Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Declarations for sustainability in higher education: becoming

better leaders, through addressing the university system
Rodrigo Lozano a, *, Rebeka Lukman b, Francisco J. Lozano c, Donald Huisingh d,
Wim Lambrechts e
a

Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
University of Maribor, Slomskov trg, 15, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia
ITESM, Campus Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico
d
The Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment, 311 Conference Center Building, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville,
TN 37996-4134, USA
e
Centre for Research Coordination, Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUB), Stormstraat 2, 1000 Brussels, Belgium
b
c

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 8 March 2011
Received in revised form
4 September 2011
Accepted 6 October 2011
Available online 20 October 2011

In spite of a number of Sustainable Development (SD) initiatives and an increasing number of universities
becoming engaged with SD, most higher education institutions (HEIs) continue to be traditional, and rely
upon Newtonian and Cartesian reductionist and mechanistic paradigms. As a result many universities are
still lagging behind companies in helping societies become more sustainable. This paper analyses the
texts of eleven declarations, charters, and partnerships developed for HEIs, which can be considered to
represent university leaders intentions to help improve the effectiveness of Education for Sustainable
Development (ESD). The analysis was done against two sets of criteria: (1) the university system,
including curricula, research, physical plant operations, outreach and engagement with stakeholders, and
assessment and reporting; and (2) the texts complexity, number of bullet points, and number of words.
The analysis was done continuously; whenever a new element was found in a text it was added to the
university system (rst criteria set) and applied to the analysis of the other texts. In this way, the system
was augmented with the following elements: collaborating with other universities; fostering transdisciplinarity; making SD an integral part of the institutional framework; creating on-campus life
experiences; and Educating-the-Educators. The authors of the paper propose that for universities to
become sustainability leaders and change drivers, they must ensure that the needs of present and future
generations be better understood and built upon, so that professionals who are well versed in SD can
effectively educate students of all ages to help make the transition to sustainable societal patterns. In
order to do so, university leaders and staff must be empowered to catalyse and implement new paradigms, and ensure that SD is the Golden Thread throughout the entire university system.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Education for sustainable development
(ESD)
Higher education
Declarations
Charters
Partnerships
Sustainable societies

For centuries, universities have been at the forefront in creating

and breaking paradigms, and educating the future decision-makers,
entrepreneurs, and leaders (Cortese, 2003; Elton, 2003; Lozano,
2006a). However, universities have remained traditional (Elton,
2003) and have had a tendency to self-replicate (Walther et al.,
2005), where far too much of modern education has continued to
rely upon Newtonian and Cartesian mental models, which relegate

learning and action to reductionist1 thinking and mechanistic

interpretation (Lovelock, 2007; Nonaka and Takeuchi, 2001). This
presents a daring challenge to higher education institutions (HEIs)
and society in general, in order to achieve a sensible future for those
not yet born generations, especially if the rate of change in universities is taken into consideration. For example, the Dissenters in
Englands XVII and XVIII centuries advocated for excellence in
educational systems and with an eye to industry (Burke, 1995, 1996),
and the Scottish universities in the XVIII century aimed to advanced

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 44 113 343 7432.

E-mail addresses: R.Lozano@leeds.ac.uk (R. Lozano), rebeka.lukman@uni-mb.si
(R. Lukman), fjlozano@itesm.mx (F.J. Lozano), donaldhuisingh@comcast.net
(D. Huisingh), wim.lambrechts@hubrussel.be (W. Lambrechts).

1
According to Lovelock (2007) reductionism refers to the analytical dissection of
a thing into its ultimate component parts, followed by regeneration through the
reassembly of the parts. In contrast, the holistic view analyses a thing from the
outside and asks questions about how it works.

