Environmental sustainability practices in South Asian university campuses: an exploratory study on Bangladeshi universities

Environmental sustainability practices in universities can play an important role in helping society form a sustainable future. In this study, the roles that Bangladeshi universities play in terms of sustainability practices on their campuses are scrutinized, as well as the challenges these universities face. The existing research on campus sustainability practices in Asia is reviewed, and a new exploratory study is put forth on environmental sustainability practices in the higher education institutions of a developing country—Bangladesh. The Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework used in Canadian universities was taken as basis for determining potential environmental management indicators. Results show that environmental management practices (i.e., environmental education, research, governance and operations) are present only to a very limited extent in higher education institutions in Bangladesh.     

Educating for sustainable production and consumption and sustainable livelihoods: learning from multi-stakeholder networks

This paper examines how education for sustainable development (ESD) can be concretely advanced using the theoretical approaches of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) and sustainable livelihoods (SL). Five case examples illustrate a diverse set of strategic educational interventions focusing on: (1) education of specific organizational actors about these theoretical frameworks illustrated with case examples (such as SCP training by the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies [UNU-IAS] and CSR-Asia of government and business representatives), (2) regional education strategies focused on production and consumption in specific sectors (such as the food sector in Sk?ne, Sweden), (3) social learning directed at innovation for sustainable development (such as competitions of solar boats developed by universities in the region of Friesland, the Netherlands), (4) education of consumers and firms made possible by the adoption of certification systems affirming SCP and SL (such as Cradle-to-Cradle certification of a paper company in the Netherlands or the establishment of Fair Trade cities in Sweden), or (5) reorienting communities to address underutilized productive physical capital within communities (such as the sharing productive capital project in rural areas of Saskatchewan, Canada). The cases are drawn from the projects that the UNU-IAS, four of its regional centers of expertise (RCE) on ESD and other affiliates have conducted. In addition to documenting the educational processes emerging from specific regions, the paper highlights findings related to the success of these projects and opportunities for further research, including regional and inter-regional approaches.     

Ranking Canadian universities: a quantitative approach for sustainability assessment using uD-SiM

This paper introduces a model that enables a comparison between universities based on sustainability indicators related to environmental, economic, social and educational aspects. The proposed model is based on a driving force-pressure-state-exposure-effect-action (DPSEEA) framework and is called uncertainty-based DPSEEA-Sustainability index Model (uD-SiM). The uD-SiM applies the concept of causality and develops sustainability index (SI), which is an outcome of nonlinear relationships of sustainability indicators in different stages of DPSEEA. In this paper, this fuzzy-based multi-criteria decision-making model is used to evaluate the sustainability of five Canadian universities, namely the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, the McGill University and the Memorial University. The final ranking results are compared with the Green report card ranking for 2010 through SI. The application of various actions and strategies that can be applied to different stages of the framework to improve sustainability in higher education institutions is also discussed.     

On the road to ‘research municipalities’: analysing transdisciplinarity in municipal ecosystem services and adaptation planning

Transdisciplinary research and collaboration is widely acknowledged as a critical success factor for solution-oriented approaches that can tackle complex sustainability challenges, such as biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate-related hazards. In this context, city governments’ engagement in transdisciplinarity is generally seen as a key condition for societal transformation towards sustainability. However, empirical evidence is rare. This paper presents a self-assessment of a joint research project on ecosystem services and climate adaptation planning (ECOSIMP) undertaken by four universities and seven Swedish municipalities. We apply a set of design principles and guiding questions for transdisciplinary sustainability projects and, on this basis, identify key aspects for supporting university–municipality collaboration. We show that: (1) selecting the number and type of project stakeholders requires more explicit consideration of the purpose of societal actors’ participation; (2) concrete, interim benefits for participating practitioners and organisations need to be continuously discussed; (3) promoting the ‘inter’, i.e., interdisciplinary and inter-city learning, can support transdisciplinarity and, ultimately, urban sustainability and long-term change. In this context, we found that design principles for transdisciplinarity have the potential to (4) mitigate project shortcomings, even when transdisciplinarity is not an explicit aim, and (5) address differences and allow new voices to be heard. We propose additional guiding questions to address shortcomings and inspire reflexivity in transdisciplinary projects.     

