EMS – a Way towards SD in Universities
127
This paper is accepted for publication in
Innovative Higher Education, Volume 32, Number 4.
Reprinted with permission from the publisher Springer Netherlands.
The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com
Integration of Sustainability in Higher Education:
A Study with International Perspectives
Kaisu Sammalisto and Thomas Lindhqvist
Kaisu Sammalisto holds the Licentiate of Technology from Lund University and the M.B.A from Uppsala
University, the M.Sc. Eng. from Åbo Akademi University; and she is a doctoral student at the International
Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University. She was working as Dean for
Environmental Management and Education at the University of Gävle in Sweden during the implementation of a
certified Environmental Management System (EMS) in 2001-2005. She has previously studied environmental
management system implementation in Small and Medium Sized Enterprises and continues her studies of the same
in university settings. Thomas Lindhqvist is Associate Professor in Cleaner Product Systems at the International
Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE), Lund University. He has a B.A. in languages, a
B.A. in Business Administration, a M.Sc. in Engineering Physics, and a Ph.D. in Industrial Environmental
Economics, all from Lund University. E-mail address: Kaisu.Sammalisto@hig.se.
Abstract: This study examined the impact
of a procedure implemented and used at
one Swedish university to promote
integration of the concept of sustainability
into courses. The study is based on a
literature study and a case study at the
University of Gävle in Sweden, where
faculty members are asked to classify their
courses and research funding applications
regarding the contributions thereof to
sustainable development. The results of
the study indicated that this procedure
can indeed stimulate faculty members to
integrate sustainable development in their
courses. It is clear that the reported
changes in courses were also influenced
by other factors such as the increased
general awareness of environmental issues
Keywords: Curriculum, environmental
management, indicator, sustainable
development
In 2006 the Swedish Parliament amended
the Swedish Higher Education Act to
include the statement: “Universities shall,
in their activities, work for sustainable
development, which means that present
and future generations are assured of
having a healthy and good environment,
economy, and social welfare and justice”
(SFS 1992:1434, translation by authors).
The amendment is supported by the fact
that years 2005 to 2014 have been
declared the United Nations Decade of
Education for Sustainable Development
(UNESCO, 2002), which provides a
tremendous opportunity and challenge for
all levels of education.
The Problem
One must ask, however, what the phrase
“in their activities, work for sustainable
development” means for institutions of
higher education? As illustrated by the
quotation from the Swedish Higher
Education Act above, the concept of
sustainable development incorporates not
only an environmental dimension but also
economic and social dimensions, and
Kaisu Sammalisto, IIIEE, Lund University
128
frequently also a cultural dimension. That
education and research play a key role for
the long-term development of society is
hardly disputed by anyone; but how to
integrate sustainability effectively into
higher education and, in particular, into
the curriculum and the design of research
projects is still a debated issue.
Background
In higher education, the level of
integration of the concept of sustainable
development can range from mere
formulations of policy statements to
integration into courses, curricula, and
other selected activities for a total reform
of the educational system. A more
practical approach to promote sustainable
development is to work with tangible
environmental impacts. In Europe, North
America, and other regions there are good
examples indicating that greening the
campus, e.g., improved waste
management, energy saving innovations,
is making operations more environ-
mentally sustainable. Such changes do not
meet major resistance since they lead to
economic savings (Fisher, 2003;
Herremans & Allwright, 2000; Price,
2005). There are also several studies of
calculations of ecological footprints
6
for
universities (Flint, 2001; Ruy & Brody,
2006; Segalàs, Ferrer-Balas & Carrillo,
2004). However, the initiatives to
promote the concept of sustainability in
higher education have so far actually had
little impact on education (Wright, 2004).
Sterling (2004) has presented a model
for integration of sustainability in
6
The ecological footprint is defined as the
land that would be required to support a
certain activity, for instance a specified
group’s lifestyle, forever. Included in the
ecological footprint calculations are both the
extraction of raw materials and the
absorption of pollution in a long term
sustainable way.
education, and there is a North American
parallel to be found in the discussions of
integration of diversity issues (Stanley,
2000-01). Sterling called the first level
accommodation “bolting-on”, i.e., adding
the concept of sustainability to the
existing system, which in itself largely
remains unchanged. This is “education
about sustainability” and can consist of
separate courses about sustainability for
students.
