World Student Community for Sustainable Development

by Núria S. Besora Guerola

Most people in the world today have an immediate and intuitive sense of the urgent need to build a sustainable future. They may be not be able to provide a precise definition of “sustainability” – indeed, even experts debate this issue – but they clearly sense the danger of “unsustainability” and the need for informed action. They smell the problem in the air; they taste it in the water [1]. Most of them would like to make the first step towards this change, but they don’t know how to do it. They are confused, since the society around them is promoting another message. This confusion frustrates them, and they are left thinking that any change towards sustainability is going to be very difficult to achieve. Their different thoughts make them feel alone in front of the problem, without enough information to begin to act. When they make this realization and decide to become active, education has to be available to give them the skills and the knowledge to act. Education and sustainable development, therefore, must make the journey together.

Education for sustainable development involves a vision that integrates environment, economy, and society. An important distinction is the difference between education about sustainable development and education for sustainable development. The former is an awareness lesson or theoretical discussion; the latter is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability.

Developing and industrialized countries must chart their course toward sustainability with the same perspective and aims, but with different means of action due to the different state of many of the problems they face.

Industrialized countries

Industrialized countries caught up in the excitment of economic expansion (first with a period dominated by heavy industry and more recently with an era dominated by information) seem to have lost sight of the deterioration of the environment and natural resources. The contrast between our bright hopes for the future of the information economy and the deterioration of the Earth’s ecosystems leaves us with a schizophrenic outlook. The expanding global economy is outgrowing the ecosystems upon which our societies depend entirely. Evidence of this can be seen in shrinking forests, eroding soils, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, rising atmospheric temperatures, dying coral reefs and other sensative marine ecosystems, melting glaciers, and disappearing plant and animal species [2].

In these countries, where industry and services have already developed to bring about an apparently comfortable lifestyle and where the essential needs seem to be covered, education on sustainable development should be focused on making society more aware of, and active about, the current pattern of human overconsumption and economic expansion for its own sake. Priority must be given to actions to achieve tangible improvements in this area.

Society must put pressure on decision-makers in government and the private sector to change their policies. In recent decades, some companies have made efforts to develop more sustainable policies. Although much of this work has been done primarily to comply with legislation, companies have adopted environmental policies for a variety of reasons. According to F. Cairnoss [3], these include:

* Management morale: It can be advantageous, and improve general management morale, to have an environmental policy in which pride can be taken.
* Staff morale: Pressure to adopt environmental policies has often come from company employees.
* Consumer pressure: Many consumers wish to know more about the origins of the goods they buy.
* Desire for good publicity and a good image generally
* Desire to reduce unpredictable risks deriving from the costs of environmental damage, particularly in view of legislative change
* Desire for cost reductions, through savings in material and energy use and waste disposal costs

Industrialized societies, therefore, must work on considering not just the final product, but the efficiency of the whole production cycle – that is, not just the economic side, but also seeking, for example, more appropriate treatment for waste generated by the production process. Education for sustainable development in industrialized countries must highlight examples of successful environmental management on a variety of scales (small, medium, and large companies) and from a variety of locations (urban, suburban, and rural). Best practices to highlight could include environmental impact assessment, environmental and ecological auditing, life-cycle assessment, waste minimization strategies, recovery and recycling of raw materials and energy, eco-labelling, environmental transport strategies, and strategies for dealing with organic and biological waste.

Creating jobs and industries that are “greener†(i.e., those having lower environmental impacts) and more sustainable requires a greater focus on education. The need to reorient primary and secondary education to address sustainability has grabbed international attention, but the need at the post-secondary level is just as great, as this is where societyâ€^TMs future leaders and decision-makers are educated. If these young people are expected to lead all sectors of society in a world striving toward sustainability, university administration and faculty must reorient their curricula to include the numerous and complex facets of sustainability [4].

