For the first time in history, humans are pervasive and dominant forces in the health and well being of the earth and its inhabitants. We are the first generation capable of determining the habitability of the planet for humans and other species. The limiting factors for future economic growth are not labor or technology. (Hawken, 1997) They are natural capital: the size of the fish stock, not the number and size of the fishing boats, and social capital: the ability to make market corrections and to govern society to achieve health, peace, security, social equity and stability.
Envisioning a Sustainable Future
Stop for a moment and imagine...
Imagine a society in which all present and future humans are healthy and have their basic needs met. What if everyone had fair and equitable access to the Earth's resources, a decent quality of life, and celebrated cultural diversity. Imagine future scientists, engineers and business people designing technology and economic activities that sustain rather than degrade the natural environment and enhance human health and well-being. Imagine a future where we design our technology inspired by biological models operating on renewable energy. Imagine a future where the concept of "waste" is eliminated because every waste product is a raw material or nutrient for another species or activity, or returned into the cycles of nature. Imagine that we are managing human activities in a way that restores and increases the biological diversity and complexity of the ecosystems on which we all depend. By doing so, humans could live off of nature’s interest, not its capital, for generations to come.
Imagine that all professionals understand their connections to the natural world and to other humans. What if people truly know where products and services come from, know where wastes go, and know the consequences to humans and other living species and how to minimize this ecological footprint (our impact on the Earth).
The average American does not know that we consume our body weight in solid materials daily. For every 100 lbs. of product produced in the United States, we actually move a staggering 3,200 lbs. of material and energy, over 94 percent of which goes to waste before we ever see the product or the service. (Hawken, 1997) Our ecological footprint is largely invisible to most of us. We must make it visible to understand our impact.
Imagine a future where we have stabilized the population at a level that is within the carrying capacity of Earth's ecosystems because we have increased the education, as well as the social and economic status, of women worldwide. Imagine that we have timely and accurate economic and ecological signals: micro-economic signals for price that reflect the true social and environmental cost to society; macro-economic indicators that reflect the true well-being of society and the Earth; and ecological signals that we receive in time to prevent or remedy damage to humans or the environment. Current signals are either incomplete, highly inaccurate, lead us to a false sense of security, or are too late to prevent damage.
Now, imagine that all current and future generations are able to pursue meaningful work and have the opportunity to realize their full human potential both personally and socially. Imagine that through our "dreaming" and "doing" we have dramatically reduced resource consumption, pollution and waste. Imagine we have done this in the developed world so that there is opportunity in the developing world and poorer communities within the
The vast majority of people would agree with these ideals. So, how do we rapidly accelerate these ideas and create this future? We need a fundamental, transformative shift in thinking, values and action by all of society's leaders and professionals, as well as the general population. To paraphrase Einstein, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we used when we created them."
Higher Education's Role
The change in mindset necessary to achieve this vision is a sustained, long-term effort to transform education at all levels. Despite the efforts of many individuals and groups within the formal educational system, education for a just and sustainable world is not a high priority. (Campus Ecology, 2001) Indeed, it is the people coming out of the world's best colleges and universities that are leading us down the current unhealthy, inequitable and unsustainable path. Only a few architecture schools have made sustainable design a foundation of education and practice. (Glyphis, 2001) The same is true in the education of virtually every intellectual discipline and profession. The greatest evidence of the need to transform education is the state of the world and the tremendous effort being made by thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and schools in environmental and sustainability education to "fix" the traditional educational system.
Why is this the case? Several structural aspects of the current system contribute to the problem. Interactions between population, human activities and the environment, and strategies, technologies and policies for a secure, just and an environmentally sustainable future are amongst the most complex and interdependent issues with which society must deal. These issues cross over disciplinary boundaries. Higher education is generally organized into highly specialized areas of knowledge and traditional disciplines. Designing a sustainable human future requires a paradigm shift toward a systemic perspective emphasizing collaboration and cooperation. Much of higher education stresses individual learning and competition, resulting in professionals ill-prepared for cooperative efforts. Learning is fragmented, and faculty, responding to long-established incentives (e.g., tenure, research) and professional practices, are often discouraged from extending their work into other disciplines or inviting interdisciplinary collaboration.