Sterling called the second level of
integration, which is a deeper level of
response, “building-in”; and this means that
ideas are incorporated into existing
systems, e.g., greening the curriculum and
institutional operations. This level could
be called “education for sustainability”,
and it includes integrating sustainability
issues into regular discipline-specific
courses. It aims at creating a connection
in the minds of students between the
subject in question and sustainable
development. Focusing on technical and
economic programs as well as teacher
training programs, some of the earliest
such initiatives in Sweden to work with
the greening of higher education were
done as projects sponsored by the
National Council for Renewal of Higher
Education. The results from projects in
27 universities indicated a positive impact
on students, particularly for engineering
students in the smaller universities. The
greening of engineering programs was
spread over a larger number of subjects as
compared to programs in the discipline of
economics, in which greening was limited
to the core subjects (Sammalisto, 1999).
An approach somewhat similar to the
Swedish one has been used in the
Netherlands based on disciplinary reviews.
This approach poses an intellectual
challenge to instructors to integrate
sustainability within each discipline by
“exploring the relationships between
various disciplines and sustainable
development” (Appel, Dankelman &
Kuipers, 2004).
EMS – a Way towards SD in Universities
129
The third level is called transformation,
which means a complete re-design of
education based on sustainability
principles. This level would require a
paradigm change so that education would
be built on learning as change and
education as sustainability. In practice,
this would mean that the goal of all
education would be sustainable
development, and the different disciplines
and subjects would all contribute to it. An
example of a model for integration to this
extent is the one presented by Juárez-
Nájera, Dieleman & Turpin-Marion
(2006). They presented a framework for a
culture where holistic understanding is the
focus of education rather than specific
knowledge or skills: “Students must learn
new and sustainable ways of looking at
the world, themselves and their
professions.” (p. 1037).
Though there are quite a few
published case studies on the
environmental aspect of sustainability, the
authors have only been able to find a few
dealing with the broader concept of
sustainability. Ferrer-Balas, Cruz, Segalàs
& Sans (2006) discussed the difficulty of
integrating sustainability in curricula.
After studying keywords appearing in
course descriptions and objectives at the
Technical University of Catalonia since
1997, where 30% of the final theses now
have a chapter with environmental
considerations, the researchers concluded:
“Due to strong impermeability of the
curriculum it has not been possible to
deeply revise the curricula from a
sustainability perspective, only from the
environmental one, mainly by adding
contents to it” (p. 3).
A study by Holt (2003) indicated that
discipline-specific modules (courses or
course components), “when environ-
mental modules are integrated in
corporate and management classes” (p.
329), are more important than courses
designed to increase awareness of
sustainability. This statement, based on a
study of the “impact of education and
cultural experiences of business school
students during their three years at the
University” (p. 331), supports the idea of
integration rather than separate courses.
This finding is contrary to practice in
many universities, where the main focus
has been on establishing general
environmental courses, thus providing an
overview of environmental problems,
concepts and approaches, rather than
linking the concept of sustainability to a
particular field of study.
The problem of weak connections
between and among statements, policies,
and practices has been reported in a
number of case descriptions. Segalàs,
Cruz & Mulder (2004) studied the
Technical University of Catalonia in
Spain, Delft University of Technology in
the Netherlands, and Tecnológico de
Monterrey in Mexico and concluded that
these universities were early adopters of
environmental policies and that they have
had ambitious plans to also include
elements of sustainable development,
including values. For various reasons,
their goals have not been achieved; and
what is offered today is a number of
greened, mostly environmentally focused
courses, mandatory or optional for the
students. Other scholars have identified
problems such as lack of highest
administrative commitment to work of
integrating sustainability, lack of follow-
up procedures, failure to recognise and
accept the importance of environmental
and sustainability problems, limited time
and resources, and the prevailing
academic culture (Lidgren, Rodhe &
Huisingh, 2006; Sammalisto & Arvidsson,
2005; Segalàs, Ferrer-Balas & Mulder,
2005).
According to Shriberg (2002), issues
that are important in assessing
sustainability in higher education deal
“with the core issues of ecologically,
socially and fiscally sustaining society and
campus” (p. 256). One must then ask how
Kaisu Sammalisto, IIIEE, Lund University
130
we operationalise these issues. One of the
first to make an effort was Penn State
Green Destiny Council (2000, p. 4). They
defined indicators for higher education
based on David Orr’s definition of
sustainability-based culture (Orr, 1996).
