Abstract
This article reflects on recent calls for universities to deepen their commitments to sustainability in the face of climate change. It suggests that because climate change is a “wicked problem” that is hyper-complex, lacks clear solutions, and affects multiple communities in different ways, universities are unlikely to achieve consensus around a single approach to sustainability. The article reviews emerging critiques of existing university sustainability efforts, including critiques of greenwashing, climate colonialism, and (techno)solutionism. It also offers a social cartography of three different approaches to sustainability: mainstream sustainability, critical sustainability, and beyond sustainability. Rather than advocate for one particular approach, the article suggests that if universities are to maintain their relevance in the context of wicked problems like climate change, they will need to foster spaces for critically informed, complexity-based, and socially and ecologically accountable conversations about the role of higher education institutions in pluralizing possible futures on a shared, living planet.
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Stein, S. Universities confronting climate change: beyond sustainable development and solutionism. High Educ 87, 165–183 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-00999-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-023-00999-w