About the Triggering of UN Sustainable Development Goals and Regenerative Sustainability in Higher Education

Abstract

Humans are at the center of global climate change: The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are igniting sustainability with proactive, global, social goals, moving us away from the Brundtland paradigm ‘do nothing today to compromise tomorrows generation’. This promotes a regenerative shift in the sustainability concept, no longer only considering resources and energy, but also significant human-centric attributes. Despite this, precise ecological and sustainable attitudes have little prognostic value regarding final related individual human behavior. The global cultural challenge, dominated by technological innovations and business imperatives, alongside the mirroring technological fallacy and lack of ethical reasoning, makes the role of small actions, at individual and at academic scale even harder. This paper outlines the context in which universities can collaborate and contribute to triggering sustainability values, attitudes, and behavior within future regenerative societies. This contribution consists in three main areas: the first analyzes the issue of sustainability transitions at the individual scale, where influencing factors and value–behavior links are presented as reviewed from a number of multi and transdisciplinary scholars’ works. The second part enlarges the picture to the global dimension, tracing the ideological steps of our current environmental crisis, from the differences in prevailing western and eastern values, tradition, and perspectives, to the technological fallacy and the power of the narratives of changes. Finally, the task of our role as academics in the emerging ‘integrative humanities’ science is outlined with education promoted as an essential driver in moving from sustainability to regenerative paradigms.

Tracking Sustainable Development Goals – A Case Study of Pakistan

“…The goals of sustainability development encircle the economic, social and environmental perspectives. As per the findings of previous attitudinal surveys Sonetti, Brown [17]; Guan, Meng [18], the discrepancy between the attitude and action exist. Difference between the thinking and action prevails both at individual and national level.…”

SDGs and Innovation in the Business Context Literature Review

“…This is especially true regarding the achievement of SDG 3 (which is regarded as one of the most important) and considering SDG 17 as an aid to pursue it. Such a view is also common to other authors, who consider SDG 17 necessary for innovating teaching and enhancing behaviors useful for the pursuit of SDG 4 [71].…”

“…The thrifty -carefully and not wastefully -use of the resources previously mentioned contributes to the pursuit of the SDG 12 [71]. Furthermore, the adoption of cleaner production practices through technological innovations is oriented not only to SDG 12, but also to SDG 15 [82].…”

Do Codes of Ethics Reveal a University’s Commitment to Sustainable Development? Evidence from Italy

“…The emergence of widespread pressure to adopt a SD strategy at all levels of public life has also played a role in updating the universities' vision of their role in society. If in past centuries universities could be small elitist communities devoted to preserving tradition and knowledge (the so-called 'ivory tower'), the contemporary view of universities' responsibilities reveals the necessity to open universities to a wider horizon, where the value of sustainability plays a central role [41][42][43][44][45]. Universities around the world are trying to include SD into their activities and processes.…”