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Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals

Brief Summary

Global sustainability action is changing, with solutions borne from rapidly evolving cross-sector global Sustainable Development Goals in particular the Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17). To ensure sustainability learning remains relevant and responsive to a changing world, industry, academia, non-government organizations and environmental education must share knowledge and engage youth in sustainability goals and metrics. This is a collection published in Sustainable Earth Reviews. 

Objective

Incorporating sustainability concepts as part of curriculum and learning tools at the interface of industry, governments, NGOs, and higher education will build capacity within tomorrow’s workforce, and develop future leaders who can straddle partnerships that promote innovation and learning needed to address the global climate crisis. Three golden points for learning sustainability are 1) preparing a future workforce for future industries (which are unknown), 2) creating  industry/student/academic collaborations that creates space for an agile curriculum that can remain responsive to a rapidly changing world and work environment, 3) the complexity of future challenges and the type of education that suits and 4) recognizing that workforce needs and issues are ever changing and have not yet been determined by industry (thus we cannot build a static curriculum to respond to it).

The objectives of Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals are to:

  1. Share visions from perspectives of youth, academia, industry and non-governmental organizations from different regions of the world for preparing the future workforce for global challenges and environmental sustainability
  2. Outline mechanisms for collaborations among the academy, governmental and non-governmental organizations, and industry to ensure curricula is relevant and agile to a rapidly changing world
  3. Promote youth action and engagement as informed participants in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and similar UN environmental fora
  4. Promote dynamic and transdisciplinary collaborations that are global and provide a diverse and ethical perspective for future leaders on environmental negotiations through training and curriculum.

Learning Sustainability: Partnerships for the Goals focuses on the incorporation of the sustainable development goals into curriculum through the lens of cross-sector partnerships whether inside an established academic setting, or through informal learning opportunities. The collection welcomes non-standard research articles, commentaries, reviews on a variety of topics including but not limited to:

  • What partnerships for the goals mean for authentic education
  • Sustainability Action - Youth voices and visions of the future of for-purpose work
  • Views from the industry and academia on sustainability learning
  • Mechanisms for promoting future focused curricula
  • Partnerships for the Goals: Co-developed sustainability curriculum
  • Global education for environmental sustainability: Partnerships and perspectives for a just transition and global equity


Guest Editors: 

Gillian Bowser, Colorado State University, United States of America
Susie Ho, Monash University, Australia


Collection articles

  1. There has been increasing practical and scholarly interest in the engagement of universities with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, there has been limited examination of international universi...

    Authors: Kate Roll, Marin MacLeod, Sena Agbodjah and Iza M. Sánchez Siller
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2024 7:15
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  2. Sustainability, i.e., effective management of natural resources to maintain ecological balance, is taught in formal post-secondary and nonformal education for students of all ages, but is often left out of the...

    Authors: Kenneth M. Klemow, Carmen R. Cid, Leanne M. Jablonski and Don A. Haas
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2024 7:12
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  3. Collaborations with and among faith-based organizations (FBOs), natural scientists, development organizations, and youth offer untapped potential for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ...

    Authors: Dorothy F. Boorse and Leanne M. Jablonski
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2024 7:7
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  5. Amidst the ever-changing and increasingly complex challenges facing the planet and humanity, there is a growing need to educate the next generation of environmental stewards and leaders who are global citizens...

    Authors: Diane White Husic
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2024 7:5
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  6. Graduate students across disciplines are eager for experiential training that enables them to address real-world environmental challenges. Simultaneously, communities across the world face numerous environment...

    Authors: Pamela Templer, Kathryn F. Atherton, Emerson Conrad-Rooney, Heather Ho, Lucy R. Hutyra, Caroline F. Ianniello, Donna R. Kashian, Jonathan I. Levy, David Meshoulam and Mark C. Urban
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2024 7:3
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  8. Current efforts towards sustainability tend to focus on maintaining existing systems and structures, by relying on reductionist approaches to problem solving. Increasingly, there is a call for more effective a...

    Authors: Michelle D. Lazarus and Silvio Funtowicz
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2023 6:18
    Content type: Analysis Published on:

  9. The international development community has approached SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) through the lens of specific supply chains of consumer goods and services. For example, minerals from mine...

    Authors: Manan Sarupria, Naznin Nahar Sultana and Saleem H. Ali
    Citation: Sustainable Earth Reviews 2023 6:14
    Content type: Debate Published on: