even slowly or differently) moving forward inspires confidence and sends the message that you are in it for the long haul.

3. Help like-minded community organisations with their goals. This can bring goodwill, greater visibility and potentially more community support. MFHP volunteers and shows up at other organisations’ public events. MFHP has also given in-kind support and donations to other like-minded organisations. This goodwill can be helpful for everyone.

4. Report successes and challenges. Even small wins are important to report. But even more important is being transparent about barriers and challenges. This can help others see your needs and can work in your favour.

Joshua Gruver is associate professor of natural resources and environmental management in the department of environment, geology and natural resources at Ball State University.

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Planning and communication can turn good intentions into lasting benefits for students, faculty and the community. Joshua Gruver shares his advice for successful outreach, based on his experience developing a local farmers’ market

Food for thought: advice for building a university-community collaboration

With the breathless excitement and hubris surrounding the&nbsp;Times Higher Education Impact Rankings and the sector’s rush to embrace these, we need to keep sight of what is really at the heart of sustainability education.

The vexed quest for sustainable development and what sort of teaching and learning is needed in this chaotic world has spawned four decades of debate, discourse, work and experimentation. The THE Impact Rankings rightly centre commitment to and delivery of sustainability education in SDG&nbsp;17 (partnerships for the goals) – the only mandatory inclusion in the rankings’ methodology. The metric on education for the SDGs recognises institutions with dedicated programmes that address sustainability and the SDGs.


	To offset or not to offset – that is the question
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	Embrace students’ eco-anxiety to spur critical and systemic climate action


But how exactly is this interpreted at a university level, and what do these programmes deliver? In responding to this question, we see three distinct areas emerging, each with different orientations and outcomes.

First, there has been a burst of education about the SDGs in programmes across the disciplinary breadth of institutions across the world. This type of content engagement, “learning about sustainability”, allows students to recognise the 17&nbsp;SDGs – or at least the ones that specifically relate to their discipline – and to learn about and understand the larger global framework and purpose. Students would maybe (hopefully?) learn about the targets that underpin the goals and the complexity of what this means at a global and national level. They might respond to quizzes and reflective pieces on the global agenda and be able to articulate what the key contested definitions are.

Second, there are curricula and programmes that contribute to the intent of the SDGs, or a singular SDG. These programmes and specific learning activities allow students to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, usually in their discipline. For example, offerings in environment science with specialisations in climate change and adaptation could reasonably be aligned to delivering on SDG&nbsp;7 (clean energy) and SDG&nbsp;13 (climate action). Similarly, a programme on health science and promotion could be identified with SDG&nbsp;3 (good health and well-being).

Third, a more complex, daunting ask of the academy – transformative sustainability education embedded across all programmes of an institution. Education for Sustainability (EfS), otherwise known as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), is a pedagogical approach that encompasses transformative learning, values and worldviews, systems and complex thinking, envisaging a better future, and becoming change-makers. Pedagogies that create EfS competencies focus on what a graduate can do as much as on what they learn. They aim to develop graduates who can critically envisage better futures and take action towards it. At their core, such sustainability competencies are reflective of the “head, heart and hands” approach of several educational philosophies and thought of as whole-person learning: cognitive, socio-emotional, affective. Learning for EfS is transdisciplinary, collaborative, participatory and action-oriented.


	Table 1: Think (cognitive), Care (socio-emotional) and Do (praxis) aspects of EfS
	
		
			Think (cognitive)
			Care (socio-emotional)
			Do (praxis)
		
		
			Thinking ethically, critically&nbsp;and creatively to apply a&nbsp;systems and futures thinking perspective to problems and opportunities underpinned by an&nbsp;understanding of fundamental ecological principles.
			Respecting and valuing multiple perspectives from a&nbsp;diversity of people, values&nbsp;and worldviews (a&nbsp;socio-cultural literacy) and taking a deep appreciation of and reconnection with environment and place - the more-than-human along with the human.
			Engaging in practical and effective action and applying ecological knowledge to the practice of ecological design.
		