Developing countries

Most developing countries are mired in a state of economic, health, and social chaos that does not cover the most basic needs of the population. The priority in these countries, therefore, should be to adopt sustainable development as a means of providing the possibility of a better future. This future will have to be built with sustainability in mind from the outset, instead of following the patterns of the industrialized countries.

Meeting basic needs requires not only a new era of economic growth for nations in which the majority are poor, but an assurance that those poor get their fair share of the resources required to sustain that growth [5]. Indeed, the economic systems of many developing countries do not include effective policies to allow citizens to use their skills to create their own business, businesses that could help families earn desperately-needed income.

The main health problem in developing countries is malnutrition. Malnutrition’s toll on society is broader, but perhaps more subtle, than its impact on individual health. Nutritional deficiencies often limit children’s capacity to learn. Meanwhile, hunger among adults reduces their strength and physical stamina, which lowers productivity at work [6].

One of the main social issues facing developing countries is population growth. By reducing fertility rates and the threat of overpopulation, a country also facilitates progress toward sustainability. Another social issue is the large number of children – especially girls – who do not receive an education, usually because the child must work to help support the family.

Studies have shown that at least a primary education is required for birth rates to drop and for infant health and children’s education improve. Educating females, for example, reduces fertility rates, since they tend to desire a smaller family and are thus better able to have the health care needs of their children met. An educated woman has high educational and career expectations for her children, both boys and girls. For females, education profoundly changes their lives, including their economic status and how they interact with society. Educating women creates more equitable lives for women and their families and increases their ability to participate in community decision-making and work toward achieving local sustainability goals [7].

If the lack of stability in economic, health, and social issues is overcome through the techniques of sustainable development, the steps that follow will be easier to achieve because the society’s thinking will inherently be sustainable.

Conclusion

Education for sustainable development calls for giving people knowledge and skills for lifelong learning to help them find new solutions to their environmental, economic, and social problems. The well-being of these three areas is intimately connected. It is important to note here that while we have difficulty envisioning a sustainable world, we have little difficulty identifying what is unsustainable in our societies.

The challenge is to raise education levels without creating an ever-growing demand for resources and consumer goods and the associated production of pollutants. Meeting this challenge depends on reorienting curricula to address the need for production and consumption patterns that are more sustainable. Every nation will need to re-examine its curricula at all levels, from pre-school to professional training. While it is difficult to teach environmental, social, and economic literacy without basic literacy, simply increasing basic literacy, as it is currently taught in most countries, will not support a sustainable society [8].

In reorienting education to address sustainability, program developers need to balance looking forward to a more sustainable society with looking back to traditional ecological knowledge. Indigenous traditions often carry with them the values and practices that embody sustainable resource use. While returning to indigenous lifestyles is not an option for the millions of urban dwellers, the values and major tenets of indigenous traditions can be adapted to life in the 21st century [9]. Reorienting education involves teaching and learning knowledge, skills, perspectives, and values that will guide and motivate people to pursue sustainable livelihoods, to participate in a democratic society, and to live in a more sustainable manner.

- Núria S. Besora Guerola, Master’s student in Environmentally Sustainable Process Technology, School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden; originally from Barcelona, Spain

Footnotes

[1] United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, “Sustainable Development,” http://www.unesco.org/education/esd/english/sustain.shtml

[2] L.R. Brown, 2000, “Challenges of the New Century,” in State of the World 2000, ed. W.W. Norton

[3] A. Hutchinson and F. Hutchinson, eds., 1997, “Environmental Business Management,” in Sustainable Development in the New Millenium, McGraw Hill, pp. 15, 17

[4] R. McKeown, 2002, “Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit,” Energy, Environment and Resources Center, University of Tennessee

[5] The World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, “Summary of Our Common Future”

[6] G. Gardner and B. Halweil, 2000, “Nourishing the Underfed and Overfed,” in State of the World 2000, ed. W.W. Norton

[7] Ibid.

[8] R. McKeown, 2002, “Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit,” Energy, Environment and Resources Center, University of Tennessee

[9] Ibid.