The result is that graduates of higher education primarily believe that:
"...The kind of education we need begins with the recognition that the crisis of global ecology is first and foremost a crisis of values, ideas, perspectives, and knowledge, which makes it a crisis of education, not one in education." (Orr, 1997)
Higher education institutions bear a profound moral responsibility to increase the awareness, knowledge, skills and values needed to create a just and sustainable future. Higher education plays a critical but often overlooked role in making this vision a reality. It prepares most of the professionals who develop, lead, manage, teach, work in and influence society's institutions, including the most basic foundation of K-12 education. Besides training future teachers, higher education strongly influences the learning framework of K-12 education, which is largely geared toward subsequent higher education.
Higher education has unique academic freedom and the critical mass and diversity of skills to develop new ideas; to comment on society and its challenges; and to engage in bold experimentation in sustainable living. Why then, is it so risk-averse and difficult to change? Because the change sought is a deep cultural shift -- the most difficult to achieve -- but one of the most important leverage points for institutional transformation. (Meadows, 1997) Leo Tolstoy provides some insights into the difficulty of relinquishing the inner realities required for such a change (Bridges, 2001):
I know most (people), including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it would be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
Education for the Twenty-first Century
What if higher education were to take a leadership role, as it did in the space race and the war on cancer, in preparing students and providing the information and knowledge to achieve a just and sustainable society? What would higher education look like? The education of all professionals would reflect a new approach to learning and practice. A college or university would operate as a fully integrated community that models social and biological sustainability itself and in its interdependence with the local, regional and global community. In many cases, we think of teaching, research, operations and relations with local communities as separate activities; they are not.
Higher Education Modeling Sustainability as a Fully Integrated System
All parts of the university system are critical to achieving a transformative change that can only occur by connecting head, heart and hand. "However well-intentioned, formal education cannot compete with the larger educational effects of highways, shopping malls, supermarkets, urban sprawl, factory farms, agribusiness, huge utilities, multinational corporations, television and non-stop advertising that teaches dominance, speed, accumulation and self-indulgent individualism." (Orr, 2002) To graduate students who can overcome this larger, pervasive form of learning, the educational experience of graduates must reflect an intimate connection among curriculum and (1) research; (2) understanding and reducing any negative ecological and social footprint of the institution; and, (3) working to improve local and regional communities so that they are healthier, more socially vibrant and stable, economically secure and environmentally sustainable.
Just imagine if, in the twenty-first century, the educational experience of all students is aligned with the principles of sustainability. To achieve this…
The content of learning will require interdisciplinary systems thinking, dynamics and analysis for all majors, disciplines and professional degrees.
This kind of thinking is critical to addressing environmentally sustainable action on local, regional and global scales over short-, medium- and inter-generational time periods. Education would have the same lateral rigor across, as the vertical rigor within, the disciplines. Compartmentalized knowledge without connection to larger system interactions results in viewing many interdependent challenges as separate, hierarchical and competitive. The net results are often unintended narrow, ineffective solutions, or worse, more harmful to people and the environment in another place or another time. For example, a Toyota Prius is a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle that uses one-quarter of the gasoline and emits one-eighth of smog producing emissions of SUVs and light trucks. Without larger systems thinking, driving a Prius would seem like a good environmental solution. However, it would not reduce traffic. Nationally, vehicle miles of travel have risen 70 percent from 1980 and some recent studies in sixty-eight cities demonstrate that 90 percent of the increased capacity of urban highways is used up within five years. (
Understanding how the natural world works and learning how to have human technology and activity mimic and live within the limits of natural systems is crucial to education for citizenship in the twenty-first century. Imagine if all students knew how to operate on renewable energy and eliminate the "concept of waste" by making every waste product a raw material or nutrient for another species or activity, or return it into the cycles of nature (McDonough, 2002). This is part of the concept of Industrial Ecology. In her book Biomimicry, Janine Benyus argues for using nature as mentor, model and measure, "because animals, plants and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found out what works, what fits in and what lasts here on Earth. After 3.8 billion years of R&D, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival." (Benyus, 1997)
The content of education will include ways to preserve and restore cultural and biological diversity, both of which are critical to a sustainable future. This will mean learning how to live off of Nature's interest, not its capital, e.g., practicing sustainable agriculture, fishing and forestry.
The context of learning will change to make human/environment interdependence, values and ethics a seamless and central part of teaching of all the disciplines, rather than isolated as a special course or module in programs for specialists. All students will understand that we are an integral part of nature. They will understand the ecological services that are critical for human existence, how to make the ecological and social footprint of human activity visible and as benign as possible. (Ryan, 1997; Chambers, 2000) Environmental specialists are necessary but not sufficient. Understanding how to create a just and sustainable society must be a fundamental principle in all education.
