Abstract
Education for sustainable development (ESD) initially emerged around the 1990s, and it has opened the possibility to re-think areas such as management education. Although the original purpose of inclusiveness and creativity has been gradually replaced by metrics, while keeping the idea of “development as growth” largely unquestioned, drawing upon the work of organisational researchers like Heather Hopfl, this chapter presents a critique of the evolution of ESD in the UK revealing a rationale that transforms guiding principles into metrics, emphasising “efficiency” over “care.” The researchers relate to the principles of humanistic management, in its consideration of social value generation linked to financial success. The authors propose to enhance the notion of “values” by revisiting the concept of “virtues,” particularly in the consideration of sustainability. Finally, the authors draw upon interest in aesthetics and praxis to propose an “aesthetic education for sustainability,” as a critical and purposeful approach of questioning and imagining hopeful ways of living and learning.
TopIntroduction
If we follow educationalist David Orr’s assertion in which environmental problems are not the work of ignorant people, “rather, it is largely the result of work by people with BA's, BSc.'s, LLB's, MBA's and PhD's” (Orr, 2004, p. 7), then higher education institutions are also accountable for such problems. This realization has informed discussions in the United Kingdom as well as at the international level concerning the integration of sustainability and environmental practices in curriculums, campuses and relationship with communities (Jamali, 2006; Sammalisto & Lindhqvist, 2007; Sterling & Witham, 2008; Filho, 2009; Filho 2012; Gomez, Saez-Navarrete, Lioi & Marzuca, 2014). These changes and ideas have emerged initially from international discussions, prompted by the UNESCO Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2005), and the provision of guiding principles for specific disciplines such as management studies such as the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (Wilhelm, 2008; UNPRME, 2019). Quality assurance organizations such as the Quality Assessment Agency for Higher Education (QAA, 2014) in the United Kingdom, has also offered some specific parameters to develop education for sustainable development ideas on three main areas: Knowledge, Skills and Attributes or Values. It is somehow expected that education will translate into actions in enterprises, organisations and corporations, as well as environmental practices at every managerial level.
This initial enthusiasm has allowed the questioning of educational structures and university culture, while assuming responsibilities in addressing the actual causes for current environmental problems and economic crises, based on specific definitions of sustainable development provided by the above-mentioned agencies. On the other hand, there have been some interesting attempts at subverting and criticizing these goals, by introducing alternative frameworks focused on nurturing sustainability stemming from deep ecology, eco-feminism (Di Chiro, 2014, Philipps & Rumens, 2015) and critical systems thinking (Porter & Cordoba, 2009). From initial discussions about what exactly is “education for sustainable development” toward the emergence of experiments and research in this area, it is true to say that this discussion represents an interesting opportunity to re-think some of the underlying causes of the crisis of “business as usual” (Orr, 2004) that can be traced back in the educational approaches (or the lack of) to sustainability.
In general, higher education institutions in the United Kingdom have gradually adopted the principles of education for sustainable development (ESD). For example, the student-led organization People and Planet Green League (People & Planet, 2019) offers a “taxonomy” of universities committed to ESD based on quantitative data, complemented with case studies. Other professional accrediting institutions such as the Institute for Environmental Management Accreditation (IEMA) have drawn a map of “knowledge, skills and attributes” that need to be developed throughout the professional career: from graduate level to senior management and directive levels (IEMA, 2019). Similarly, the “sustainability literacy test” is focused on certain specific numbers and figures to evaluate students’ knowledge and attitude toward sustainability (Carteron, Haynes & Murray, 2014). The problem with these leagues and tables is that they somehow reproduce the idea of measuring without questioning what sustainable development. They seem to be happy to “measure” sustainability rather than nurturing it, and this attitude is replicated in the attitudes of graduates and organisations when addressing sustainability.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Education for Sustainability: Is a journey, constantly evolving life-long learning process questioning, critically accessing the existing patterns, practices, and worldviews. It opens up for a new creative, innovate ways of generating knowledge and understanding about sustainability issues, and eventually that contributes towards society transformation.
Aesthetics: A branch of philosophy concerned with the relationship between the good and the beautiful. Throughout history aesthetics has, however, has become limited to the superficial aspects of art theory and art history, while its potential in relationship with pragmatism and education have been largely ignored.