As stated above, there are good
examples of campus greening efforts and
environmental management. What is
lacking, however, is empirical research on
this subject; and, even beyond this area,
there is a lack of studies on the broader
topic of integration of sustainability in
education and research. Moreover,
available case studies rarely include
information about research methods
(Corcoran & Wals, 2004). It is also an
important research task to include in the
analysis dimensions of sustainable
development beyond the environmental.
The Study
With our study we wanted to contribute
to the understanding of how to integrate
sustainability into education and research
by examining the method for integration
and, in particular, the procedure for the
classification and review of university
courses and research projects for
integration of sustainable development at
the University of Gävle. This university is
the only one in Sweden which has
developed a formalised classification
procedure for courses and research
projects, consisting of a form to be filled
out by the responsible instructor/
researcher. Specifically, we wanted to find
out how different disciplines integrate
sustainability in their courses and how
they incorporate a sustainability
assessment of the research in the
applications for research funding. From
the study we then expected to be able to
draw implications for other institutions.
This research is part of a bigger effort
on the part of the authors to understand
the role of environmental management
systems
7
(EMS) in higher education in
Sweden. The issue is approached from a
six-step model as described in Figure 1
below. Steps 1-3 have been reported in
previous publications (Sammalisto, 2004;
Sammalisto & Arvidsson, 2005;
Sammalisto & Brorson, 2006). This article
looks closer into part of the fourth step –
the greening of courses and research
efforts.
The Classification Procedure
In 2005 the University of Gävle had
about 750 faculty and staff and 13,500 full
and part time students, corresponding to
about 6,200 full time equivalent students.
The University has six colleges: Business
Administration and Economics;
Technology and Built Environment;
Humanities and Social Sciences;
Mathematics, Natural, and Computer
Sciences; Education and Psychology; and
Health Sciences and Sociology.
7
An environmental management system
(EMS) is part of an organization’s overall
management system and is used to develop
and implement its environmental policy.
EMS can be certified according to the
international standard ISO 14001. Today
more than 100,000 organizations, mainly
industries, but also a growing number of
other types of organizations, have achieved
such a certification. The president of the
university has the overall responsibility for
the EMS and its results, but delegates the
responsibilities within the regular university
organization so that the objectives can be
met. In Sweden the implementation of EMS
as a way to work towards sustainable
development was initiated by government
directives to all public agencies, including the
35 public universities, during the period of
1998-2001.
EMS – a Way towards SD in Universities
131
Figure 1. The role of Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in higher education in the steps towards a
more sustainable society. (Sammalisto & Brorson, in press)
As part of the environmental
management system, instructors are
requested to classify their courses based
on their environmental and sustainable
development (E/SD) content, using the
definitions provided and the Policy for
Environment and Sustainable Develop-
ment of the University as guidance. The
classification, which was developed by the
University Environmental Council
8
and
discussed in meetings in the different
colleges, is very simple, and the instructor
just has to check one of four boxes
according to the definitions shown below:
A – A major part of the course has
E/SD content;
B – The course has some E/SD
content;
8
Every College at the University has
appointed a staff member to act as
environmental coordinator. These together
with the vice-president (acting as chair-
person) and student representatives form the
Environmental Council of the University.
The coordinator is responsible for collecting
information about the environmental and
sustainability performance of the institution,
reporting to the Environmental Council, and
giving advice to faculty and staff in the
college.
C – The course has no E/SD content,
but has the potential for this; or
D – E/SD content is not relevant for
the course.
In addition space is provided for
writing an explanation of the reason(s)
why the course was so classified. It is not
mandatory to provide such an explana-
tion, but the administration recommends
doing so.
9
Although the classification of the
courses was to take place whenever a new
course was introduced or an existing one
revised, all colleges voluntarily also started
working on existing courses. The system
was implemented in 2002, and by the end
of the 2005 82% of all current courses at
the University had been reviewed in this
regard. By decision of the President, a
similar classification form for inclusion
with applications for research funding was
introduced in 2005. The manager of the
research project is responsible for this
classification. For 2005, 90% of the
applications included an E/SD
9
More detailed information about the
environmental program, for instance the
policy, the environmental management
system, and the course and research
classification forms can be found at:
www.hig.se/miljo/.