Strategic thinking on sustainability: challenges and sectoral roles

This paper focuses on identified challenges for sustainable development across various sectors and the actions needed by different institutions and individuals for the achievement of a sustainable path. For finding solutions that impede sustainable development, emphasis is given to collaborative, inter- and trans-disciplinary problem-solving approaches. The ‘ecological modernization’ view is based on the belief that science and technology will result in continuous improvement in human welfare, while the emerging postmodern ‘ecological paradigm’ also emphasizes harmony with nature and other actors. Global societies are in the midst of a number of challenges: (1) implementation of existing and new hard- and soft-law instruments, (2) the degradation of natural resources, (3) an inadequate global mechanism for handling environmental and social responsibilities by the international community, (4) an unbalanced distribution of wealth, locally and internationally, (5) unethical and unsustainable business practices, (6) consequent unethical and unsustainable consumer practices, (7) selective application of ethical principles by rich countries and (8) the absence of norms of good conduct by powerful and wealthy peoples pertaining to sustainable development. Governments, civil societies, academicians, indigenous peoples, communities, businesses and international organizations need to become engaged in the formulation and enforcement of environmentally and ecologically sound development policies along with relevant research, education, training, awareness and a change in social values as provided in the Earth Charter to support actions for sustainable development.     

Developing joint educational programs in sustainability science across different universities: a case study from Japan

The challenge for sustainability educational programs lies in how to imbue students with the strong motivation necessary to move the world in a more sustainable direction. Five universities in Japan have mutually collaborated in the design and development of a unique curriculum and education system for sustainability science since 2008. Specifically, they have developed a common and remote lecture system called the “Frontier of sustainability science” (FSS). This paper discusses the concepts and challenges of FSS and how it was organized to teach students to actively learn how to work with people of various disciplines to realize interdisciplinarity.     

Economic Development and Conservation of Biological and Cultural Diversity in Yunnan Province, China

Chinese and American scientists are co-operating to develop concepts, strategies, agreements, and proposals in support of an economic development and sustainable ecosystems project in Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China. Yunnan's Provincial Government has initiated a major programme to develop and further utilise its biological resources to help improve economic conditions for its citizens. They are co-operating with the US Geological Survey (USGS) on evaluation and management of biological resources so economic development will be compatible with sustainable ecological systems. Scientists from the USGS and co-operating universities will provide expertise on synthesising biological data, conducting a Gap Analysis for the Province, evaluating innovative economic opportunities, and designing an effective education, training, and outreach programme.     

Pedagogy for Sustainability Science: Case-Based Approaches for Interdisciplinary Instruction

Sustainability science represents a fundamental shift in the nature of research on environmental problems, calling for specialists to expand beyond their disciplinary perspectives in order to cooperate together to understand and address systemic problems. This shift demands a corresponding shift in education in order to equip students with the skills, theories, and methods they need to address contemporary challenges. We argue that case studies are a productive pedagogical approach to teaching about sustainability and teaching for sustainability. Case-based approaches equip students to encounter complexity, manage uncertainty, and generate innovative strategies. In laying out of the pedagogical challenges inherent in sustainability education, we highlight opportunities and demands for environmental communication scholars to contribute to the emerging discipline of sustainability science.     

Happiness as a harmonising path for bringing higher education towards sustainability

This paper is a reflection of an innovative project that complements existing higher education for sustainable development (HESD) approaches within universities by providing an alternative path to embed sustainable lifestyles within the student population. It presents the SLEUTH project; an initiative born out of the need to reduce energy consumption of students at university but that, due to its systemic design, transforms and goes beyond purely energy reduction and brings Happiness as an approach to build sustainable lifestyles. This is the distinct feature of this initiative, proposing it as adding value to existing HESD approaches. The paper describes and discusses the collaborative building process, implementation and results in detail. The experiences gathered during the project are used and analysed through ??participant observation??, ??documents??, ??questionnaires?? and ??theme-ing coding?? techniques as a means to understand the richness and diversity of the data resulting from a combination of formal and informal learning settings. Through empirical evidence, this analysis presents ??real life?? evidence to suggest, firstly the initiative??s design success, its impact on energy consumption and contribution to happiness and sustainable lifestyles. Secondly, a successful example for the contribution to existing HESD frameworks that move away from indoctrination and instead leans towards pro-activeness, self-organisation and voluntary collective action.     

