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Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education pp 1670–1675Cite as

Sustainability in Higher Education

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Definition

A higher education institution that engages with sustainability by way of a whole-of-institution approach integrates sustainability in many areas (or domains) of the organizational fabric of the institution, most often bucketed into five main categories: governance (e.g., mission statements, strategic planning), campus operations (e.g., food procurement, greenhouse gas emissions), research (e.g., research centers’ foci, sustainability innovations), community outreach (e.g., partnerships with local communities), and education (e.g., curriculum, pedagogy)

Introduction

Given the increasingly alarming climate crises facing our world, and their implications for human survival, many political leaders throughout the globe have taken up the cause. Cities are planning to implement municipal-wide single stream recycling, divert waste from landfills, and create fossil-fuel targets for existing buildings, while specifying low-energy design targets in all new construction (Bloomberg and...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Higher and Postsecondary Education Program, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

    Jessica Ostrow Michel

Authors
  1. Jessica Ostrow Michel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jessica Ostrow Michel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

Section Editor information

  1. No affiliation provided

    Markus Will

  2. No affiliation provided

    Isabel Novo-Corti

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Michel, J.O. (2019). Sustainability in Higher Education. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11352-0_455

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