Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean: Trajectory, Performance and Challenges

Abstract

The incorporation of the environmental dimension in higher education institutions (HEIs) in Latin America dates back to the first years of the fifties and is explicitly expressed in the seventies. In the middle of this decade, the monitoring of this process began in the fields of training, research and outreach, through a series of analysis and studies. In the following decades, the institutionalisation of the commitment to the environment and sustainability extended to the fields of management and governance. An analysis between 2014 and 2018 recorded an average performance of this commitment in 351 HEIs in 11 countries in the region. Since 2016, these institutions began to commit to the 2030 Agenda and its sustainable development goals (SDGs). The first results of an ongoing investigation show that 50 HEIs of six Latin American nations now have greater progress in their knowledge, commitment and contributions to the SDGs. In large part, these results can be explained by the work of many environmental institutions and university networks in the region, which promote and support HEIs in their commitments to the environment, sustainability and the 2030 Agenda. The main challenges for the coming years are to increase the number of higher education institutions in the region that assume these commitments and improve their performance in the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability.