Purpose: The sustainability of the global food system hinges on its environmental resiliency and safety, including the health and well-being of its labor force. Single disciplinary courses in liberal arts or science often fail to highlight the overlap between environmental and social vulnerabilities that lead to food insecurity and diminish the…

Purpose: This study aims to assess higher education students' interest in learning sustainability competencies and their pro-ecological worldviews at a large research-intensive university in Finland to provide a background information for developing a sustainability science course. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 797 students participated…

Purpose: As sustainability teaching and learning rises in importance, an increasing number of higher education institutions (HEIs) are assessing the effectiveness of their approach to sustainability education. However, most assessments fall short in determining the impacts of curriculum plans on learning outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to…

Purpose: Given the increased emphasis on embedding the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in the curriculum, research, engagement activities and operations of higher education institutions, this comparative study aims to replicate an earlier international study of Turnaround Leadership for Sustainability in Higher Education…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper aims to discuss the outreach strategies of higher education institutions (HEIs) to promote the inclusion of refugees, focusing on two case studies of programs in southern Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyzes two outreach programs of Brazilian universities: the Welcome Program for Immigrants…

Purpose: This study aims to explore the alignment between strategic plans of the Portuguese public higher education institutions (HEIs) and their perception of the integration of sustainability in education and curricula. Design/methodology/approach: The strategic plans from 15 institutions were selected for content analysis; data about the…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare the sustainability dimensions reported on the websites of public and private universities in Ghana, an emerging economy. Design/methodology/approach: The universities in Ghana were categorized under public and private universities. The top five under each category were chosen (by Edu Rank's…

Purpose: Recognising the importance of universities in the achievement of social and global objectives, this paper aims to study the relevance of the global reporting initiative (GRI) methodology for reporting University Social Responsibility (USR) activities, taking into account the specificity of higher education institutions (HEI).…

Purpose: This paper aims to present a methodology for analysing the extent to which students of a university degree perceive that they have received a good education for sustainable development (ESD). The methodology enables us to quantify this perception, which, in turn, allows us to determine: to what extent the objectives related to ESD are…

Purpose: This study aims to explore students' sustainability attitudes and behavioural intentions and their relation to energy use, to promote energy saving and decarbonisation in higher education settings. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a validated energy literacy survey to assess undergraduate students' attitudes and behavioural…

Purpose: This study aims to analyse the efficiency of public higher education institutions (HEIs) through teaching and learning (T&L), research and technology (R&T) and social responsibility (SR) activities. It also aims to assess the external factors influencing the efficiency of T&L, R&T and SR, and influence of this efficiency…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate undergraduate industrial design students' perception of sustainable design concepts and how their conceptualization evolves as a function of their attendance to a specific sustainable design studio (SDS) course. Design/methodology/approach: Two groups of students participated in the study.…

Purpose: This paper aims to critically analyze the engineering education focused on sustainability in supply chain management, in courses offered by Brazilian higher education institutions. Design/methodology/approach: Topics related to sustainable supply chain management were listed from the literature and used as a framework to gather…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the current state of website environmental communications in Latin American universities through a benchmarking operational tool. The study considers how these universities communicate their environmental policies as an act of corporate social responsibility and to improve their public image.…

Purpose: Sustainability has become a global concern to deal with complex and unprecedent survival, social, political and peace issues. Higher education institutions play a key role in this transformation. This paper aims to conduct a comparative analysis by continents of innovation and sustainability barriers in universities. The document also…