	


Acknowledging that sustainability is not a state nor an end point, but a practice and an ethic, there are a number of guiding principles that underpin this whole of person learning. We need – now more than ever – leaders who are able&nbsp;to:


	learn and question prevailing epistemic beliefs, values and assumptions
	understand the interdependence of society, economy&nbsp;and the natural environment, from local to global scales
	understand earth system boundaries and limits for the economy and our society
	accept intergenerational equity, rights and responsibilities, participation and cooperation
	promote quality of life, equity, justice and diversity
	understand the importance of cultural, social, economic and biological variety for humans and the wider, or “more than human”, world
	acknowledge and navigate uncertainty, disruption and complexity.


As the economist and statistician E. F. Schumacher wrote in 1974:

“The volume of education has increased and continues to increase, yet so do pollution, exhaustion of resources, and the dangers of ecological catastrophe. If still more education is to save us, it would have to be education of a different kind: an education of the depth of things.”

If we are serious about the global higher education sector delivering graduates who are capable of facing the world’s challenges and addressing the SDGs, we need institutions that seriously understand and invest in transformative sustainability education and the near impossible task of whole of institution reorientation to this critical endeavour.

Jen Dollin is head of sustainability education and doctoral candidate in the Centre for Educational Research, School of Education; Brittany Vermeulen is sustainability coordinator and doctoral candidate in the School of Science; and Susan Germein is a sustainability educator; all in the Office of the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Learning Futures) at Western Sydney University.

Acknowledgement: Western Sydney University acknowledges the Dharug, Eora, Dharawal and Wiradjuri peoples and thanks them for their support of our work on their lands. Our Sustainability and Resilience Strategy 2030 recognises the vital importance of First Nations wisdom. “Embrace Indigenous knowledge for pathways to sustainability and caring for country” is the first of our nine interlocked strategic priority statements that present both a challenge and an opportunity to the university community.

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The teaching of sustainability and the SDGs needs to equip graduates with the skills to bring about transformative change for a better future. Jen Dollin, Brittany Hardiman and Susan Germein explore what this means for universities

Transformative not transmissive education for sustainability

A good friend once told me that, “being right isn’t persuasive” – a very true and powerful phrase that you may reflect on when developing your own widening participation or outreach initiatives. So often such activities are kick-started through passion for sharing what we believe is a good thing, something we think everyone must have, because we&nbsp;believe it’s important, relevant and inspiring. However, the real trick is to reverse our thinking and focus mostly on what our audiences or participants need.&nbsp; 

Making outreach and widening participation (WP) initiatives purposeful requires you to clearly identify and embrace the needs of those it’s designed for. It seems so simple to say, but is more challenging to achieve – relying on really understanding and listening to what matters to them. 

For the University of Manchester’s Great Science Share for Schools (GSSfS) campaign, this meant: responding to teachers’ needs to raise the profile of primary science nationally due to the demise of its status in the curriculum; stimulating opportunities for children to have more autonomy in working scientifically; and inspiring the sharing of science that really matters to our young people. &nbsp;

Getting people to participate, volunteer time, donate funding and champion the GSSfS campaign has been an ongoing endeavour since 2016. Now the largest primary school science campaign in the UK, we are proud to have engaged more than 200,000 youngsters across 17 countries, and the 2022 campaign inspired over 310,000 5- to 14-year-olds to ask, investigate and share scientific questions. The following insights are offered to inspire you to reflect on the creation and delivery of meaningful outreach initiatives that really can make a difference to learners’ experiences. 

Build and develop on what you know works well already

Nothing starts from nothing. A key factor in launching successfully is to learn from what’s already working well. Whether it’s something you’ve worked on or developed in the past, take something that has the ingredients of success and amplify it. Upscaling was a key factor in the swift establishment of the GSSfS campaign.&nbsp; 

Keep it simple

Remember that outreach and WP initiatives often are not factored into people’s workload. So, it’s best to lower barriers and avoid complex systems, multiple stages to engagement or burdensome rules and regulations. GSSfS has one simple idea at its core: young people sharing their scientific questions. If you look around at other successful campaigns, you’ll see this is a common trend. 

