Sustainability and Climate Change

Sustainability appears to be at a tipping point. Once a marginalized concept, fighting for attention, today thousands of the world's largest corporations and small businesses, national and local governments, professions, universities, and institutions are incorporating sustainability initiatives into their operations and strategic planning.¹ Pressured by government policy, corporate self-interests, and social expectations, leading companies are taking actions across their value chains, potentially redefining their roles in society and pursuing the triple bottom line in order to respect people, planet, and profit. While sustainability warrants significant political and systematic changes throughout society, in this article, we focus on one integral component: consumers. Surveys indicate that 30 to 70 percent of consumers say they want to buy greener, but only 1 to 5 percent actually do.² Consequently, while many businesses have started to make great strides in greening themselves and their supply chains, they have often left customers out of their calculus. This must change. For 2020 and beyond, we encourage businesses to incorporate consumers into their sustainability agendas by persuading them to act more responsibly and adopt environmentally-preferable products. We offer businesses five principles, drawn from case studies, marketing trends, and the academic literature, to help nudge consumers to go green. Our principles may serve as an initial guide for businesses to identify strategies to meet customer needs and convince them of the benefits of living more sustainably.

Are students graduating from sustainability education programs with the competencies that will enable them to act for sustainability? This case study 1.) explores the degree to which a project-based capstone course advances sustainability competencies; 2.) identifies the extent to which graduating students demonstrate competencies; and 3.) compares two methods of measuring student mastery of competencies. A multiple-choice survey and a qualitative analysis of blog assignments were used and compared. While the survey did not indicate improvement in sustainability competencies pre- and post-capstone course, students showed varying levels of mastery of all the competencies by graduation. However, degree of mastery varied by assessment method. Recommendations for improving competencies include better defining the level of competencies to be achieved, ensuring that engaged pedagogy addresses all competencies, and developing new self-assessment methods for measuring competency mastery.

Transportation is a huge part of any university campus, yet systems can be disconnected, funding limited, and students unaware of alternative transit options. A sustainability team of the four student coauthors developed a comprehensive sustainable alternative transportation plan in 2018 for Furman University. The plan assessed the current status of Furman's transportation system by collecting and tracking necessary, relevant data to help form a vision for a more sustainable campus transportation system and lay out strategies for attaining it. The team focused on ways to reduce carbon emissions from private car use, provide education related to sustainable transportation, and create a campus culture centered on well-being. The team interviewed more than 20 key stakeholders throughout the campus and the community and conducted a comprehensive transportation survey that had 474 student respondents. The team also gathered information and data from the wide array of existing campus transportation components and reviewed 17 other university transportation plans. The plan creates a comprehensive and integrated approach to improve mobility at Furman University. It offers a series of concrete recommendations for improving the sustainability of university transportation, which includes establishing a sustainable transit fund, transportation board, and building infrastructure improvements. These recommendations assist in driving further efforts to improve campus transportation because a comprehensive and integrated alternative transportation system is a key element in the long-term health, safety, and wellness of any university campus.