The
future we want
Key issues on sustainable development in
higher education after Rio and the UN decade
of
education for sustainable development
Walter Leal Filho
School of Science and the
Environment,
Manchester
Metropolitan
University,
Manchester,
UK
Evangelos Manolas
Department of
Forestry
and Management of the
Environment
and
Natural Resources, Democritus
University
of Thrace, Orestiada,
Greece,
and
Paul Pace
Centre
for
Environmental Education
&
Research, Faculty of Education,
University of Malta, Msida,
Malta
Abstract
Purpose
–
This paper aims to provide
a
description
of
the achievements
of
the United Nations (UN)
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) with a focus on higher education, and it
describes some
of
the key issues which will guide sustainable development in the coming
years.
Design/methodology/approach
–
The paper initially presents an analysis
of
past developments,
complemented
by
an assessment
of
the emphasis
on
sustainable development
by
the
International
Journal of Sustainability
in Higher
Education
. In particular, it
makes
cross-references
to
the
deliberations held at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
in
June
2012, with a special emphasis to the document “The Future we Want”. It concludes by listing a
set
of
suggestions
and
measures that
both
industrialised
and
developing countries
may
consider
to
translate the principles
of
sustainable development into
reality.
Findings
–
Sustainable development
is
and will continue to be
a
matter
of
substantial international
interest
and
concern.
The
developments
achieved
over
the
past
20
years
have
been
substantial,
but
there
are still many gaps and need which need
to be
met,
so as to
improve its prospects
in
the next
two
decades.
Originality/value
–
The
paper
provides
useful
insights
which
allow
a
better
understanding
of
the
role
of universities in fostering sustainable development, and some of the key issues need to be considered,
so as to allow things to move in the right
direction.
Keywords
Sustainability, Education for sustainable development, Higher education,
Sustainable development, Post
Rio
+
20,
Rio+20
Paper type
Research paper
1.
Introduction
The history
of
environmental education has been marked
by a
number
of
events,
some of which with a
historical nature,
which have laid
the
basis for
the
developments
seen today. The
literature
has
well-documented
records of
the
importance of the Stockholm Conference in 1972 (with the subsequent creation of
the
UN Environment Programme
in
1974), the organisation
of
the
intergovernmental
environmental education conferences
in
Belgrade (1975), Tbilisi
(
UNESCO-UNEP,
1978) and Moscow (1987), which led to the conclusion that environmental
education
could greatly contribute to sustainable development (UNESCO-UNEP, 1988).
Another historical development worthy
of
mention
was
the publication
of
the
Newsletter “Connect”
which, since its
establishment
in 1975 and up to its
interruption
in
1987,
was a central
instrument
of
communication
among
environmental educators across the world. This pre-Internet tool was published
in
various languages (e.g. English, French, Russian, Arabic, etc) and circulated
across
the world, providing access
to
information about
good
practices and acting
as a
bridge for the environmental education
community.
Further to the work
of
the World Commission on Environment and Development
and
subsequent launching
of “Our
Common Future” (WCED, 1987),
a
further
momentum was given, with the UN Conference
on
Environment and Development
(UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992, which led
to
the launching
of
Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992). This event, in turn, triggered the Athens workshop
on
how to
re-orient education towards sustainable development
in
1995
(
UNESCO,
1995; Scoullos, 1995), and was followed-up
by
the World Summit
on
Sustainable
Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg in 2002 and, more recently, the
World
Conference on Sustainable Development held in Rio de Janeiro in
June
2012.
All
these events can
be
regarded as landmark occasions, where progress in
the
ways
environmental education
as a whole – and
education
for
sustainable
development in particular
–
were seen. This
is so
for three main
reasons:
(1)
they were among
the
most
innovative events at their times,
and have
addressed the problems seen then, some
of
which still persist
today;
(2)
they were especially dedicated towards mobilising government support
to
environmental education;
and
(3)
they were instrumental in catalysing actions at the national level,
especially
in those
countries
where
environmental education
was not given
the
emphasis it
required.
Even though much progress has been seen over the years – partly thanks to the
hard
work of many people, starting with the pioneer work done by the late Bill Stapp in the
late
1970s – today’s actors do not always draw from the experiences or the wisdom from
of
the past, and, consequently, a lot of energy and resources are wasted in reinventing the
wheel (Pace, 2009, 2010). The history
of
dedicating decades
to
address specific
topics
contains a mixture
of
successes and
failures.