1. Introduction

0959-6526/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

science by linking theory and practice (Bernal, 1954). However, it

was until the mid XIX century in England that Universities (some
having been former polytechnics or colleges) started to adopt the
new science. At rst some were set-up as colleges, later to turn into
universities. Hence it took almost 200 years for this change to
happen, where substantial inputs came from outside the academic
institutions, such as society and industry (Bernal, 1954).
Relying on these scientic positions have led to the conquest of
nature through competition (Cortese, 2003), industrialisation
(Carley and Christie, 2000; Orr, 1992; Reid, 1995; WCED, 1987),
overspecialisation and disciplinary isolation (Cortese, 2003;
Costanza, 1991). Thus, reductionist, mono-disciplinary education
and testing by repetition (Burke, 2000; Lozano, 2010), have
fostered highly individualistic, greedy and self-interested behaviours (Lozano, 2007; Stead and Stead, 1994). As A. Brown (2005)
quotes from J.D. Bernal In the great creative periods of science the
artists and the scientists worked very closely together and were in
many cases the same people.Leonardo da Vinci,. The result of this
separation [i.e. science and art] has been the most incredible mutual
ignorance.
In the last years there have been a number of universities
engaging with Sustainable Development (SD) (Boks and Diehl,
2006; Lozano, 2006a, 2010; Wemmenhove and de Groot, 2001);
yet Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has not fully
permeated all disciplines, scholars, and university leaders (Fien,
2002), or throughout the curricula (Matten and Moon, 2004).
The authors of the paper propose that for universities to become
sustainability leaders and change drivers, they must ensure that the
needs of present and future generations be better understood and
built upon, so that professionals who are well versed in SD can
effectively educate students of all ages to help make the transition
to sustainable societal patterns, as indicated in the declarations,
charters, partnerships and conferences. In order to do so, university
leaders and staff must be empowered to catalyse and implement
new paradigms, and ensure that SD is the Golden Thread
throughout the entire university system, which includes the
following inter-linked elements: Education, Research; Campus
operations; Community outreach (Cortese, 2003), Assessment and
reporting (Lozano, 2006a).2
2. Evolution of the declarations, charters, and partnerships
for SD
At the Stockholm Conference in 1972 (UNEP, 1972) education
was formally recognised on an international level to play an
important role in fostering environmental protection and conservation. Since then many academic declarations, charters and partnerships were developed that were designed to foster
environmental education (EE), SD, and ESD as presented in Table 1
and illustrated in Fig. 1 which shows the evolution of these initiatives, divided into three levels: society, education, and higher
education. It can be seen that since 1987 there has been a large
increase in such initiatives. Table 1 shows that most university
declarations (seven out of eleven) were developed in Europe.
However, the signatories have been, approximately, 30% from the
global South, and 20% from countries in the former Soviet Union
and Warsaw Pact nations (Calder and Clugston, 2003).3

2
Some of the tools available to assess and report sustainability in universities
include the Auditing Instrument for Sustainable Higher Education (AISHE) (Roorda,
2001), the Graphical Assessment of Sustainability in Universities (GASU) tool
(Lozano, 2006b), and the Sustainability Tool for Assessing Universities Curricula
Holistically (STAUNCH) (Lozano, 2010).
3
Calder and Clugston (2003) do not indicate where the other percentages are
from.

11

The declarations, charters and partnerships were designed to

provide guidelines or frameworks for HEIs to better embed
sustainability into their system.
The increasing importance of such declarations, charters and
partnerships, for fostering transformative SD is evidenced by the
more than 1000 university leaders who ratied their commitment
to work to advance SD education and research by signing the Talloires Declaration, the Kyoto Declaration, and the Copernicus
University Charter by the end of 2003 (Calder and Clugston, 2003).
In spite of the number of proposed guidelines, SD could still be
considered to be a radical innovative idea in different universities
(Lozano, 2006a), faculties, or departments. It would be expected
that some elements, or the university as a whole, would fall into
one of Rogers (1995) adopter category (innovators, early adopters,
early majority, late majority, or laggards).
Implementation of an innovation, such as SD, is more troublesome when the adopter is an organisation rather than an individual
(Rogers, 1995), especially if the innovation is an abstract idea.
Nonetheless, when an innovation begins to be diffused throughout
the system, and if it is adopted and put into practice persistently
and for long enough and increasingly by different members of the
institution until wide-spread implementation and stabilization, it
ceases to be an innovation and becomes part of the institutions
culture (Rogers, 1995; van de Ven et al., 1999). The process from
innovation to stabilization is explained by Sherry (2003), who
highlights that an innovation usually has three stages: (1) initiation,
or diffusion, (2) implementation, and (3) institutionalisation.
Thus, for SD to become an integral part of universities and their
systems it needs to be put into practice long enough and increasingly by different members of the institution until wide-spread
implementation and stabilization (Lozano, 2006a). This could
then lead to the creation of new more sustainable paradigms,
especially if groups, organisations, and society accept SD.
Once an innovation has been accepted in the organization, it
may then be transferred to society. Arieti (1976) provides the
examples of the classic Greek period, the Italian Renaissance, the
American revolution (during which a group of people gave the
world a new concept of man), and the years since the mid-XIX
century (with the contributions of numerous Jewish geniuses),
where social innovation and creativity were also enhanced by
environmental factors. However, the creation and transfer of new
paradigms might not be a clear break from previous mental
models. As Kuhn (1970) indicates when a new paradigm is created,
the older schools gradually disappear, partly due to the new
generation adopting it and in part to some of the old generation
converting. Nonetheless, there would still be some who cling
doggedly to the older paradigm, for example some departments,
faculties, or universities clinging to Newtonian and Cartesian
paradigms.
In some cases the paradigms are transferred from society to
organisations. The evolution of the initiatives, as presented in
Table 1 and in Fig. 1, suggests that higher education initiatives have
appeared after the societal ones. For example, the Belgrade Charter
and Tbilisi Declaration followed the Stockholm conference, and the
Talloires and Halifax Declarations appeared after the Brundtland
Commission Report. The Swansea Declaration was driven by the
limited number of university leaders present in the 1992 United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development, and of their
minimal contribution to Agenda 21 (IISD, 2003b).
The number of universities engaged with SD is still small
compared to the total number of universities in the world (out of
14,000 universities in the world (IAU, 2011) only 15 have published
sustainability reports (Lozano, 2011)), or to the number of companies that have published sustainability reports (2911 companies
reporting between 1999 and 2011) (GRI, 2011).

