The Pentland Centre is hosting a seminar exploring how universities can reimagine their role in sustainability amidst growing challenges and opportunities for transformation.
Universities have a unique role to play in sustainability transformation — as brokers of new knowledge, educators of future professionals, and anchor institutions in their communities. In recent decades, the sector has stepped into these responsibilities, taking up the challenge of greening its strategies, operations, and academic activities, inspired by ideas of ‘whole institution’ change. But taking stock of current scenarios suggests higher education is at a crossroads, where dreams of systemic change for sustainability may lose out to macro forces of absorption into business as usual.
Sustainability agendas are hugely ambitious and can easily be disempowered in the face of complexity. As universities navigate financial turbulence, ideological threats to academic autonomy, and rapid developments such as AI, sustainability must reposition itself as an aligned imperative.
Sustainability professionals across sectors are facing similar pressures — where improvement actions are neglected under reporting burdens, and burnout increases as the scope of work expands and embeds more deeply into the organisation.
And yet, the sustainability agenda could help universities to shape the future in powerful ways:
Broadening their impact narratives with refocused strategic goals
Reconfiguring activities to innovate across specialisms and silos
Diversifying their partnerships for innovation and enterprise
Educating for different capabilities and an ability to lead change
Attention to the mindset and cultural change required for sustainability could be key to unlocking this transformation in the core missions of university research, teaching, and outreach — enabling them to better support society in shifting away from an unsustainable trajectory.
This seminar draws on first-hand experience and research in sustainability leadership within higher education, alongside pedagogical insights from work with students and academics. It will consider the learning and leadership mindsets that could power up our universities for a sustainable future.