The process of education will emphasize active, experiential, inquiry based learning and real-world problem solving on the campus and in the larger community. It is widely known that for long-term retention of knowledge, skills and values, we retain 80 percent of what we do and only 10-20 percent of what we hear or read. For example, as part of the curriculum, the learning experience for students would include working on actual, real-world problems facing their campus, community, government and industry. The process would also increase group work and learning so graduates will be able to effectively collaborate on complex problems as future managers and leaders.
Higher education would practice sustainability (Figure 2). A campus would "practice what it preaches" and make sustainability an integral part of operations, planning, facility design, purchasing and investments, and tie these efforts to the formal curriculum. The university is a microcosm of the larger community. Therefore, the manner in which it carries out its daily activities is an important demonstration of ways to achieve environmentally responsible living and to reinforce desired values and behaviors in the whole community. These activities provide unparalleled opportunities for teaching, research and learning. By focusing on itself, the university can engage students in understanding the "institutional metabolism" of materials, goods, services and transportation and the ecological and social footprint of all these activities. Students can be made aware of their "ecological address" and they can and would be actively engaged in the practice of environmentally sustainable living. Moreover, this is one of the most effective strategies to build a strong sense of collaboration and community throughout the institution - a long-standing central goal for college and university administrators and trustees.
Finally, the learning and benefit to society of higher education forming partnerships with local and regional communities to help make them socially vibrant, economically secure and environmentally sustainable will be a crucial part of successful higher education. Colleges and universities have an obligation to support local and regional communities, making every action lead to community improvement. Higher education institutions are anchor institutions for economic development in most of their communities, especially now that the private sector moves facilities, capital and jobs frequently as mergers, acquisitions and globalization become the norm for corporations. The 4,100 higher education institutions in the
Can Higher Education Meet this Challenge?
The issue is not the ability for higher education to take on this challenge. It is the will and the timeframe for doing so. Most of the world's major international governmental, scientific and non-governmental institutions as well as many business organizations agree that the changes needed in individual and collective values and action must occur within the next one to two decades . If higher education does not lead the sustainability effort in society, who will?
Fortunately, there are hundreds of examples of changes in all four areas of higher education activities that shape the total student experience (Figure 2). Many of them are discussed in other articles in this journal. These examples are available through Second Nature publications, its website and a large number of other organizations (e.g., NWF Campus Ecology Program and University Leaders for a Sustainable Future) that can also be found through the Second Nature website. (Cortese et.al., 2002). The most successful changes are those in which the formal curriculum is an integral part of the other three functions of higher education. Most are driven by faculty and student pressure but (fortunately) an increasing number are driven by high level academic administrators and operations executives. Here are few examples of these innovative higher education curricular sustainability efforts:
Environmental and Sustainability Literacy
A faculty coalition at NAU has developed a concerted effort to strengthen the sustainability effort on their campus, with the goal of reaching the greatest number of students possible. A five-year faculty development program, called the Ponderosa Project, resulted in eighty faculty members revising 120 courses in most disciplines to make sustainability the context for or content of learning. The faculty then made sustainability a key thrust of the liberal studies requirement for all majors. This program is very similar to the faculty development program of the Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute initiated in 1990.
Consortium of 17 Historically
At a Second Nature workshop for faculty from the consortium schools, representatives from the Chlorine Chemical Council and from Greenpeace debated the use of chlorine compounds in society. After a brief question and answer period, participants were given sufficient time to individually brainstorm how each of them could incorporate the chlorine controversy into classes that they were currently teaching. They then went back to their campuses and made significant course revisions. Here are some of the courses and areas of the college in which this issue could be successfully engaged:
HBCU/MI Consortium Curricula
Through the Green Design Initiative, Carnegie Mellon intends to reach students at many levels: high school through graduate and lifelong learning. They have developed the Environment Across the Curriculum program that offers all Carnegie Mellon students a basic introduction to environmental issues. Undergraduate and graduate students at CMU are offered elective courses that provide a deeper understanding of scientific, engineering, economic, social, and policy issues relating to the environment. Furthermore, special opportunities exist for talented undergraduates to work with faculty and graduate students on Green Design research projects.
Under the direction of David Orr,
Curriculum Involving Improvement in Local Communities
Expanding and Improving Architectural Education
Wingspread Conference, August 2001: How Can the Architect Contribute to a Sustainable World?