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R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

Table 1
History of the initiatives taken in society, education, and higher education to foster sustainable development.
Year

Event/declaration

Level or focus

1972

Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, United Nations

Conference on the Human Environment, Sweden
The Belgrade Charter, Belgrade Conference on Environmental Education, Yugoslavia
Tbilisi Declaration, Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education, Georgia
Our Common Future, The Brundtland Report
Talloires Declaration, Presidents Conference, France
Halifax Declaration, Conference on University Action for Sustainable Development, Canada
Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Conference);
Agenda 21, Chapter 36: Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training and Chapter 35:
Science for Sustainable Development
Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future founded, USA
Kyoto Declaration, International Association of Universities Ninth Round Table, Japan
Swansea Declaration, Association of Commonwealth Universities Fifteenth Quinquennial
Conference, Wales
COPERNICUS University Charter, Conference of European Rectors (CRE)
Ball State University Greening of the Campus conferences were in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003,
2005, 2007, and 2009
Thessaloniki Declaration, International Conference on Environment and Society: Education
and Public Awareness for Sustainability, Greece
Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities (EMSU) conference rst held in Sweden.
Following conferences in 2002 (South Africa), 2004 (Mexico), 2006 (U.S.A.), 2008 (Spain), and
in 2010 in The Netherlands.
Millennium Development Goals
The Earth Charter
Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership (GHESP)
Lneburg Declaration on Higher Education for Sustainable Development, Germany
World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa (Type 1 outcome:
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development; Civil Society outcome: the Ubuntu Declaration)
Declaration of Barcelona
Start of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD)
Graz Declaration on Committing Universities to Sustainable Development, Austria
Abuja Declaration on Sustainable Development in Africa: The role of higher education in SD, Nigeria
Torino (Turin) Declaration on Education and Research for Sustainable and Responsible Development, Italy

Society

1975
1977
1987
1990
1991
1992

1992
1993
1993
1993
1996
1997
1999

2000
2000
2000
2001
2002
2004
2005
2005
2009
2009

Education
Education
Society
Higher education
Higher education
Society

Higher education
Higher education
Higher education
Higher education
Higher education
Education
Higher education

Society
Society
Higher education
Higher education
Society
Higher education
Education
Higher Education
Higher Education
Higher Education

Source: Adapted and updated from Calder and Clugston (2003) and Wright (2004).

This raises the question whether universities are developing

the SD mental models and paradigms and transferring the SD
meme (.a noun which conveys the idea of a unit of cultural
transmission, or a unit of imitation (Dawkins, 1978)), or if they are
reacting to stimuli from society and the SD meme is being transferred to them.
Some of the reasons that may explain the resistance of universities to engage with SD include: lack of SD awareness (Davis et al.,
2003; Lozano, 2006a); Insecurity and threat to academic credibility from teachers (Peet et al., 2004); Over-crowded curricula
(Abdul-Wahab et al., 2003; Chau, 2007); lack of support (Velazquez
et al., 2005); SD considered to have little or no relevance to the
course or discipline; and uncertainty of the efforts required to
engage with and incorporate SD (Lozano, 2010); and discipline
restricted organisational structures (Lambrechts et al., 2009;
Velazquez et al., 2005). Or perhaps, it is just academic conservationism/traditions that tie universities to old mechanistic
mental models.
Some actions that have been proposed to overcome universities
resistance to engage with SD include: implementing SD through
campus experiences, by incorporating SD into the day-to-day
activities in the university experiences (Lourdel et al., 2005);
Educating-the-Educators on the concepts, values, tools and procedures of SD, by replicating and multiplying the applications of the
new SD approaches throughout all curricula (Huisingh and Mebratu,
2000). Such actions can help to reduce the time taken for the integration of SD into the entire university institutional framework,
especially when SD becomes the Golden Thread that permeates
throughout the university system (Lozano Garcia et al., 2006). Integration can also be facilitated by working to ensure the engagement
of the institutional leaders in promoting SD (Ferrer et al., 2010); and
by empowering and rewarding SD faculty champions to catalyse the

SD multiplier effects throughout the faculty, students, staff and the

broader society (Elton, 2003; Lozano, 2006a; Rogers, 1995).
3. Analysis of the most frequently used higher educational
declarations, charters, and partnerships for SD
The works of Calder and Clugston (2003) and Wright (2004) have
highlighted the following elements and themes of the declarations,
charters and partnerships (up until the Lneburg Declaration):
 Focus on environmental degradation, threats to society, and
unsustainable consumption;
 Ethical or moral obligation of university leaders and faculties to
work towards sustainable societies, including the intergenerational perspective;
 Inclusion of SD throughout the curricula in all disciplines;
 Encouragement of SD research;
 Move towards more sustainability orientated university
operations;
 Collaboration4 with other universities;
 Stakeholder, e.g. public, governments, non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) and businesses, collaboration, engagement and outreach; and
 Transdisciplinarity5 across the previous points.

4
Some authors (e.g. Calder and Clugston, 2003; Wright, 2004) use the term cooperation; however collaboration is a better-suited term (Lozano, 2007).
5
Wright (2004) uses the term inter-disciplinarity; however transdisciplinarity is
a broader encompassing concept that includes the personal, local, strategic, and
specialised contributions to knowledge (Brown et al., 2010). Transdisciplinarity
crosses the boundaries dened by traditional disciplines and their inquiry forms
(Lawrence, 2010).

