{"id":6032,"date":"2014-06-24T06:41:05","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T06:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6032"},"modified":"2014-06-24T06:41:05","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T06:41:05","slug":"exploring-a-transformative-orientation-to-sustainability-in-universities-a-question-of-loose-and-tight-framings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/06\/24\/exploring-a-transformative-orientation-to-sustainability-in-universities-a-question-of-loose-and-tight-framings\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring a transformative orientation to sustainability in universities: a question of loose and tight framings"},"content":{"rendered":"

A week ago, I was at\u00a0a poorly-attended, but rather stimulating, meeting of the Higher Education Academy's advisory group on ESD. \u00a0It benefitted from the presence of a senior HEA staffer who brought keen knowledge of the Academy's current problems to the table,\u00a0along with a willingness to be open about them.<\/p>\n

One of the issues we discussed was the evaluation report of how Green Academy cohort 1 institutions were now faring, some 2 years since they began. \u00a0The report is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I asked this question:<\/p>\n

It seems possible, and perhaps even helpful, to make a distinction between universities that are setting out to do sustainability \u2013 maybe even right across everything the institution gets involved in \u2013 and those that are on a developmental and transformative journey towards being sustainable \u2013 as institutions. \u00a0We might suppose that, in the second of these, the work of the institution would embody a vision, values, and values-informed practices that have been shifted to be tightly framed around a particular conceptualisation of sustainability, and it is this framing that gives meaning, not just to what that institution does, but also to what it is trying to become.<\/em><\/p>\n

By contrast, an institution that is more loosely framed around sustainability is one that clearly takes sustainability seriously in what it, and its various constituent parts do, without having in place capstone values, sustainability dispositions and orientations, and the appropriate conceptually-grounded vision necessary to commit to a transformative orientation.<\/em><\/p>\n

It seems clear from this\u00a0report, and the wider literature, that there is now much evidence of loose sustainability framings in universities across the globe. \u00a0Have you found any evidence in your Green Academy work of tight framings and transformative journeys?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The short answer to this overly-long question was \"No\". \u00a0 Even though there is a considerable amount of innovation to be seen, the picture on the ground in this cohort of\u00a0Green Academy institutions, two years in, is patchy at best and distinctly loosely-framed.<\/p>\n

It's clear, however, that there are institutions in the UK that think that they are on such a journey. \u00a0I wonder if Bristol is one of them. \u00a0We may find out on Friday when its\u00a0\"ESD team\" plays host to an ELSA meeting. \u00a0I'll report back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A week ago, I was at\u00a0a poorly-attended, but rather stimulating, meeting of the Higher Education Academy's advisory group on ESD. \u00a0It benefitted from the presence of a senior HEA staffer who brought keen knowledge of the Academy's current problems to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}