Abstract
Introduction
Through most of 2020 and much of 2021, my colleague and former doctoral student advisee, Patricia Kanashiro, and I (with Gordon Rands, a long-time colleague and coauthor) curated and coedited a peer-reviewed volume of 21 chapters, entitled Personal Sustainability Practices: Faculty Approaches to Walking the Sustainability Talk and Living the U.N. SDGs (2021). (For a table of contents of this book, see the Appendix). In preparation of the book, we sent out a global Call for Submissions to most of the entities with whom we were familiar (colleagues and/or their institutions, as well as members of academic sustainability networks outside our own fields) and received an unexpectedly large number of responses, many of which were excellent both in content and in form and style.
We were aware that, in addition to ourselves (Kanashiro et al., 2020), numerous academics in our respective networks at least occasionally expressed interest in and/or concerns about our collective personal (and, of course, professional) sustainability practices (Ciers et al., 2019). However, we were not able to identify a source of central information on these practices so we decided that we would take the opportunity (and, yes, there was a mild risk of ridicule) to craft a volume focusing on our collective sustainability practices, both as part of our collective academic jobs and our personal lives. The collection of these accounts both fortified our own interest in sustainability behaviors and identified some novel approaches we hope our readers will consider adding to their own personal and professional sustainability repertoires. This article highlights many of those practices.
Rationale for Addressing this Topic
Before describing the personal and professional sustainability practices of our authors and editors, I want to explain why we editors (i.e., Patricia Kanashiro, Gordon Rands, and Mark Starik) think this is an important topic. Focusing on the walk-the-talk concept, we share the opinion that as faculty who teach courses and publish research on sustainability, we are likely to be both more skilled and more persuasive (with either students or readers) if we have the lived experience of having tried and taken various sustainability actions that we are recommending to our stakeholders (Kini & Podolsky, 2019).
While learning how to build a passive solar house is not necessarily a requirement for advocating that technology, faculty who have at least seen, visited, occupied, or otherwise experienced such buildings can more likely help in explaining the technology. Much the same can be said about advocating hybrid vehicles, organic gardening, and composting, or generally about most any other sustainability action. Logically, experience helps build expertise, and this is generally true for practices that are sustainable as they are for any human behavior.
In addition to skill and knowledge-base building, practicing what you preach (Bergart & Simon, 2004) also contributes to credibility; a faculty member's stakeholders are more likely to act on the faculty member's information if the stakeholders think that information is credibly based on experience. So, we hope that our faculty authors (and we editors) are both more knowledgeable and influential and more credible in their sustainability professional lives because they have practiced sustainability in their personal lives (Erkut & Mokros, 1984).
In the first chapter of the book, we mention the value and opportunity for accountability in our walking-the-talk recommendation. Given that faculty have the opportunity and responsibility to ensure that what they are teaching and publishing is accurate, an obvious way to achieve that level of assurance is to experience sustainability up close and personally.
Finally, we note that a human value that is not often displayed in the classroom or in faculty publications—humility—is another aspect of sustainability practice that is discussed by several of our author-contributors (Freire, 1996). The importance of this value comes into play when faculty admit their errors and other limits in their sustainability practice. Such admissions are important disclosures, helping their stakeholders understand that, realistically, some sustainability practices are experimental and occasionally yield unexpected outcomes.
For instance, at the start of the text, I admit that I have taken far too many airline flights in my life (for both personal and professional reasons), and so have vowed in public to only fly in situations that are actual emergencies. In addition, those excessive carbon emissions have prompted me to redouble my efforts to ensure that my ground transportation is as sustainable as possible. Of course, this admission and plan causes some students and others some concern since most see multiple flights for either personal or career reasons in their respective futures. This prompts me to suggest reducing the number of such flights as much as possible and monitoring and supporting both aircraft sustainable technology efficiency upgrades that will reduce carbon emissions in the future and carbon offsets that can help partially mitigate climate damage in the meantime.
Faculty Personal Sustainability Practices
While sustainability faculty (and related practitioners) indicated that they practice a wide range of sustainability activities, several such actions seemed to be identified more than others. Recycling, owning a hybrid vehicle, choosing primarily plant-based diets, purchasing carbon offsets, and engaging in eco-conscious consumerism were mentioned by numerous contributors. Another group of contributors focused on several other sustainability practices that might be described as going beyond the minimum. These practices include other sustainable transport, such as biking and taking trains, and substituting teleconferencing for travel; additional food-related practices such as reducing food waste, composting, gardening, or buying local (such as purchasing from farmers' markets).