R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

13

Fig. 1. Evolution of the declarations, charters, and partnerships for sustainable development. [There have been Eight Greening of the Campus (GoC) conferences at Ball State University
including the rst one in1996, then in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009. The next one is scheduled for 2012 (Ball State University, 2011)].

Wright (2004) offered a comprehensive analysis of the

emerging elements in the declarations. However, her research was
prior to the publication of the Declaration of Barcelona, the DESD,
the Graz Declaration, the Abuja Declaration, and the Turin Declaration. Additionally, she did not consider the role of assessment and
reporting.
This section provides analyses of eleven of the most widely
accepted SD initiatives in higher education, which relate to the
university system: the Talloires Declaration, the Halifax Declaration, the Swansea Declaration, the Kyoto Declaration, the GHESP,
the Copernicus Charter, the Lneburg Declaration, the Declaration
of Barcelona, the Graz Declaration, the Turin Declaration, and the
Abuja Declaration.
The texts of the declarations, charters, and partnerships were
analysed against two sets of criteria: (1) the university system,
and (2) the texts wording complexity, number of bullet points
(which provides a sense of the efforts structure and complexity),
and number of words (where <800 words is considered short,
800 and <1000 words is medium, 1000 and <3000 words is
long, and 3000 words is very long). The second set can provide
university leaders with a reference to the intelligibility of the
initiatives. The analysis was done continuously, and whenever
a new element was found in a text it was added to the university
system (rst criteria set) and applied to the analysis of the other
texts.

The Talloires Declaration addresses inequitable and unsustainable

production and consumption patterns through ten action points:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Increase Awareness of Environmentally Sustainable Development;

Create an Institutional Culture of Sustainability;
Educate for Environmentally Responsible Citizenship;
Foster Environmental Literacy For All;
Practice Institutional Ecology;
Involve All Stakeholders;
Collaborate for Interdisciplinary Approaches;
Enhance Capacity of Primary and Secondary Schools;
Broaden Service and Outreach Nationally and Internationally; and
Maintain the Movement (ULSF, 1990).

Following the analytical framework in this paper, it was found

that the Talloires Declaration addresses the curricula, research,
operations, and outreach. Additionally, the Declaration underscores
the need for transdisciplinarity, and for implementing SD
throughout all campus experiences.
In regards to structure, the Talloires Declarations wording is
simple, with 717 words and 10 bullet points, and in comparison
with other declarations it is relatively short (as shown in Table 3).
The Talloires Declaration can be found at: http://www.iisd.org/
educate/declarat/talloire.htm.
3.2. The Halifax Declaration

3.1. The Talloires Declaration

The Talloires Declaration was signed in October 1990 by twenty
university rectors, presidents, and vice chancellors from different
parts of the world. The concerns that prompted the declaration
were environmental degradation, pollution, depletion of natural
resources, and the threat to human and biodiversity survival.
Between 1990 and 2007, the number of signatures increased to 356
(ULSF, 2007).

The Halifax Declaration was launched in December 1991 at

Halifax, Canada. The declaration underscores the roles and
responsibilities of universities in improving the capacity of the
citizens of all countries to address environmental and development
issues, such as the continuing wide-spread degradation of the
earths environment, the pervasive inuence of poverty on the
process, and the devastating effects of unsustainable environmental practices (IISD, 2003a).

14

R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

Table 2
Comparison of the themes of diverse SD initiatives.
Effort

Curricula

Research

Operations

Outreach and
collaboration

Talloires Declaration
Halifax Declaration
Kyoto Declaration
Swansea Declaration
COPERNICUS Charter
GHESP
Lneburg Declaration
Declaration
of Barcelona
Graz Declaration
Turin Declaration
Abuja Declaration

Universities
collaboration

Assessment and
Reporting

Transdisciplinarity

Institutional
framework

SD through
campus
experiences

1/2 ()

Educate the
educators

1/2 ()

Source: Updating and incorporating new ideas to Wright (2004).

The Halifax Declaration presents a broad action plan that identies short- and long-term goals at the local, regional, national and
international levels. The scope and focus of the Halifax Declaration
is similar to that of the Talloires Declaration.
The Halifax declaration addresses the curricula, operations, and
outreach. The wording of the declaration is simple, with 652 words,
and 6 bullet points (as shown in Table 3).
The Halifax Declaration can be found at: http://www.iisd.org/
educate/declarat/halifax.htm.

3.3. The Kyoto Declaration

The Kyoto Declaration was launched in November 1993 in the
8th Round table of the International Association of Universities
(IAU). It is comprised of eight points, the rst of which borrows the
words development which meets the needs of the present without
compromising the needs of future generations from the Brundtland
Report (WCED, 1987); the second urges universities to better utilise
their natural resources; the third demands that the present
generation stop unsustainable practices; the fourth urges educators
to teach and to do research on the principles of SD; the fth urges
co-operation with all segments of society; the sixth urges universities to review their operations to reect best sustainable development practices; the seventh urges them to implement the
declaration; and the eight embodies the language and substance of
both the Halifax and Swansea Declarations (IISD, 2003b; IISD,
2003b).
The Kyoto Declaration addresses the curricula, research, operations, and outreach. Additionally, the declaration mentions the
need for universities to collaborate.