Establish and stay true to your values

Have you ever really thought about the things that guide your behaviours and actions? Articulating the values behind your outreach or WP initiative enables you to make justified decisions about what to do and what not to do. For GSSfS, our values are to be child-focused, inclusive and non-competitive, and collaborative. Everything we choose is related to these actions, including our communications, our partners, our resources and events. 

The inclusive and non-competitive nature of our campaign is, I believe, the biggest influence on our rapid growth rate. We don’t turn young people away; we invite them and their teachers to take part at whatever level they wish to. No one is judged against anyone else; the only judgement comes from the person themselves in asking: “Have I done enough?”; “Have I shown my best?”; “Is there anything else I can do next time?”.

Be true to your values – make them explicit and justify your actions by them. 

Avoid bells and whistles, stay on brand

As your initiative is developed, it’s so easy to get excited and to keep adding and diversifying your offer. In fact, we fell into this trap at times. The key lesson here is to regularly review your initiative. We use simple evaluation surveys, observations, discussions and feedback to direct our time and funding. 

So, in summary, my good friend has a real point. Being right isn’t persuasive, yet we can persuade by maintaining an authentic approach to our outreach, and winning hearts and minds by reversing our approach, keeping it clear and simple, and maintaining a learning culture throughout. Get the formula right and your efforts will result in outcomes that really offer valuable benefits to all involved. Enjoy your journey!

Lynne Bianchi is the vice-dean for social responsibility, equality, diversity, inclusion &amp; accessibility in the University of Manchester’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, and the founder and director of the Great Science Share for Schools. 

Great Science Share for Schools team at The University of Manchester has been shortlisted for Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year in the&nbsp;Times Higher Education&nbsp;Awards&nbsp;2022. A full shortlist for all categories can be&nbsp;found here.

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In aiming to widen participation, it’s easy to get lost in your own passion. Instead focus on understanding others’ needs – and keep it simple

Flip the script: why listening is the best form of outreach

Of all the strategic challenges facing universities at present, arguably none is more important than climate change. Across the sector, there is near universal acceptance that universities ought to be taking a lead.&nbsp;Urged on by student opinion – with radical voices often the loudest – and by concerned members of staff, institutions have signed up to pledges, taken strategies to governing bodies and made announcements about their unique contributions.&nbsp;The public discourse can at times sound like platitudes but beneath the fine words there is a growing sense of urgency and resolve among senior management and governing bodies in the UK higher education sector.

For our part, the University of Glasgow has committed to achieving net zero carbon neutrality by 2030; the original draft said 2035 – academic staff and student representatives argued this was not good enough and demanded a more ambitious target. We have earmarked significant funds to achieve this goal and aim to focus on more effective use of space, more efficient buildings and alternative sources of energy. On the latter, the current focus is a treatment plant, close to the university, which has the potential to produce energy from what might delicately be termed a common human by-product.


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	Accelerating towards net zero emissions: how to mobilise your university on climate action


The optimistic among us are more hopeful about achieving our target than we were three years ago. The change in working habits since Covid means we can assume a 40 per cent reduction in commuting; we are positing a 50 per cent reduction in business travel as people become more discerning about the number of long-distance journeys they undertake. Add to that the impact of electric vehicles, which could really start to show over the next decade, and we can see our way to the finishing line before the self-imposed deadline.

So far, so good – but even with favourable conditions, our efforts at carbon reduction, based on a putative current carbon footprint of 60,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, will only take us down to an annual footprint of around 27,000 tonnes – and that is assuming the university does not experience the swift growth it has seen in the past five years. The balance of carbon, so the thinking goes, will have to be offset.

Carbon offsetting is surely one of the most fraught and hotly debated issues in the field of environmental sustainability. On the one hand, a growing number of companies are active in the marketplace, keen to persuade firms not only of the merits of offsetting but also to use their services to achieve it. This from one leading company’s website:

“Carbon offsetting funds solutions to reducing carbon emissions now. Frequently carbon offsetting reduces emissions much faster than you can as an individual/single company. Carbon offsetting projects help to combat global climate change as well as caring for local communities.&nbsp;In many instances providing much needed employment, health improvement, biodiversity,&nbsp;reforestation and broad social benefits to impoverished communities.”

