Sustainable education: principles and practices

This paper is theoretical and presents a synthesis of research and literature on sustainable education. The notion of sustainable education as used in this critique is about educational organisations and should not be confused with education for sustainability which can be viewed as concerning the teaching and learning of sustainability. Sustainability often refers to persistence, sustenance or endurance. It can also refer to preservation of environments, facilities or cultures. And often is connected with development, for example the notion of sustainable development. Notwithstanding these multiple meanings, it is generally recognised that sustainability endeavours involve social, economic, and ecological considerations. Also these three forces are inter-related and inter-dependent. When economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability are being examined from a sustainable development perspective, it is typical for indicators to be specified. For example, economic indicators that measure monetary flow when assessing organisational sustainability. While the types of indicators vary according to the aspect of sustainability being assessed (i.e. economic, social, or environmental), these are also dependent on the object of the assessment. For example, the indicators for social sustainability applicable to a corporate organisation will be different to those for a local community organisation (e.g. city council). From this traditional orientation, the paper examines examples of indicators for different types of sustainability for different contexts. Some alternative ways of understanding sustainability are examined. For example, types of capital (e.g. human capital, social capital and constructed capital), the construct of 'carrying capacity', systems approaches, and sustainable development as a process of learning. Educational sustainability is then approached through understanding sustainability quotients. These quotients which can be applied to many forms of sustainability, are about the balance between what is consumed in relation to what is available. Significantly, because social capital can be created, social sustainability concerns production of human, social and constructed capital. This can be contrasted with ecological sustainability centring on the impact on finite natural capital. Educational organisations that improve the knowledge and skills of learners have the potential to profoundly affect social sustainability with consequent impacts on ecological and economic sustainability. The paper concludes with a series of propositions about researching educational sustainability. These are structured around epistemological, methodological, and organisational dimensions.

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