New Issue: Sustainability: Journal of Record
The latest issue includes an article about making the connection between environmental justice and sustainable development, and a review of books, reports, films, websites and applications.
Metropolitan Universities Journal: Urban and Metropolitan Universities: The Transformative Power of Anchor Institutions
The new issue of Metropolitan Universities Journal focuses on the role of urban and metropolitan universities as anchor institutions in their community to address long standing inequities. Anchor institutions are nonprofit or public institutions that are rooted in place. These institutions have a mission to serve and are the largest employers and purchaser of goods and services in many communities. Also, they have other assets and capacities that can be leveraged to support reciprocal community development, including local hiring, procurement, and investment practices.
Incorporating Sustainability in Management Education
Responding to the need of business schools to incorporate sustainability thinking into their curricula, this book is structured on a typical MBA program. Each chapter explores how sustainability thinking can be integrated into existing subject areas. Rather than being prescriptive, the chapters provide opportunities to reflect on successes as well as challenges associated with embedding sustainability into MBA courses. Contributors explore the employability implications of sustainability and how these are reflected in course designs, pedagogy and assessments.
AASHE STARS Benchmarking Tool & Website
AASHE’s new STARS website, which features the new Benchmarking Tool, was redesigned to make it easier for institutions to learn about and participate in STARS and get support during the reporting process. Facilitating advanced data analysis, the STARS Benchmarking Tool allows AASHE members to compare colleges and universities based on scores and metrics reported through STARS.
Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for Educators
Communicating Climate Change provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program. An open access version of this book is available through Cornell Open.
New Report: Business School Rankings for the 21st Century
This new report gives an overview of the current state of business school rankings and suggests possible changes to help align business school education with the needs of the 21st century. The report suggests 20 actions to improve evaluation and ranking, including incorporating criteria that measure environmental, social and/or SDG-linked factors within core curricula, research output, hiring and special research clusters, and awarding credit to schools that train students who work for low-paying but societally valuable organizations after graduation.
Docademia: Documentaries for Academia
Docademia's mission is to bring marginalized voices into the classroom by using documentaries and live interviews with the documentaries' filmmakers to open a discussion about pressing issues of the world. The platform matches curriculums and syllabi with documentaries.
SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee Meeting Report
The new report summarizes the Feb. 28 through March 2, 2018, meeting in Paris on the Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education. It defines positions and recommendations by the SDG-Education 2030 steering committee on key strategic areas, discusses the critical role of regional engagement, provides broad strategic policy guidance, and proposes a global advocacy, communication and outreach strategy.
The Impact of Real Food: 8 Ways Institutional Procurement is Building a Real Food Economy
The Impact of Real Food: 8 Ways Institutional Procurement is Building a Real Food Economy is a report from Real Food Challenge that is based on research focused on vendors who sell to colleges and universities that have signed the Real Food Campus Commitment. The report identifies patterns in farm/vendor-to-institutional relationships that have a positive effect on the food supply chain.
Green Guy Podcast: Auburn University's Awards Program
Mike Kensler, director of the Office of Sustainability at Auburn University, joined the College Sustainability Summit Series to talk about the university's Spirit of Sustainability Awards that recognize individual students, groups, faculty, staff and/or alumni that exemplify the Auburn spirit by making significant contributions towards sustainability on campus.
IEN Case Study: Sustainable Investing at Arizona State University
This case study, produced and published by Intentional Endowments Network, discusses the university's move toward sustainable investing, specifically how analysis of sustainable investing strategies allow the foundation to fulfill its fiduciary duty while aligning with the university’s values and sustainability leadership.
New Issue: Sustainability: The Journal of Record
Reporting on the implementation of sustainability programs, initiatives and practices in higher education and industry, the most recent issue of Sustainability: The Journal of Record focuses on China and includes a Michigan Sustainability Case. Michigan Sustainability Cases is an initiative of the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability that produces case studies for sustainability education. This case explores the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, the Three Gorges Dam in China.
Projects That Matter
Projects That Matter is a free nonprofit website connecting practitioners, students, faculty and volunteers with real world sustainable development projects. Researchers and practitioners can register their projects, and students and volunteers can search the database for course projects, independent study, thesis, capstone, and alternative assignments and activities. The platform is an initiative of the U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development in collaboration with Changing the Present.
AASHE 2018 Conference Presentations & Materials
Conference presentations and materials from the 2018 AASHE Conference and Expo are available in the Campus Sustainability Hub. There are 519 presentation uploads. Additional AASHE 2018 files may be uploaded to the Hub upon request by emailing resources@aashe.org and including the presentation name and file attachment.
Going Green: Implementing Sustainable Strategies in Libraries Around the World
This publication examines aspects of reducing the ecological footprint in libraries’ operations and the social role and responsibility of libraries as leaders in environmental sustainability. Also discussed are the theoretical background and practical applications of contributions made by worldwide libraries to the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
Environment and Pedagogy in Higher Education
This book proposes concrete pedagogical approaches to the study of environmental issues outside of the humanities and aims at inspiring and motivating both educators and students to become actively engaged in the pursuit of ecological preservation.
The Role of Business in Education and Training for Sustainable Development
This new report demonstrates how business can help people gain the skills and knowledge to advance sustainable development, navigate the future of work and create a more prosperous society. The report also shares insights and recommendations for business to promote education and training for sustainable development. The project was led by Business Fights Poverty, Pearson, Arizona State University and PRME, an initiative of the United Nations Global Compact.
New Book: Sustainability, Human Well-Being, and the Future of Education
This open access book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools and communities to achieve the twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being in the face of volatility and uncertainty caused by digitalization, globalization and climate change. Using case studies drawn from Finland and the U.S., chapter authors explore various aspects of learning and education system design through the lenses of sustainability and human well-being to evaluate how our understanding and practice of education must transform.