Perhaps the most significant personal sustainability actions mentioned were those taken by nearly half of our contributors (including editors) in which significant aspects of their residences were remodeled to increase energy efficiency, moved toward beneficial electrification, and/or installed renewable energy technology systems. What this finding indicates is that our contributors have attempted to include a wide range of environmentally sustainability actions to walk their talk (Higgs & McMillan, 2010). It also indicates that, with the notable exceptions of faculty participation in B Corps (or benefit corporations) and philanthropic donations to and involvement in a few social-action programs, sustainability faculty also have the additional opportunity to engage in more socioeconomic sustainability practices, such as participating in equity-oriented civil demonstrations and/or in sustainability-oriented political campaigns, from the local through the global levels of social change movements.
Faculty Professional Sustainability Practices
Inside the Classroom
Once again, our contributors reported a wide variety of professional sustainability practices that occur either inside or outside the classroom or both. Inside the classroom, sustainability faculty have initiated, designed, and offered numerous sustainability courses, programs, and other educational experiences, once again, primarily favoring (although not exclusively) environmental sustainability. Such offerings have been targeted to multiple levels of students, including undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and executive levels, with a few involving even younger students and participants who are not students but primarily community members.
Most of our contributors have taught multiple sustainability courses and many designed those courses (with some even developing and proposing the programs in which the courses were a part). Besides the expected course topics, other sustainability course topics include: SDGs and Local Action, Sustainability and Public Art, Environmental Entrepreneurship, Sustainability/Non-Profit Consulting Process, and the Economics of Sustainability, among many more unique subjects. In addition to expected and extraordinary sustainability course topics, our contributors included numerous interesting course features, including student (and faculty) sustainability footprinting, sustainability practice and design competitions, sustainability debates, attendance at sustainability-related protests, use of the ABCD Natural Step system, complex adaptive systems, climate risk and systems analysis, radical reflection, ecocentrism, and appreciation of biodiversity.
Many contributors employ the full range of in-class techniques and resources as faculty in other fields. Examples include sustainability guest speakers, simulations, videos (including movies and documentaries), team projects, site visits, in-class demonstration projects, team teaching, student waste and energy audits, debates, and case studies.
Outside the Classroom
Beyond the classroom, our contributors described a wide variety of personal sustainability practices, including sustainability-themed social gatherings, sustainability-themed mural creation, examination of voluntary certifiable management systems, future scenario mapping, homeless- and poverty-related simulations and service projects, sustainability investing, and campus greening projects.
In addition to faculty practicing sustainability in their courses, classrooms, and communities, numerous colleagues have researched multiple sustainability topics and published their work and reviewed the work of others in books, articles, editorials, and other outlets and have presented their research in a wide range of public forums, including conferences such as those held annually by the Academy of Management's Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) division, and in academic and practitioner sustainability gatherings these faculty have organized. Our contributors have launched or otherwise joined sustainability businesses or nonprofit organizations, served on campus and other sustainability committees, assumed leadership positions in a wide range of sustainability-oriented organizations, mentored sustainability doctoral dissertations, advised student sustainability groups, such as Net Impact, and written and administered sustainability grants.
Possible Faculty Sustainability Practices Upgrades
Overall, our contributors have compiled an impressive set of sustainability practices in their homes, transportation, consumption, and campus and community service! Though these have generally highlighted their environmental sustainability practices, rather than socioeconomic sustainability actions, many of the techniques (and some of the practices) may be applicable to both sustainability content areas. Thus, faculty may want to expand their sustainability practices into areas that might more obviously benefit migrant, disabled, and developing country populations.
In addition, while a few of our contributors mentioned participation in PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education), few identified the importance of either the United Nations (which sponsors the Sustainable Development Goals) or organizations such as AASHE (Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education), or any organizations that are nonlocal, as potential influence sites or influencers. Major unsustainable industries, such as fossil fuel providers, traditional banks and other financial institutions, or major transportation, construction, or manufacturing organizations, have apparently not warranted significant attention from sustainability faculty.
Finally, there was limited discussion on sustainability outcomes related to students. While former sustainability students can be influential class guest speakers and external project contacts, these former students may be able to play important sustainability roles in their school alumni associations and address topics such as university endowment investments, campus sustainability construction, and university/college advancement of sustainability-related fields and career tracks.
I recommend that sustainability faculty continue to grow the number and variety of their sustainability practices, both personal and professional, and to address the latter topics mentioned immediately above. More generally, I recommend that sustainability faculty continue to expand their sustainability influence, not only with their students, but also with their colleagues, their university administrators, their elected representatives, and their communities at multiple levels, in general. That said, I am very proud to be associated with my fellow (and prolific!) sustainability faculty colleagues and am looking forward to working with them and others to continue to advance sustainability, both environmental and socioeconomic, at every available opportunity.