Table 3
Comparison of the complexity, length, and bullet points of the initiatives.
Effort

Wording

Bullet points

Length

Number
of words

Talloires
Halifax
Kyoto
Swansea
COPERNICUS
GHESP
Lneburg
Barcelona
Graz
Turin
Abuja

Simple
Simple
Simple
Simple
Simple
Simple
Medium complex
Simple
Simple
Complex
Simple

10
6
8
7
10
28
25 in 7 levels
27
3
19 in 3 levels
31 in 4 levels

Short
Short
Short
Short
Medium
Very long
Medium
Medium
Short
Long
Medium

717
652
281
740
997
4869
955
911
672
1562
798

The wording of the declaration is simple, with 281 words, and 8

bullet points, it is very short (as shown in Table 3).
The Kyoto Declaration can be found at: http://www.iisd.org/
educate/declarat/kyoto.htm.
3.4. The Swansea Declaration
The Swansea Declaration was the outcome of the Association of
Commonwealth Universities Fifteenth Quinquennial Conference,
held in August 1993 in Swansea, Wales. It was inspired by the
Talloires and Halifax Declarations, and was driven by the limited
number of university leaders present in the 1992 United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development, and of their
minimal contribution to Agenda 21. As with the aforementioned
initiatives, the Swansea Declaration was designed to address the
degradation of the Earths environment, the pervasive inuence of
poverty, and the urgent need for sustainable practices. The Swansea
Declaration contains the following action points:
1. To urge universities to seek, establish and disseminate a clearer
understanding of SD and to encourage more appropriate
principles and practices;
2. To utilise university resources to encourage a better understanding on the part of governments and the public at large of
the inter-related interdependences and international dimensions of SD;
3. To emphasize the ethical obligation of the present generation
to overcome unsustainable practices;
4. To enhance the capacity of the universities to teach and
undertake research in SD principles and literacy;
5. To co-operate with all segments of society;
6. To encourage universities to review their own operations; and
7. To request the implementation of the declaration (IISD, 2003b).
The Swansea Declaration addresses the curricula, research,
operations, and outreach. As with the Kyoto declaration, the
Swansea Declaration complements the system with the need for
university collaboration.
The wording of the declaration is simple. With 740 words, and 7
bullet points, it can be considered to be short (as shown in Table 3).
The Swansea Declaration can be found at: http://www.iisd.org/
educate/declarat/swansea.htm.
3.5. The COPERNICUS charter
The Co-operation Programme in Europe for Research on Nature
and Industry through the Co-ordinated University Studies

R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

(COPERNICUS) Charter was launched in Geneva, Switzerland in

May 1994. The Charter is an inter-university, co-operation programme focused upon the environment and SD. It encompasses
more than 320 European universities (COPERNICUS, 1994).
The COPERNICUS Charter addresses outreach and collaboration. Additionally, the charter highlights the need for transdisciplinarity, university collaboration, and implementation of SD
through campus experiences. The charter touches upon
Educating-the-Educators, however it does not fully develop the
idea.
The wording of the charter is simple, with 997 words, and 10
bullet points. It can be considered to be of medium length (as
shown in Table 3).
The Copernicus charter can be found at: http://www.iisd.org/
educate/declarat/coper.htm.
3.6. Global higher education for sustainability partnership (GHESP)
The Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership
(GHESP) was formed in 2000, at the joint meeting of the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF),
COPERNICUS-Campus, the International Association of Universities (IAU), and UNESCO. The GHESP seeks to develop and share
effective strategies, models and best practices for promoting
higher education for sustainability, and it analyses experiences in
the south and the north. According to the GHESP, higher education must play a central role in the process of achieving SD
(GHESP, 2003).
The GHESP is designed to: promote better understanding and
more effective implementation of strategies to incorporate SD into
higher educational institutions; assess the progress of making SD
central to curricula; foster research; make operations more efcient; disseminate and promote higher educational initiatives
towards SD; sponsor stakeholder consultations; and to demonstrate that it is possible to form a partnership of NGOs working with
the UN system to develop and achieve a common goal (GHESP,
2003).
The GHESP addresses the curricula, research, operations,
outreach, and assessment and reporting. It also mentions the
need for transdisciplinarity, university collaboration, implementing SD throughout campus experiences, and educating the
educators.
The wording is simple, with over 4869 words, and 28 bullet
points (as shown in Table 3). It is the longest initiative amongst
those analysed.
GHESP can be found at: http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/
ev.php-URL_ID34701&URL_DODO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION201.
html.
3.7. The Lneburg Declaration
The Lneburg Declaration was launched at the International
COPERNICUS Conference under the umbrella of GHESP, in Lneburg, Germany in October 2001. The Declaration calls on higher
education institutions, NGOs and other stakeholders to:
a. Ensure the continual review and updating of learning materials to reect the latest scientic understanding of
sustainability;
b. Ensure that the reorientation of teacher education towards
sustainable development continues to be given priority as a key
component of higher education;
c. Provide continuing education to teachers, decision-makers and
the public at large on sustainable development;