On the other hand, there are many in higher education who subscribe to the Greenpeace view – that offsetting is at best a diversion and at worst, actively harmful. To quote one recent piece:

“Offsetting projects simply don’t deliver what we need – a reduction in the carbon emissions entering the atmosphere. Instead, they’re a distraction from the real solutions to climate change.”

We are likely to take a compromise position. Universities should not use offsetting as an easy way out – an excuse for inactivity or failure to tackle some of the really big estates or behavioural changes we ought to implement. We should and will do everything we can to shrink our carbon footprint to the minimum and then offset the balance.&nbsp; But we should not wait till the eleventh hour before beginning to offset – rather, we will experiment with various schemes so that we can find the right balance between direct action such as reforestation projects on our own land, large-scale collaborative offsetting projects with reputable partners, and carbon capture. &nbsp;We will also commit our extensive academic expertise to the refinement of carbon offsetting schemes and evaluating their impact over time.

A major challenge for universities is finding sound off-setting partners we can rely on. Fortunately, the not-for-profit Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges (EAUC) has stepped up, forming a Carbon Coalition&nbsp;to which UK and Irish higher education institutions and further education colleges can subscribe through a procurement-friendly Dynamic Purchasing System. Following a successful pilot last year, the Carbon Coalition offers a menu of quality-checked, sustainable and cost-effective carbon reduction and offsetting options that institutions can buy into; crucially, the EAUC’s approach is robust, ethical and transparent, so we can be sure that our investments are achieving their stated goal. The menu includes carbon reduction activities such as renewable energy projects, carbon removal initiatives such as reforestation, and carbon capture of harmful emissions from industry. Full details are available on the EAUC website.

Joining the Carbon Coalition gives universities a route to achieving net zero carbon by 2030. It is not our first choice, but we see it as part of the mix to reach our target. At the same time, we will focus on the things that really matter – taking active, progressive steps to reduce our footprint, while contributing to the wider tasks of research, education and awareness-raising. Working together in a coalition for the planet, we can have real, lasting impact, for the benefit of the whole world.

David Duncan is chief operating officer and university secretary at the University of Glasgow, where he co-chairs the Sustainability Working Group. He is a board member of the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges.

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Carbon offsetting is a hotly debated issue, with critics positing that it distracts from real efforts to reduce emissions. David Duncan explains why a compromise position in which offsetting is used to complement focused efforts at carbon reduction may be needed

To offset or not to offset – that is the question

The English philosopher and political activist Bertram Russell was a passionate advocate of what Professor Stuart Rees (many decades after Russell’s death) referred to as “intellectual promiscuity”. For Russell, education was and is more than the exploration of ideas or the pursuit of truth, both of which he lauded. Education at its best, Russell argued, is a process unencumbered by vested interests, and dedicated to advancing peace and the public good. Reflecting on the English education system in the mid-20th century, Russell came to the depressing conclusion that: “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought”.

Russell may well have applied this caustic observation to aspects of today’s education system, including the tertiary sector. When it comes to universities, he was both right and wrong. To be sure, these multifaceted, complex organisations are enmeshed in a system whose interests align closely with those of the neoliberal state. That said, critical scholarship and research, so vital to the public good and any thriving democracy, remain a tangible, albeit diminished, feature. The problem is that university scholarship is increasingly framed by agendas that are more suited to specific economic interests than the common good. Vocational preoccupations and commercialised research, driven by the imperative of the “market”, have had an important bearing on what occurs in these institutions which, over time, have come to resemble private firms rather than centres of public education. 


	The sector’s role in addressing climate change is crucial – and varied
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This transformation has been highlighted in a vast body of critical literature spanning the past 30 years. For critics of the current system, its most irksome features include top-down management, lack of democratic governance, the erosion of academic freedom, over-regulation, occupational inequities, and the instrumentalisation of knowledge. Countless books, articles and reports have been published, and conferences and seminars held, but to very little practical effect. National campaigns involving unions, academics and students have experienced similar outcomes. Much to the collective annoyance of the system’s critics, complaints directed at universities remain largely unacknowledged by governments and institutional leaders. 