Urbanization and sustainability: challenges and strategies for sustainable urban development in Bangladesh

Like other developing countries, urbanization in Bangladesh is a growing phenomenon, which is steady in nature but fretfully affects urban sustainability in the wake of lacking in good governance. Despite urban authorities are concerned about this issue, they often fail to address the problems due to the fact of uncontrollable and unpredictable rural to urban migration, and negligence of urban poor’s sustainable living and access to basic services. Virtually the rural poverty problem has been transposed to urban areas, particularly in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Inadequacy of infrastructural services, basic amenities and environmental goods; environmental degradation; traffic jam and accidents; violence and socioeconomic insecurity are the major challenges which are created through rapid urbanization. This paper provides a general understanding of urbanization in Bangladesh and tries to embrace related sustainability issues and challenges hindrance to sustainable urban development in Dhaka city. In addition, it presents a brief case study of water supply in Dhaka city which introduces an issue of ‘system hijack’. The paper concludes providing some strategies that might be helpful to the policy makers in formulating development policies for sustainable urban services.     

中国的生态足迹与绿色发展

从2008年开始,世界自然基金会(WWF)与中国环境与发展国际合作委员会(国合会)联合,通过与国内外智库的合作引入"生态足迹"理念,从自然资源消耗与"生物承载力"之间关系的角度来研究中国经济发展所面临的资源环境问题。研究表明,2007年人类在消耗着1.5个地球。过去半个世纪以来,中国的生态足迹总量2007年已经是1961年的4倍,尽管中国的人均生态足迹水平仍然低于世界平均水平,但是已经突破了1个地球的均衡水平。与全球平均类似,中国生态足迹中最主要的组成部分是碳足迹,占54%。解决中国的生态足迹超支问题,关键是降低碳足迹。目前,中国的能源供给仍然高度依赖于化石能源,超过一半的能源供给来自于煤炭,中国和世界其它国家一样将面临化石能源枯竭问题。中国作为一个处于经济快速发展过程中的能耗大国,应及时调整产业结构和基础设施供给模式,在积极应对气候变化的同时提前应对自身可能面临的能源问题。中国所面临的现实决定了中国不能重复发达国家的高增长高资源消耗的老路,需要转变经济发展方式,发展绿色经济,为全球走向可持续发展道路提供探索的机会。     

Education for Sustainable Development: The Johannesburg Summit and Beyond

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), held in Johannesburg during 26 August and 4 September 2002, was a truly remarkable event, not least because it identified and committed the world community to what has to be done to realise Agenda 21 objectives. Discussion begins with the "means of implementation" of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPI). Education for, and raising awareness of, sustainable development are the key commitments in the "means of implementation". The issues central to these commitments are discussed. The crucial role of moral philosophy in education for sustainable development is then discussed. Defining the "problem" as lack of progress (in fact negative progress between Rio and Johannesburg) towards global sustainable development, a cause–effect relationship of the "problem" is developed based on a systematic and logical analysis. It shows that the "cause" is West's profoundly materialistic, environment-degrading and exploitative attitude and activities to satisfy grossly unsustainable, hedonistic and insatiably avaricious Western life-styles – life-styles that are held up by the West as "ideal" fruits of economic "development" to be aspired by all. The "effects" are pollution of air, water and soil; mounting loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and species; relentlessly widening north–south divide, etc. It is argued that while science and technology can address some of the "effects", they cannot address the "cause". Only moral philosophy can by fundamentally re-orienting moral values genuinely to respect nature and the environment. Based on sound and tested principles of Educational Psychology, a proposal is then made for including moral philosophy in the formal curricula (content and pedagogy) of primary, secondary and higher education for instilling in children and young people genuinely environment-respecting moral values. To this end a generic syllabus for the secondary level is proposed. Finally, it is argued that if the scientific community really believes that science or technology alone can radically change the pervasive environment-degrading moral values to those that genuinely respect the environment, thus paving the way to real global sustainability, then it must demonstrate how this could be done and explain why, despite their abundant science and technology, the developed nations are the biggest polluters and consumers with grossly unsustainable life-styles. Certainly, examples would be much more convincing than rhetoric or tired old clichés about how science and technology alone could deliver global sustainable development.     