Golden Door Scholarship Program
Golden Door Scholars is a nonprofit that provides large college scholarships to high-performing DACA students. This year the program will award up to 50 scholarships to DACA students across the country who are starting or continuing college in fall 2019. Eligible students may be currently enrolled in college pursuing an undergraduate degree, high school seniors or recent high school graduates. The deadline to apply is Oct. 25.
Divest Ed Program
Divest Ed is a new training and strategy hub for the national coordination of campus divestment campaigns. The program will provide leadership development and resources to divestment campaigns across the U.S.
New Issue: International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
The latest issue of Volume 19 includes a study on university residence hall plastics recycling, a study concluding that teaching about public engagement in the classroom is critical, research on reducing food waste in buffet-style university dining halls, and a literature review on student-led action for sustainability in higher education.
A Global Snapshot of Circular Economy Learning Offerings in Higher Education
Research from Tim Forslund, Ellen MacArthur Foundation Research Analyst, captures current circular economy learning offerings from 136 higher education institutions, taught in the languages of English, Dutch, Finnish and Chinese. The work shows that most of the learning offerings are found in the space of more traditional sustainability-related studies, engineering, business and design.
Campus Food Pantries: Insights From a National Survey
This report demonstrates that significant financial, physical and personnel resources are being invested in campus pantries. The College and University Food Bank Alliance members who participated in this survey helped to shed light on the work involved in operating pantries and offered valuable insight into how to improve them. The College and University Food Bank Alliance provides support, training and resources to campus-based food banks and pantries and other food-insecurity initiatives that primarily serve students.
New Website: People of Color in Environmental and Climate Justice
The People of Color (POC) Environmental Justice and Climate Justice Resource Persons Database is a repository for potential speakers, advisory board members, fellowship recipients, technical assistance providers and staff members. The site also allows for people to sign up to be added to the databases–environmental and climate justice professionals, graphic notetakers, and anti-oppression, diversity, equity and inclusion professionals.
Green Guy Podcast: UCLA's Living Laboratory for Climate Change Research
University of California Los Angeles' Chief Sustainability Officer Nurit Katz and Deputy Chief Sustainability Officer Bonny Bentzin share why UCLA is called a “Living Laboratory” for climate change research, what is the Sustainable LA Grand Challenge and how sustainability on campus impacts the city of Los Angeles.
Envisioning Public Scholarship for Our Time: Models for Higher Education Researchers
This book proposes a new paradigm of public scholarship that supports a diverse democracy and promotes equity and social justice. It demonstrates how public scholarship in higher education can increase its impact on practice and policy and argues that public scholarship should be recognized as normative practice for all scholars and integrated into the curriculum of graduate courses.
Sustainability Case Studies: Best Practices in Campus Life
This is a collection of short case studies highlighting a range of best practices that enhance environmental stewardship, improve cost and energy efficiencies, and provide for greater collaborations among students, faculty and staff at colleges and universities. Compiled by APPA, this book includes 123 best practices from 92 separate colleges, universities or schools.
2018 AASHE Sustainable Campus Index
The 2018 Sustainable Campus Index recognizes top-performing colleges and universities overall by institution type and in 17 sustainability impact areas as measured by the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). The report also highlights innovative and high-impact initiatives from institutions that submitted STARS reports in the most recent calendar year.
Sustainability and the Humanities
This book explores the links between sustainability and the humanities, which attempts to go beyond the inclusion of social sciences in discussions on sustainability, and offers a holistic discussion on the intellectual and moral aspects of sustainable development. The book reiterates the need to promote integrated approaches to sustainable development.
The Landscape of Student Housing Insecurity and Homelessness
This report highlights findings regarding the scope of student housing insecurity within the Campus Compact network. The findings are based on data from Campus Compact's Student Housing Insecurity Mapping Tool and represent a variety of institution types: rural and urban, public and private, and two-year and four-year.
Election Imperatives: Ten Recommendations to Increase College Student Voting
This report offers 10 recommendations to increase student voting and to improve campus conditions for political learning, discourse and agency during the election season and beyond. Released by Tufts University's Institute for Democracy and Higher Education, Election Imperatives is a collaborative, practitioner-focused document drawn from research on college student voting and the campus climates of highly politically engaged institution.
Raising & Mapping Awareness of the Global Goals
Raising & Mapping Awareness of the Global Goals is Sulitest’s second annual report to the U.N. High-Level Political Forum. The report highlights Sulitest’s currently available tools, research and initiatives in development or planned and summarizes global trends and indicators on awareness of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
RFC Real Food Standards 2.1
Real Food Challenge's technical update to the Real Food Standards is in response to changes in certifications and in food policy. This technical update also captures deeper understandings of the food system to reflect emerging consensus amongst food justice and food industry organizations.
Options for Endowment Investment in Solar Energy
Serving as a follow-up resource to the Clean Energy White Paper, this briefing paper from Intentional Endowments Network focuses on solar energy and how to most effectively enable endowments to make investments in solar projects, and the solar energy market as a whole. It provides guidance on three main approaches endowments can utilize to invest in solar: allocating capital across traditional asset classes in the investment portfolio, sponsoring a project by investing funds for its development, and allocating capital to a campus green revolving fund.
Energy Star Commercial Buildings College Course
The three-unit course offered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency explores energy efficiency, overcoming efficiency barriers, and benchmarking. Available at no cost, the content includes an overview document about the course, slide decks for each unit and descriptions of optional assignments. The main optional assignment is a project where students apply their learning by going out into their community to benchmark a building using Energy Star Portfolio Manager.