For advocates and activists agitating for change, the lack of response on the part of universities and policymakers has been frustrating and disappointing. Some have simply given up, believing that the forces ranged against them are too obdurate, too powerful. Most higher education institutions have pulled down the shutters, hiding behind often crude and misleading advertising campaigns which, despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary, continue to claim “excellence” and “high-quality education”. 

Part of the problem for opponents of the current university system is that they have been long on criticism and short on practical alternatives. It is a familiar failing, with parallels in the global environmental justice movement. Not only has there been a failure to articulate a vision of what a more “progressive” university might look like, but there’s also confusion as to whether such changes should be incremental or wholesale. 

That said, we may have reached an inflection point. It appears that the juggernaut of critique has begun to morph into a new vision for the future of universities. This is partly because of critique fatigue but also due to a growing sense that universities are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the global crises we now face. As we point out in our recent book, Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Criss: A University for the Common Good, these institutions are too entangled in the current neoliberal system to posit a different approach to our current problems. Their continuing dalliance with mining, banking, finance and weapons industries are examples of this. Rather than being part of the global resistance to neoliberal capitalism, or offering a radically different vision of the future, universities appear stuck in a discredited ideological groove. They also seem reluctant to fully embrace regenerative ecological cultures necessary to combat the existential threat posed by environmental degradation. This is not to say that universities are oblivious to such matters. Far from it. Yet the core values underpinning the modern university, and its immersion in capitalist social and economic relations, render it largely incapable of catalysing the change required to steer societies in a different direction. 

We surveyed a wide range of alternative higher education institutions and practices across the globe, with a focus on institutions that promote regenerative and relational values, as well as those focused on decolonisation. Examples explored in the book include the&nbsp;Ecoversities Alliance, a global network working to support a shift away from the pursuit of private interest and towards ecological integrity and the common good. Its ambitious but vital goal is to orient universities towards the “service of our diverse ecologies, cultures, economies, spiritualities and life within our planetary home”. 

In relation to decolonising universities, the&nbsp;Dechinta Bush University&nbsp;in Canada’s Northwest Territories provides an exemplar, having embraced Indigenous land-based practices and values. In this context, Indigenous pedagogies and practices refuse the colonial enclosures of traditional campus-based institutions. There are countless other examples, in Australia and elsewhere,&nbsp;of Indigenous scholars,&nbsp;educators&nbsp;and activists leading decolonising, anti-racist and&nbsp;ecological governance&nbsp;agendas.

The institutions, networks and movements we explore set out organisational practices, pedagogies and research agendas that are based on more cooperative, justice-oriented and ecological orientations. Key to such operations is an ecological ethos that recognises the complex, adaptive and interconnected nature of planetary life, and the vital importance of human connection in creating regenerative cultures of coexistence. 

Set against this backdrop, education is a means of enhancing human solidarities and creating ecological communities that work with, rather than against, nature. Many of the institutions we focus on prefigure communities that will need to find productive ways of living on a dangerously unstable planet, perhaps giving them a fighting chance of survival and a life worth living. 

Richard Hil is an adjunct professor in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work at Griffith University and the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts at Southern Cross University; Kristen Lyons is professor of environment and development sociology at the University of Queensland; and Fern Thompsett is a PhD anthropology scholar at Columbia University. Together they co-authored the book Transforming Universities in the Midst of Global Crisis: A University for the Common Good, published in 2022 by Routledge.

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Higher education has become too aligned to specific economic interests and needs to be redirected to focus on regenerative values for the common good, argue Richard Hil, Kristen Lyons and Fern Thompsett

For the common good: why we need ecological universities

How can universities contribute to achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals? From research to mitigate the climate crisis to teaching through an SDG lens, academics share strategies

Sustainable Development Goals

How can universities contribute to achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals? From research to mitigate the climate crisis to teaching through an SDG lens, academics share strategies

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