Computing sustainable manufacturing index with fuzzy analytic hierarchy process

The growing industrial interest in adopting sustainability programmes has ushered in studies regarding sustainability indicators which have continually flourished in current literature. However, limited attention is given to the development of priority ranking, which is an important input for any adopting firm. This paper presents a hybrid multi-criteria approach in determining priority areas in sustainable manufacturing (SM). Using fuzzy analytic hierarchy process to address uncertainty in hierarchical decision-making, this paper determines SM priority strategies and eventually identifies even lower level strategies. The computed sustainable manufacturing index is presented at both the organizational and operational levels for a real case study of an industrial plastic manufacturing firm. This work provides a detailed and transparent hierarchical decision-making approach based on SM framework, the use of which could be valuable to practicing managers across industries in their pursuit of greater sustainability.     

Housing delivery system, need and demand

This paper reviews the past and current housing delivery programmes in Nigeria and analysed the demand and supply issues. The paper examined factors responsible for high housing pricing trends, it state the constraints and challenges in accessing housing. The paper ascertains guiding principles for implementation towards quality housing delivery, and it identifies the various housing delivery mechanisms in current practice and suggests a holistic programme to address the huge housing shortage in Nigeria. The study addresses the problem of housing delivery systems, the supply and the demand issues with a view to inform policy on housing provision structure, want and request towards improving the level of delivery in Nigeria. The methodology adopted for the study includes interviews and analyses of data collected during the field investigations. These investigations were complemented with review of literature. The data required for this study were obtained primarily from secondary source and personal observations. Suggestions were put forward on policy measures that can sustain future planning of housing provision in Nigeria to conform to what is obtain in other part of the world.     

Coevolving Ostrom’s social–ecological systems (SES) framework and sustainability science: four key co-benefits

Research on social–ecological systems (SES) is scattered across many disciplines and perspectives. As a result, much of the knowledge generated between different communities is not comparable, mutually aggregate or easily communicated to nonspecialists despite common goals to use academic knowledge for advancing sustainability. This article proposes a conceptual pathway to address this challenge through outlining how the SES research contributions of sustainability science and researchers using Elinor Ostrom’s diagnostic SES framework (SESF) can integrate and co-benefit from explicitly interlinking their development. From a review of the literature, I outline four key co-benefits from their potential to interlink in the following themes: (1) coevolving SES knowledge types, (2) guiding primary research and assessing sustainability, (3) building a boundary object for transdisciplinary sustainability science, and (4) facilitating comparative analysis. The origins of the SESF include seminal empirical work on common property theory, self-organization, and coupled SES interactions. The SESF now serves as a template for diagnosing sustainability challenges and theorizing explanatory relationships on SES components, interactions, and outcomes within and across case studies. Simultaneously, sustainability science has proposed transdisciplinary research agendas, sustainability knowledge types, knowledge coproduction, and sustainability assessment tools to advance transformative change processes. Key challenges for achieving co-beneficial developments in both communities are discussed in relation to each of the four themes. Evident pathways for advancing SES research are also presented along with a guideline for designing SES research within this co-aligned vision.     

Modelling change in state of complex ecological systems in space and time: An application to sustainable grazing management

Meeting the challenge of sustainable development requires substantial advances in understanding of the interaction of natural and human systems. The emerging ecosystem management paradigm of multiple stable states, non-linear systems behaviour, discontinuous change, self-organisation and multiple development pathways has major implications for when and how change in complex systems occurs and how it can be managed. It also poses considerable challenges for modelling the structure and function of natural and human management systems, including fundamental constraints relating to: scaling mismatches, synthesis of non-homogeneous information, multiscaled system interactions, complex management systems, uncertainty in causal relationships, assessment of trade-offs, and validation. This paper examines how a decision support system (DSS) for sustainable grazing management, called Landassess DSS, attempts to deal with some of these issues through an integrated systems approach to DSS development. This approach utilises object-oriented techniques, knowledge-based systems, geographical information systems (GIS), and a state-and-transition model framework to model the critical change processes. It provides for the identification of the major driving factors and constraints to change in complex resource management systems, as well as the assessment of the likely trade-offs between resource sustainability and economic production at a scale relevant to management decision-making (i.e., paddock or property).     

