Purpose: Higher education institutions are regarded as forerunners and pioneers of sustainability. However, it is to question whether they actually fulfill their role model function. This paper aims to reveal whether selected universities in Australia and Austria meet the reporting expectations about their activities on sustainability in very…

Purpose: Sustainable development (SD) does not usually form part of the curriculum of ICT-related study programs such as Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, and Informatics. However, many topics form a bridge between SD and ICT and could potentially be integrated into ICT-related study programs. This paper reports the…

Purpose: A planet that can no longer sustain life is a frightening thought--and one that is often present in mass media messages. Therefore, this study aims to test the components of a classic fear appeal theory, the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and to determine how well its constructs predict sustainability behavioral intentions. This…

Purpose: The explosion of social media use such as Facebook among higher education students is deemed to have great potential in widely disseminating environmental sustainability awareness. The paper aims to capture, summarise, synthesise and comment on the role of social media to garner interest of students and staff on environmental…

Purpose: This paper aims to explore the potential contribution of integrated traffic and parking management strategies to ensure more rational use of available parking spaces and to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by commuters traveling to the University of Coimbra (UC) main campus. Design/methodology/approach: An integrated…

Purpose: This paper aims to describe a two-stage sustainability curriculum assessment, providing tools and strategies for other faculty to use in implementing their own sustainability assessments. Design/methodology/approach: In the first stage of the five-year curriculum assessment, the authors used an anonymous survey of sustainability faculty…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to map and analyze sustainability activities and relationships at the seven Claremont Colleges and graduate institutions using social network analysis (SNA) to inform sustainability planning and programming. Design/methodology/approach: Online surveys and interviews were conducted among faculty, staff and…

Purpose: According to the 2014 joint report drafted by the Quality Assurance Agency and Higher Education Academy (QAA/HEA), universities have a key role to play in the development of sustainability literate graduates who can contribute to an environmentally responsible society. This paper aims to assess language students' understanding of…

Purpose: This paper aims to provide an overview of a content analysis of sustainability policies from Canadian post-secondary education institutions. The paper reports findings on the orientations to sustainability evident in the policies; references to other policies within the documents; and other key themes on how sustainability is engaged in…

Purpose: Key elements of a curriculum are presented for a faculty development program that integrated sustainability content with effective course design methodology across a variety of disciplines. The study aims to present self-reported impacts for a small number of faculty participants and their courses. Design/methodology/approach: A yearlong…

Purpose: This research uses the social science perspectives of institutions, ecological modernization and social movements to analyze the rationale used by the early-adopting universities of fossil fuel divestment in the USA. Design/methodology/approach: Through analysis of qualitative data from interviews with key actors at the universities that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to compare the program design of a sustainability leadership certificate to participants' perceptions of their in-program learnings and competencies development. The authors present the results from the analysis of one program evaluation component, a survey, which was delivered before the program start and at…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how education for sustainable development (ESD) was measured in the taught curriculum at the University of Bristol (UoB), providing comparison to other methods of measurement and how measurements were used to engage academics in considering the visibility of the penetration of sustainable…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide information regarding the ways in which the authors' College's faculty use paper within their pedagogical practice. A related purpose was to ascertain faculty interest in professional development initiatives related to reducing paper usage through technological affordances.…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the research preferences and differences of education for sustainable development (ESD) researchers. A model with the continuums assimilation-accommodation and adaptation-agency was applied resulting in quantitative, qualitative, theoretic and participative research orientations.…