15

d. Encourage all educational institutions to include, in their

activities, a strong component of reection on values and
norms with respect to sustainable development;
e. Raise awareness and increase understanding of the importance
and relevance of technology assessments and risk assessment;
f. Promote the creative development and implementation of
comprehensive sustainability projects in higher education, and
at all other levels and forms of education;
g. Increase attention to the international dimension and provide
more opportunities for inter-cultural exchange in the learning
environment;
h. Increase a focus on capacity development and intensied
networking among institutions of education; and
i. Promote stronger integration of training and research and
closer interaction with stakeholders in the development
process (COPERNICUS, 2001).
It calls on governments to ensure that the World Summit on
Sustainable Development includes education at general and higher
education levels in particular, in the future international programme of work.
It calls upon the United Nations to:
a. highlight in the Secretary-Generals main policy report the
indispensable role of education in general, and higher education in particular, in achieving sustainable development as
stated in chapter 36 of Agenda 21; and
b. make education a discussion topic during the multistakeholder dialogue sessions to be held during the preparatory committee meetings for the Johannesburg Summit and
during the Summit itself.
It calls on UNESCO, as task manager for chapter 36 of Agenda 21,
in co-operation with UNU and other relevant parts of the United
Nations system, to support these efforts concerning the Johannesburg Summit.
Furthermore, the EUA-COPERNICUS, the International Association of Universities (IAU), and the Association of University Leaders
for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) commit to achieving the following
targets within next ve years:
a. Create a global learning environment for higher education for
sustainable development;
b. Promote expanded endorsement and full implementation of
the Talloires, Kyoto and Copernicus declarations;
c. Produce an action-oriented Toolkit for universities,
managers, administrators, faculty and students designed to
move from commitment to concrete action. The Toolkit
would include:
 implementation strategies for colleges and universities
depending on size, type, demographic characteristics, etc.;
 strategies for reform in particular areas of university
activity, including teaching, research, operations and
outreach, or for comprehensive change across all universities activities;
 an inventory of available resources;
 an inventory of best practices and compilation of case
studies; and
d. Enhance the development of Regional Centres of excellence in
both developed and developing countries, and effective
networking among them (UNESCO, 2001).
The Lneburg Declaration addresses curricula, research, and
outreach. Additionally, the declaration also mentions educating the
educators.

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R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

The wording of the declaration is very complex, with 955

words, and 25 bullet points divided into 7 levels. The declarations length could be considered to be medium (as shown in
Table 3).
The Lneburg Declaration can be found at: http://portal.unesco.
org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID37585&URL_DODO_
TOPIC&URL_SECTION201.html.
3.8. The Declaration of Barcelona
The Declaration of Barcelona was launched in October 2004. It
calls for multi-disciplinary, systems oriented, critical thinking, and
participative and the holistic education of engineers. To achieve
this, the following elements should be reviewed simultaneously:
the links between all different levels of the educational systems;
the content of courses; teaching strategies; teaching and learning
techniques; research methods; training-of-trainers; evaluation
and assessment techniques; participation of external bodies in
developing and evaluating the curricula; and quality control
systems (EESD, 2004). Although the Declaration of Barcelona is
focused on engineering education, its principles are also valid for
other disciplines.
The Declaration of Barcelona addresses the curricula, research,
and outreach dimensions of university systems. One of the points of
the Declaration of Barcelona calls for the use of Evaluation and
assessment techniques; however, it does not indicate whether or
how these should be reported to the stakeholders. The Declaration
also highlights the need for transdisciplinarity, educating-theeducators, and the need to include SD in the universitys institutional framework.
The wording of the Declaration is simple, with 911 words, and
27 bullet points. It is of medium length, (as shown in Table 3).
The Barcelona Declaration can be found at: http://www.upc.
edu/eesd-observatory/who/declaration-of-barcelona.

The Graz Declaration also encourages university leaders to

foster co-operation between universities and community
stakeholders.
The Graz Declaration addresses the curricula, research, and
outreach. The declaration also highlights the need for transdisciplinarity, and university collaboration.
The wording of the declaration is simple, with 3 bullet points
and 672 words. It is relatively short (as shown in Table 3).
The Graz Declaration can be found at: http://www.aic.lv/bolona/
Bologna/maindoc/Graz%20Decl.pdf.

3.10. The Turin Declaration

The Turin Declaration was launched in May 2009 at the G8
University summit in Turin, Italy. The Declaration emphasises that
Sustainability Science, is emerging and evolving, and has come to
play an increasingly important role in addressing one of the
greatest challenges facing humankind. Sustainability cannot be
achieved by merely engaging natural sciences but must also engage
life sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The interdependence and interaction between economics, ethics, energy policy,
and ecology (the 4 Es) is one critical example that is presented in
the declaration.
The University Presidents, who attended the 2009 University
Summit, agreed that universities should foster sustainable and
responsible development at the local level as well as at the global
level through new approaches within the educational and research
systems, and should implement the following:
1. New models of social and economic development consistent
with sustainability principles;
2. Ethical approaches to sustainable development;
3. New approaches to energy policy; and
4. Focus on sustainable ecosystems.