Sustainability: new strategic thinking for business

Some researchers insist that sustainability should be represented as a continuous quest, doubting that there is the ‘right’ way to be sustainable. Acknowledging the immensity of sustainability challenges, this article takes a different perspective, arguing that without understanding of concrete barriers and seeking solutions, the challenge of addressing unsustainable practices becomes unsurmountable. This article will summarize research in sustainability literature that indicates that sustainability requires a constant human population, as well as ecologically benign method of production. This article will survey a number of helpful frameworks that address the key obstacles to sustainability, namely population growth, and unsustainable production and consumption. These frameworks are discussed in the context of business-level solutions and production systems. As illustrated by examples of best practices as well as potential pitfalls associated with each system, these systems have the potential to move the quest for sustainability beyond ‘business as usual.’     

A hybrid approach using AHP–TOPSIS–entropy methods for sustainable ranking of structural materials

Nowadays, many countries are looking towards sustainability as a goal because our world has limited resources and serious environmental impacts. In the construction industry, the process of sustainable selection of structural material is considered one of the keys to achieve more sustainable construction. In this paper, the theories of decision making are utilised to develop an approach for evaluation and ranking the structural materials over their total life based on sustainability criteria using multi-attribute decision-making methods. One of them is Analytical Hierarchy Process which is utilised to build the problem hierarchical structure and assign weights of the predetermined sustainable factors. The other is Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution which is utilised to rank the structural materials within both each material life cycle phase and the complete material life cycle phases. The third is the concept of entropy by Shannon to evaluate the weight factor for each phase of material life cycle. The proposed approach presents an objective, systematic and comprehensive method for the sustainable ranking of materials that links between the structural element design and the sustainable selection of materials.     

Adaptation to climate change and other stressors among commercial and small-scale South African farmers

Commercial and small-scale farmers in South Africa are exposed to many challenges. Interviews with 44 farmers in the upper Thukela basin, KwaZulu-Natal, were conducted to identify common and specific challenges for the two groups and adaptive strategies for dealing with the effects of climate and other stressors. This work was conducted as part of a larger participatory project with local stakeholders to develop a local adaptation plan for coping with climate variability and change. Although many challenges related to exposure to climate variability and change, weak agricultural policies, limited governmental support, and theft were common to both farming communities, their adaptive capacities were vastly different. Small-scale farmers were more vulnerable due to difficulties to finance the high input costs of improved seed varieties and implements, limited access to knowledge and agricultural techniques for water and soil conservation and limited customs of long-term planning. In addition to temperature and drought-related challenges, small-scale farmers were concerned about soil erosion, water logging and livestock diseases, challenges for which the commercial farmers already had efficient adaptation strategies in place. The major obstacle hindering commercial farmers with future planning was the lack of clear directives from the government, for example, with regard to issuing of water licences and land reform. Enabling agricultural communities to procure sustainable livelihoods requires implementation of strategies that address the common and specific challenges and strengthen the adaptive capacity of both commercial and small-scale farmers. Identified ways forward include knowledge transfer within and across farming communities, clear governmental directives and targeted locally adapted finance programmes.     

Application of the City Blueprint Approach to assess the challenges of water management and governance in Quito (Ecuador)

In this paper, we provide an assessment of the challenges of water, waste and climate change in the city of Quito by performing the City Blueprint Approach consisting of three assessment frameworks: (1) the Trends and Pressure Framework (TPF), (2) the City Blueprint Framework (CBF) and (3) the water Governance Capacity Framework (GCF). The TPF summarizes the main social, environmental and financial aspects that may affect urban water management. The CBF provides a clear overview of sustainable urban water management performance and its bottlenecks in municipalities and regions. The GCF comprises nine governance conditions which each consist of three indicators. The GCF provides insight in the most effective improvements to increase the governance capacity to address the identified urban water challenges. Our results show that poor wastewater treatment and long-term drinking water security are Quito’s main water challenges that may be jeopardized given the city’s rapid urbanization and economic pressure. The GCF analysis reveals that cooperation between stakeholders, implementing capacity and citizens’ awareness are the most important conditions for further development to find adequate solutions for Quito’s long-term drinking water security. We also suggest that more attention should be drawn to the transparency, accountability and participation principles. The results of Quito show that the City Blueprint Approach can serve as an affordable quick-scan to facilitate cities in their strategic planning to reach their sustainable development goals.