Universities Facing Climate Change and Sustainability

Climate change and its consequences are among the greatest challenges facing the global community.
So far less discussed is the potential of universities worldwide to contribute to tackling this global task, for example through research and technology development.

Moreover, as educational institutions, universities shape generations of students and thus indirectly influence the basic attitudes and actions of tomorrow's society - an aspect that is gaining in importance in view of the globally growing number of students. Therefore, it is important that they pay due attention to climate issues, ideally in research, teaching and in their operations, in an integrated way.

The report "Universities Facing Climate Change and Sustainability"
shows that universities can already contribute to coping with climate change and and illustrates the challenges they face in doing so. To this end, the authors studied two universities each in seven countries: Brazil, Germany, India, Japan, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The case studies illustrate the different regional  contexts of the universities, and how they are trying to take climate change into account, also as part of their sustainability efforts. The experience gathered in the report may be useful to universities undertaking efforts to better take climate issues into consideration, as part of their operations.

Study can be downloaded here.