UMass Boston Focuses on Education for Sustainability Initiative

By Walter E. Bickford

Is our economy on an environmentally and socially just and sustainable path? If not, can we reverse the trend? What is "education for sustainability"?

The most commonly accepted definition of sustainability was created by the UN Commission on the Environment and Development in 1990: "... development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

A growing number of university leaders are concerned that the earth's ecosystems can not sustain the existing levels of economic activity, maldistribution, and overconsumption of resources, and generation of wastes. Further, they agree that these inequitable and unsustainable trends are largely a result of decisions being made, not by the majority of people on earth who are uneducated, but by college graduates who have little or no understanding of the carrying capacity of the earth's various natural systems. They conclude that institutions of higher learning must commit to assuring that all graduates-- future professionals, decision-makers, leaders, and teachers of the future - are environmentally literate and responsible. This belief has become the mission for a rapidly growing international effort called "education for sustainability" (EFS). EFS gives equal consideration to the environment, the economy, and social equity.

An EFS mission is implemented by developing measurable institutional goals, objectives, and, finally, specific actions that can be funded and staffed. Chancellor Gora has appointed the Campus Sustainability Council (CSC), which is co-chaired by Rich Delaney and Dean Christine Armett-Kibel, to oversee an EFS mission at the university.

The mission of EFS can be logically divided into the four goals of greening the campus, greening research, greening academics, and greening outreach. The CSC has four subcommittees that will focus on each of these goals. Examples of future work include examining objectives of energy efficiency; reducing water use; reducing, reusing, and recycling solid wastes; sustainable design; reducing pesticide use; and substituting non-toxic cleaners.

Greening the campus is fundamental to instilling a sense of civic responsibility into students. All too often campuses serve as examples-a shadow curriculum-of ecologically irrational practices that are often economically and socially unsound as well.

Greening academics requires that the principles of sustainability and equity be infused into existing courses. There must be strong linkages between greening the academics and the other three goals. If students are to become leaders in a just and sustainable world, they must be involved, as part of their course work, in experiential, group learning, and problem solving of campus and regional environmental and economic sustainability, and in social justice issues.

In addition to the long-term benefits to society, institutions of higher learning that have adopted EFS have found it to be a strategic competitive advantage from every perspective, yielding documented positive effects on teaching, learning, and citizenship, increased institutional prestige, faculty and student engagement and morale, and student applications, cost savings, and strengthened regional public and private partnerships, and fund raising. Stakeholders who were initially concerned that EFS might overshadow or displace their focus areas soon discovered that infusing the principles of sustainability into their focus areas actually made them more relevant.

For more information , visit: www.ulsf.org, www.secondnature.org, and the UMass Boston site under development: www.uhi.umb.edu/efs/.

Bickford is director of education for sustainability for the UMass system.

Image: Members of the Campus Sustainability Committee with Chancellor Gora (center): Daniel Brabander, Walter Bickford, Gora, Rob Beattie, Catherine Moroski ‘03, and Forrest Speck. Not pictured are chairs Dean Christine Armett-Kibel and Rich Delaney of Urban Harbors Institute and members John Warner and Peter Taylor. (Photo by Harry Brett)

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