3.9. The Graz Declaration

The Graz Declaration was launched in April 2005, in Graz,
Austria and concluded by emphasing that the Decade of Education
for Sustainable Development (DESD) confronts universities
throughout the world with a strong challenge as well as with new
opportunities. The Declaration calls on:
1. Universities to give sustainable development fundamental
status in their strategy and activities, and to promote the
creative development and implementation of comprehensive
and integrated sustainability actions in relation to learning and
teaching, research, internal and external social responsibility.
As well, as co-operating more closely with institutions and
other stakeholders in communities.
2. Ministers at the Conference of European Ministers responsible
for Higher Education should use sustainable development as
a framework for the enhancement of the social dimension of
European higher education; and
3. UNESCO and other relevant parts of the United Nations system
should support these initiatives in the higher educational
sector and should promote and support international academic
co-operation (Uni Graz, Oikos, COPERNICUS, & TUG, 2005)
In summary, the Graz Declaration encourages university
leaders to promote creative development and implementation
of comprehensive and integrated sustainability actions in:
-

learning and teaching

research
internal and external social responsibility

The summit participants agreed that strategies should be

developed and employed to implement the agenda, including the
following:
1. Broad, global engagement to promote awareness of sustainability issues, including ownership of the concept, partnership
with different stakeholders, provision of leadership and guidance to other sectors of society;
2. Restructuring of education and research to incorporate and
integrate cutting-edge knowledge, in order to move towards
integrated holistic approaches, problem solving, and systems
thinking;
3. Governance for strategic development, by providing policy
makers with access to high quality education and research, and
advocating participative, multi-scale, polycentric approaches to
policy making; and
4. Implementing the Network of networks, which aims to link
various discipline-specic research networks already in place.
The Turin Declaration proposed the following actions:
a) Educate students at all levels in the issues concerning
sustainable development;
b) Establish and give priority to research programs focused on
sustainable development;
c) Engage students in policy making;
d) Develop partnerships with the private and the non-prot
sectors to transfer knowledge and commercialize new technologies that advance sustainable development;

R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

e) Support, inform, encourage and share good governance and

policy making based on sustainable and responsible development principles;
f) Find opportunities for developing countries to be partners in
education and research for sustainable development;
g) Promote responsible development as a driving force to create
a sustainable economy;
h) Look to universities for scientically based approaches, and
potential actions, in creating public policy on sustainability;
i) Recognise the role played by education and research in the
many elds relevant to sustainable development and foster
among students, teachers, scholars and leaders, awareness of
the responsibility and ethical behaviours required to achieve
this task;
j) Encourage holistic thinking and an integrated approach to
decision making and problem solving; and
k) Increase the amount and urgency of research into sustainable
development and enhance the level of nancial support for this
activity (G8, 2009).
The Turin Declaration addresses the curricula, research, and
outreach. The declaration also underscores the need for
transdisciplinarity.
The wording of the declaration is complex, with 19 bullet points
in 3 levels, and 1562 words, which makes it the second longest
Declaration (as shown in Table 3).
The Turin Declaration can be found at: http://www.unesco.org/
science/wcs/meetings/eur_turin_declaration_e_99.htm.
3.11. The Abuja Declaration
The declaration was launched in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2009 at
the 12th General Conference of the Association of African Universities (AAU). The authors of the Declaration recognised the
sustainability problems in the African continent (such as poverty,
disease, conicts, land degradation, deforestation, and urbanisation) and the role of higher education in generating knowledge and
educating the leaders and educators of tomorrow.
The Declaration places special focus upon the crucial importance of inter-institutional collaboration, especially universityindustry-government linkages. It calls for transdisciplinary
approaches in learning and research among African universities
and highlights the central roles of spirituality, ethics, and morality
in the curricula (AAU, 2009).
The Abuja Declaration addresses the curricula, research, operations, and outreach. It also underscores the need for transdisciplinarity, and university collaboration.
The wording of the Declaration is simple, with 31 bullet points
in 4 levels and 798 words, therefore it is of medium length (as
shown in Table 3).
The Abuja Declaration can be found at: http://gc.aau.org/report/
declaration_12th_gc_aau9.pdf.
3.12. Discussion on the higher education SD initiatives
Table 2 shows the comparison of the initiatives elements, based
on Wrights (2004) work. It incorporates ve more elements that
were detected during the analysis, which update the university
system: (1) fostering university collaboration; (2) promoting
transdisciplinarity; (3) implementing SD through campus experiences, by incorporating SD into the day-to-day activities in the
university life experience; (4) educating-the- educators on how to
educate their students in SD and help foster multiplier effects; and
(5) including SD in the institutional framework, where SD should
evolve as the Golden Thread integrating all of these. Two elements