For
instance, the current UN Decade
on
Education
for
Sustainable Development
(2005-2014)
is far from
being
a new
idea.
The
1990s were
also
designated
as
the
“International Decade
of
Environmental Education”, and many activities were jointly
organised
by
the
two
organisations
concerned
with
environmental
education
at
the
time,
namely, UNESCO and UNEP.
Both have successfully
initiated and coordinated the UNEP
–
UNESCO International Environmental Education Programme (IEEP),
whose activities
were characterised
by:
•
coordinated and jointly funded efforts, prioritizing developing
countries;
•
a
strong emphasis
on
education and capacity-building, addressing
one of
the
major barriers to education for sustainable development
–
still seen today
–
i.e.
a
lack
of training;
•
inclusive attempts to mobilise and draw from the competencies and experiences
of
many experts known for their
work and commitment to environmental education;
and
•
a wide
documentation
and
communication
of a
plethora
of
initiatives
– a
considerable achievement, considering that this was done in an era where there
was little or no use
of
the Internet.
Furthermore,
IEEP
produced
a
well-known
book series
(i.e. the Environmental
Education Series), with key texts written
by
leading environmental educators,
whose
aim was
to
provide
a
theoretical basis and support practical activities on the ground.
The series addressed the emerging needs
of
various sectors, as exemplified
by
some
of
the titles listed
below:
•
Issue 5
: Environmental education module for pre-service training
of
teachers
and
supervisors for primary schools (1983).
•
Issue 6
: Environmental education module for in-service training
of
teachers
and
supervisors for primary schools (1985).
•
Issue 9
: Environmental education module for pre-service training
of social science
teachers and supervisors for secondary schools
by
Savita Sinha (1985).
•
Issue
13
:
A
guide on environmental values education by Michael
J.
Caduto (1985).
•
Issue
14
:
Interdisciplinary approaches in environmental education (1985).
•
Issue
15
:
A
problem-solving approach
to
environmental education
by
Arnold
J.
Pomerans (1985).
•
Issue
22
:
Procedures
for
developing an environmental education curriculum:
A
discussion guide for UNESCO training seminars on environmental education
by
Harold R. Hungerford (1994).
•
Issue
25
:
Strategies
for
the training
of
teachers
in
environmental education:
A
discussion guide for UNESCO training seminars on environmental education
by
Richard
J.
Wilke; R. Ben Peyton
&
Harold R. Hungerford (1994).
•
Issue
26
:
Environmental education:
A
process
for
pre-service teacher training
curriculum development (1988).
•
Issue
27
:
An
environmental education approach
to
the training
of
elementary
teachers:
A
teacher education programme (1994).
All
in
all,
materials
were
produced
in
five
languages
and
disseminated
in
libraries
across
the
world.
When exploring the key issues on education for sustainable development since
Rio,
and examining future prospects – as this papers intends to do – it is important that
one
refers to the background and historical developments outlined
here, which help
towards
an understanding and contextualisation
of
the issues at hand
today.
2. A
description
of
the achievements
of
the UN Decade
of
Education
for
Sustainable Development
(2005-2014)
in higher education
The links between sustainability and higher education are strong, and these have
been
emphasised in various works (Leal Filho, 1999, 2000a, 2002; Cortese, 2003). The need
to
communicate sustainability
was
emphasised
in a
landmark publication titled
Communicating Sustainability
(Leal Filho, 2000b) produced
as part of
the series
Environmental
Education
,
Communication and
Sustainability
, which, since its launch
in
1998, has become the world’s longest running book series on the topic.
The
foundations
of
the UN Decade
of
Education
for
Sustainable Development
(2005-2014) were initially
laid in
1992 at UNCED.
To
foster attempts
to
promote
sustainable lifestyles, the UNCED produced important landmark documents such
as
Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992) and the
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development,
among
others.
UNESCO was the appointed body responsible for the management
of
Chapter 36
of
Agenda 21 on education, training and public awareness, with four important
goals:
(1)
promoting and improving the quality
of
education;
(2)
reorienting the existing education
programmes;
(3)
raising public awareness
and
understanding
of
the concept
of
sustainable
development;
and
(4)
fostering environmental education and training (UNCED, 1992
).