In August 2001, Second Nature convened the deans and faculty of several prestigious architectural schools; some of the country's leading architects; and representatives from all architectural professional and accreditation organizations, well-respected NGOs and charitable foundations. The thirty-eight participants focused on sustainable design in architectural education and practice, given the large impact of the built environment on humans and the natural world and estimates that the built environment will double in size in the coming decades. The recommendations, published as "conference proceedings" by Second Nature, call for several changes in architectural education and practice. Among them are:
· An expanded role for architects as design team leaders involving a wide range of design professionals, property owners and building inhabitants and residents from the surrounding community in the earliest stages of planning and design as well as through the design and construction process.
· Practicing sustainable design for community, landscape and building design: including understanding the local and regional environmental contexts, the complex network and impact of materials and construction, and the cultural, social and economic contexts.
· A broad-based effort to make sustainable design a core part of all architectural education in the next decade.
Several organizations involved in the conference are now involved in planning for and implementing several of the conference proceedings. (Glyphis, 2001)
The Implications for College and University Planners
This kind of broad transformative change and leadership in higher education has large implications for college and university planners. Taking the educational experience from a theoretical to a practical level will have an impact on the way the academy will interact with the external community. This shift will certainly affect the leaders who are necessarily the most interdisciplinary and long-range thinking, and connected to the decision-making structure of higher education. College and university planners have the unique ability and unprecedented responsibility to help higher education fulfill its responsibility to create a healthy, just and sustainable world. Planners will be important in making colleges and universities "Learning Organizations" as described in David Orr's article. Planners must focus as much on the education and research being done in higher education as on the physical, operational and external community functions of the university and do so in an integrated, interdependent manner. This is profound. I believe that a college or university that models sustainability in all its operational functions, and actions to collaborate with local and regional communities, but does not involve the faculty and students as an integral part of the educational process, will lose 75 percent of the value of its efforts and cannot fulfill its role in society.
Planners must be able to understand and articulate the necessity and advantages of higher education being leaders in creating a sustainable society to a wide variety of stakeholders. These include internal decision-makers and other stakeholders -- faculty, operational personnel and students -- and to external stakeholders such as parents, alumni, local and regional communities, future employers, funders of education and research and accreditation organizations. Some of the important advantages are:
· Improve learning for all -- inside and outside higher education
· Students prepared for citizenship and career
· Increased external respect
· Attraction of students, faculty and funding
· Reduced economic, social and environmental costs
· Cooperation and satisfaction across the university
· Fulfillment of its moral and social responsibilities
We know the steps. If we are willing, this future is possible. Through our imagination, the Society for College and University Planners (SCUP) can become a critical linchpin in making sustainability a foundation of all higher education and practice.
Sources
Benyus, Janine, 1997. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. William Morrow:
Bridges, William, 2001. The Way of Transitions. Perseus Publishing:
Campus Compact.
Campus Ecology, 2001. State of the Campus Environment: A National Report Card on Environmental Performance and Sustainability in Higher Education. National Wildlife Federation:
Chambers, Nicky; Simmons, Craig and Wackernagel, Mathis, 2000. Sharing Nature's Interest: Ecological Footprints as an Indicator of Sustainability. Earthscan Publications, ltd.:
Cortese, Anthony, Benner, Jacob, et.al., 2002. "Education for Sustainability:
Content, Context and Process of Learning and Research". Second Nature:
Cortese, Anthony, Benner, Jacob, et.al., 2002. "The University Modelng Sustainability as an Institution". Second Nature.
Glyphis, John (Ed.), 2001. "How Can the Architect Contribute to a Sustainable World?", Conference Proceedings, Wingspread Foundation,
Hawken, Paul, 1997. "Natural Capitalism", Mother Jones Journal. pp. 40-53.
McDonough, William and Braungart, Michael, 2002. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point:
Meadows, Dana, Winter 1997. "Places to Intervene in a System", Whole Earth.
Orr, David, 2002. The Nature of Design.
Orr, David, 1994. Earth in Mind. Island Press:
University Leaders for a Sustainable Future.
World Resources Institute, Management Institute for Environment and Buisness.
Online Contacts and Resources
· Second Nature: www.secondnature.org
· National Council for Science and the Environment: www.ncseonline.org
· National Wildlife Federation-Campus Ecology: http://www.nwf.org/campus
· University Leaders for a Sustainable Future: http://www.ulsf.org
· World Resources Institute - Sustainable
<wri.igc.org-wri/sep/index.html>
· National Environmental Education and Training Foundation: <http://www.neetf.org>
· Center for Ecoliteracy: <http://www.ecoliteracy.org>
· Higher Education Network for Sustainability (HENSE): <http://www.hense.org>
· Websites of individual colleges and universities cited in the article