17

are overarching: (1) Sustainability issues, i.e. focus on environmental degradation, threats to society, and unsustainable
consumption; and (2) the Ethical or moral obligations of university
leaders to incorporate and institutionalise SD in their universities.
Table 2 shows that four elements are considered by almost all of
the initiatives: Curricula, Collaboration and outreach, Operations, and
Research, which are in accord with the systems outlined by Calder
and Clugston (2003). Three elements are considered by about half
of the initiatives: Transdisciplinarity, Universities collaboration, and
Educate-the-Educators.
Finally, three elements are considered by only a small number of
the initiatives: On-campus experiences, assessment and reporting,
and the institutional framework. The institutional framework is only
mentioned in the Declaration of Barcelona. Assessment and
reporting are cited explicitly in GHESP, but in the Declaration of
Barcelona and Abuja declarations assessment is addressed, but not
reporting.
An additional analysis (see Table 3) of the initiatives can be
made according to their complexity, number of bullet points, and
length. This analysis provides a guide to the intelligibility of the
initiatives. In general, the initiative wording tends to be simple,
with the exception of the Lneburg Declaration.
The Talloires, Halifax, Kyoto, Swansea, COPERNICUS, Graz, and
Abuja declarations have a small number of bullet points and
a limited number of words, making these easy to understand. The
GHESP, Lneburg, Barcelona, and Turin have more bullet points
than the others. The number of words of the GHESP and the Turin
Declaration is considerably larger than the others. From this it can
be concluded that the Talloires, Halifax, Kyoto, Swansea, COPERNICUS, Graz, and Abuja declarations would be easier to understand
by university leaders and staff, which could help their implementation throughout the university system.
Considering the analyses it is possible to observe that from the
eight initiatives the ones with the more extensive coverage include:
GHESP, the Declaration of Barcelona, the Talloires Declaration, and
the Abuja Declaration. Engaging in any of these initiatives can help
to support HEIs on their SD journey. However, for a more complete
coverage the following options could be taken: (1) engaging in
GHESP and complementing it by incorporating SD as the Golden
Thread in the institutional framework, and/or (2) combining the
Talloires and Barcelona Declarations, and complementing them
with collaboration with other HEIs and a more comprehensive view
of assessment and reporting. These combinations address all the
elements of the updated university system.
4. Conclusions: helping universities become SD leaders
In spite of a number of initiatives, and an increasing number of
universities engaging with SD, universities have remained quite
traditional, relying on Newtonian and Cartesian mental models.
This means that many of them still lag behind corporations and
governments in regards to contributing to making societies more
sustainable. Such mental models, coupled with resistance to
change, and in some cases the self-replicating system of universities, have limited the diffusion of the SD meme in many universities and their system, as well as among all disciplines, scholars,
and university leaders.
The initiatives (such as declarations, charters, partnerships and
conferences) developed to foster SD can provide a framework or
guidelines on how to better embed sustainability into the university system. The different initiatives discussed emphasise that
universities have a moral obligation to work towards sustainable
societies, focussing on environmental degradation, threats to
society, and sustainable production and consumption for this and
future generations. Analysing the key elements and principles of

18

R. Lozano et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 48 (2013) 10e19

the initiatives the recognised university system (curricula, research,

operations, outreach, and assessment and reporting) can be complemented with the following elements: collaboration with other
universities; making SD an integral part of the institutional
framework; on-campus life experiences; and Educate-the-Educators programmes. These key elements must be integrated
systemically in the HEIs in order to provide learning and career
value to those participating in the SD transition.
Although these initiatives are intended to serve as supporting,
guiding, and challenging documents throughout the university
system, this does not ensure that the signatory institutions
implement SD within their systems. There might also be institutions that have not yet signed a declaration or belong to a charter,
but which are, nonetheless, actively engaged with SD on
their campuses. The authors of this paper are currently investigating the number of signatories for the higher educational
initiatives, how these are being implemented, and their university
and societal effectiveness.
The evolution of the HEIs initiatives for SD suggests that
universities are following society and companies when it comes to
integrating sustainability into their systems and better contributing
to making societies more sustainable. Some HEIs tend to respond
slowly to societys needs. Nowadays, however, whether through
public policy or societal pressure the HEIs with foresight and
leadership are beginning to adopt and weave SD into their
curricula, research, and outreach and campus operations.
This paper proposes that for universities to become sustainability leaders and change drivers they must ensure that the needs
of present and future generations be better understood and
addressed, so that professionals who are well versed in SD can
effectively educate students of all ages to help make the transition to sustainable societal patterns. In order to do so, university
leaders and staff must be empowered to catalyse and implement
new paradigms, introducing SD into all courses and curricula and
all other elements of university and college activities, thereby
ensuring that SD is the Golden Thread throughout the entire
university system. Proper academic recognition of the importance
of multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary teaching, research and
community outreach is essential for speeding up the societal
transformations that are needed for sustainable societal development. Such support, recognition and empowerment will help
the academics and citizens to co-work to catalyse the integration
of the SD meme in real societal decision-making processes.
Universities and their leaders need to become more proactive in
making SD an integral part of their system, so that they can become
leaders in creating new and discarding old, paradigms, via reintegrating science and the arts in a transdisciplinary way, and therefore, helping societies to become more sustainable. It should be
noted that this is a continuous process, which requires perseverance and dedication, both in the present, and with a long-term
perspective.

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