Ten years after Rio,
the
World
Summit
on
Sustainable Development
held in
Johannesburg, reviewed the outcomes achieved since 1992. Like other similar
previous
conferences, the 2002 Johannesburg meeting stressed the importance
of
education
and
learning in fostering the cause
of
sustainable development. The event confirmed that
progress towards achieving sustainability (since Rio) has been rather limited and
hoped
to give a new impetus
by
fostering the cause
of
education for sustainable development
and to
mainstream it
in
all sectors
of
education, thus promoting the adoption
of
sustainable lifestyles
and
decision-making. In addition,
in
Johannesburg,
a
further
landmark publication was launched, titled
International Experiences on
Sustainability
(Leal Filho, 2002), which served the purpose
of not only
illustrating the degree
of
progress reached since UNCED in Rio but also outlining some
of
the
gaps.
Another important outcome
of
the Johannesburg Summit
was
the adoption
of
Resolution 57/254 which declared the period from 2005
to
2014
as
the UN Decade
of
Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). Some landmark events since this UN
decision
include:
•
The publication, in 2005,
of
the
Handbook of
Sustainability
Research
(Leal
Filho,
2005) that documented research methods and practice-based studies, illustrating
how principles
of
sustainability may be implemented in
practice.
•
The
34th session
of
the UNESCO General Conference,
in
2007, stressing that
serious efforts had to be made by governments and UNESCO to reorient
education
for sustainable development
worldwide.
•
UNESCO’s mid-Decade
World
Conference
on
Education
for
Sustainable
Development, held in Bonn, in 2009, which produced an action plan for ESD,
as
well as guidelines for the second half
of
the
Decade.
Other UN initiatives and reports promoting the importance of DESD
worldwide include
the Human Development Report
of
2011that emphasised the role
of
ESD in promoting
sustainable consumption and the 2012 Report of the UN
Secretary-General’s High-Level
panel on Global Sustainability which refers to the importance of DESD. Parallel to
these
reports, two further publications were produced as part of DESD that further reiterated
the contribution of higher education to sustainable development, namely,
Sustainability
at universities: Opportunities,
challenges and
trends
(Leal Filho, 2010) and
Sustainable
development at
universities:
New horizons
(Leal Filho, 2012), published during the
2012
UN Conference on Sustainable Development.
With regard to the evolution
of
ESD in higher education, one notable development
was the launch of the
International Journal of
Sustainability
in Higher Education
(IJSHE)
in
2000. IJSHE was
the
first
peer-refereed journal
–
and,
to
date, it
is
still
the
only journal
–
t
o
specifically and solely focus on the dissemination of research on sustainability issues at
higher education institutions.
An
analysis
of
the papers published between 2000
and
2013 shows that the journal provided
a
substantial contribution
to
the process
by
publishing articles focussing on issues such as environmental management, university
greening and the reduction
of
the university’s ecological
footprint.
In
the
period
of
2000-2013,
IJSHE
published
14
volumes
or
55
issues
containing
a
total
of 362 papers. In addition to normal issues, the journal also published 13 special issues.
In particular, during the 14 years
of
activity examined
in
this paper, the journal
has
published the following special
issues:
•
Special issue on higher education for sustainable development with the WSSD
in
mind (Vol. 3, Issue 3, 2002).
•
Special issue
on
student environmental sustainability initiatives
on
college
and
university campuses around the world (Vol. 4, Issue 3, 2003).
•
Special
issue on
transformation
which
highlights curriculum change, the
significance
of
change and the absence
of
theorizing about change and action
in
institutional contexts towards sustainable development in HE institutions (Vol. 5,
Issue 1, 2004).
•
Special issues on engineering education in sustainable development (Vol. 5, Issue
3,
2004 and Vol. 6, Issue 3,
2005).
•
Special issue
on
applying transdisciplinary case studies
as a
means
of
organizing
sustainability learning (Vol. 7, Issue 3,
2006).
•
Special issue on Sustainability: providing new insights for education (Vol. 8, Issue
2,
2007).
•
Special issue
on
“Sustainable University”
a
holistic approach
to
sustainability
in
higher education institutions (Vol. 8, Issue 4,
2007).
•
Special
issue on
Regional Centres
of
Expertise
of
education
for
sustainable
development
in
their major areas
of
activity (including policy and administration,
campus operation, research and scholarship, education and teaching and service
to
communities) (Vol. 9, Issue 4,
2008).
•
Special issue on climate action planning at North American colleges and universities
(Vol. 10, Issue 3, 2009).
