Climate Impact Forum: embed sustainability in university teaching to save the planet

As the COP26 summit finally begins, after a year’s Covid-induced delay, the world’s response to the latest climate science is about to become clear.

For two years, governments have been mulling the cost of cutting carbon and the complexity of transitioning to clean economies while their communities experience the consequences of delayed action first-hand. Emissions are continuing to rise even though the Paris Agreement to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius requires them to fall by 50 per cent.

Climate change disruption is coming, and higher education institutions face the choice of taking the initiative or suffering the consequences of being left behind. With this in mind, I have been scanning recent news coverage from the sector for fundamental realignments of practices and tangible shifts in investments to make meaningful contributions to meeting the Paris targets. I have not found much.

What I have found are invites to multiple events where university leaders and academic bodies line up to remind us of the urgency of this agenda. I have seen yet more declarations signed. I have seen leaders requesting additional finance to redesign or retrofit buildings. I have seen industry calling for more science and new technologies from the sector. And I have seen youth groups speak about the moral duty of universities to prepare students to contribute to a net zero future.

For those of us who have been engaged with this agenda for some time, it sometimes feels like groundhog day. Here we are again; same arguments, different year.

Some news did come earlier this month, when Universities UK revealed that 144 universities have committed to cut carbon emissions by 78 per cent by 2035. But the expectation was that universities would strive for net zero by 2030 (not 2050). Unsurprisingly, student bodies have responded by describing the sector as out of touch. Greta Thunberg’s “Blah blah blah” jibe, which echoed through the Youth4Climate summit in Milan some weeks ago, may find some resonance with these groups.  

I often write about the need for universities to shift from being mirrors to becoming lighthouses: moving away from reproducing the unsustainable relationships that continue to exist in our societies to help light up alternative futures. And, to be fair, some universities are striving not just to illuminate sustainable practices but adopt these in their core business.

In 2014, for instance, the University of Glasgow became the first UK university to commit to fully divesting from the fossil fuel industry, looking to reallocate around £18 million of current investments over 10 years. Divestment can be seen as first step in the transition of higher education to new business models. And in 2016, the University of Cambridge replaced beef and lamb with plant-based options at its catering outlets and hospitality events, reducing its carbon footprint by 10.5 per cent.

This is all a step in the right direction, but I would like to see more ambition from the sector – and not just in cutting carbon.

It is my view that we are failing our young people. As climate “content” enters course offerings, awareness levels are rising among the student population, but so too is a sense of anxiety and disempowerment. Universities do little to help students envision alternatives or upskill them to create change, either in their professional communities or their everyday lives.

This calls for a redesign of our quality frameworks, pedagogy and curricula, as well as our learning spaces. In addition to understanding the issues, learners need to see the change first-hand. Higher education must create real experiential opportunities, allowing students to become participants who can shape a rapidly changing landscape, rather than simply analyse the change. Herein lies the sector’s ability to become a social disruptor for sustainability.

One can point to universities’ investment in cleaner energy and their reduction in carbon emissions though improvements in transport, estates and catering offerings. I agree that we have seen a rise in the number of university strategies for sustainability and the establishment of sustainability teams. But as the marketing guru John Grant reminds us, “You cannot put a lettuce in the window of a butcher’s shop and declare that it is now turning vegetarian.”

Until universities tackle the engrained contradictions between what they are doing (or not doing) to transition towards net zero and what their students are learning, there will be no climate-safe future. And the good practice that does exist will continue to be seen as tokenistic.

Daniella Tilbury forms part of the UK’s delegation to COP26. She was the inaugural vice-chancellor of the University of Gibraltar and dean of sustainability at the University of Gloucestershire.