There is widespread recognition that higher education institutions have an important role to play in the transition towards a more sustainable global society. In this context, many universities have embarked on a journey towards 'sustainability', and there has been increasing research on related processes of organizational change. There is evidence that 'human' factors have an important role to play in change processes and numerous case studies capture how these occur, but there is little synthesis of qualitative research in this area. This paper presents a meta-ethnography of 13 qualitative studies from peer reviewed academic publications. Using a grounded approach, we identified nine themes which we then synthesized in order to develop an in-depth understanding of organizational change processes for sustainability. This led to the identification of a number of hidden contradictions and tensions that seem to characterize such processes. These contradictions and tensions lead to recurring barriers to change and issues that can undermine the very sustainability of change processes. These issues are also influenced by the perception of who has power to affect change, networks and institutional structures. We discuss the implications for research and practice and suggest the need to recognize existing tensions and contradictions through reflexive practice and genuine dialogue as well as developing flexible structures and moving towards 'double loop' learning within institutions. The meta-ethnography presents a look beyond the surface of what has become an increasingly important area of institutional change in higher education, helps to inform practice, and contributes to emerging research imperatives.

This paper argues that the need for a core -fourth pillar‖ of sustainability/sustainable development, as demanded in multiple arenas, can no longer be ignored on the grounds of intangibility. Different approaches to this vital but missing pillar (cultural-aesthetic, religious-spiritual, and political-institutional) find common ground in the area of ethical values. While values and aspects based on them are widely assumed to be intangible and immeasurable, we illustrate that it is possible to operationalize them in terms of measurable indicators when they are intersubjectively conceptualized within clearly defined practical contexts. The processes require contextual localization of items, which can nonetheless fit into a generalizable framework. This allows useful measurements to be made, and removes OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2013, 5 3036 barriers to studying, tracking, comparing, evaluating and correlating values-related dimensions of sustainability. It is advocated that those involved in operationalizing sustainability (especially in the context of creating post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals), should explore the potential for developing indicators to capture some of its less tangible aspects, especially those concerned with ethical values.

There have been recent calls for a shift to an evidence-based paradigm in environmental management, grounded in systematic monitoring and evaluation, but achieving this will be complex and difficult. Evaluating the educational components of environmental initiatives presents particular challenges, because these programs often have multiple concurrent goals and may value 'human outcomes', such as value change, which are intangible and difficult to quantify. This paper describes a fresh approach based on co-creating an entirely new values-based assessment framework with expert practitioners worldwide. We first discuss the development of a generic framework of 'Proto-Indicators' (reference criteria constituting prototypes for measurable indicators), and then demonstrate its application within a reforestation project in Mexico where indicators and assessment tools were localized to enhance context-relevance. Rigorously derived using unitary validity, with an emphasis on relevance, practicability and logical consistency from user perspectives, this framework represents a step-wise advance in the evaluation of non-formal EE/ESD programs. This article also highlights three important principles with broader implications for evaluation, valuation and assessment processes within environmental management: namely peer-elicitation, localizability, and an explicit focus on ethical values. We discuss these principles in relation to the development of sustainability indicators at local and global levels, especially in relation to post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

IntroductionIn this paper we present a way of thinking that clarifies concepts of participation not only across diverse design areas but across other disciplines, allowing clearer comparisons and cross-referencing. We see this clarification as a significant first step to remove multidisciplinary barriers to the productive building of a knowledge base around participation concepts. We suggest that design is the best field to lead this elimination of barriers, and we show specific connections to several other disciplines.Ideas about participation have been actively developed by designers for many years, through the separate traditions of user-centered design and participatory design, and more recently through various schools of co-design and human-centered design. All of these terms now carry multiple interpretations. The importance and role of the participation of "others" in design has been debated in multiple contexts involving functionality, culture, usefulness, social responsibility, identity, design education, and sustainability. 1 Yet consideration of participation is important not only within the field of design. Participation has become a focus of debate among academics and practitioners in very diverse fields. One driver is the growing numbers of peoples of the world who demand active involvement in the planning and implementation of initiatives affecting their lives. In the health sector, participatory approaches to both research (e.g., community-based participatory research) and service planning have become commonplace. In international development, 1980s discourses of participation have now become mainstream.2 "Sustainable"' development has embraced participation as a core ideal, both as a human rights issue and as a means of increasing the efficacy of interventions. Mainstream processes of formal monitoring and evaluation are also becoming more participatory, as non-governmental and civil society organizations take increasingly active roles in defining appropriate indicators and assessment strategies.4 Even environmental management is now characterized by a more "adaptive co-management" of natural resources. 5In most cases, conversations about participation were initiated at the periphery of disciplines (often as a reaction against "top-down" practices). In the field of design, however, different aspects of participation have been under direct and conscious consideration for some time. Designers thus now have an opportunity to potentially lead new discussions across other fields, if they are able to draw together their understandings of participation into a consolidated knowledge base that can seed and stimulate ideas elsewhere. A major challenge in the theoretical study of participation is that it does not yet have a dedicated academic literature of its own; instead, it exists in "clumps" of literature in diverse disciplines. We propose here to start conversations that link these disciplines to design, and to begin to build an explicit home for interdisciplinary research and scholarship on partic...

Illustrate that values-focused assessment can provide a useful lens for integrating sustainability and institutional performance assessment in universities. Design/methodology/approach: Application of values elicitation methodology for indicator development, through thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews and a stakeholder workshop, in a pilot project at BOKU University, Vienna. Findings: This case highlights that many of the values held by university staff and students are prosustainability values. Starting from these values may be a useful way of engaging University stakeholders in sustainability dialogues. The paper illustrates how values-based indicators can be integrated into university performance assessments, providing a novel way of thinking about sustainability assessment in universities. Research limitations/implications: The exploratory pilot was carried out in a university with a focus on natural sciences. Further research could replicate and compare the results of this study in other institutions. Originality/value: Creating a shared understanding of pro-sustainability values can help individuals to reconceptualise sustainability in relation to their own work and motivations. In doing so, it can highlight the inherent synergies between sustainability assessment and institutional performance assessment in the higher education sector, which are usually seen as separate domains.