Operationalising Competencies in Higher Education for Sustainable Development

The civil war raging in Syria at the time of this writing demonstrates the devastating effects of converging extreme drought, population growth and corrupt governance on natural, human and economic systems (Friedman 2013). A recent study on childhood and adult obesity in the United States concludes that prevalence of obesity has not changed significantly over the past ten years, remaining at more than 33 per cent of adults and 17 per cent of youth (Ogden et al. 2014). The detrimental effects of obesity on American society include the cost of individual illnesses, public health and financial burdens, lost worker productivity, and environmental degradation.Climate change has begun to impact cities and regions worldwide through storms and associated flood damages, extensive droughts, sea-level rise, and other disruptions; with impacts expected to increase in frequency and/or severity (Melillo et al. 2014). The above are but a few of the challenges that pertain to sustainability and display features of significant harm, complexity, urgency and contestation. Throughout this chapter,we adhere to the following definition of sustainability (and by exten-sion of sustainable development and sustainability problems) set forth in the literature (e.g. WCED 1987; Kates et al. 2001;Wiek et al. 2012): Sustainability is the collective willingness and ability of a society to reach or maintain its viability, vitality, and integrity over long periods of time, while allowing other societies to reach or maintain their own viability, vitality, and integrity. Sustainability challenges do not seem tractable to business-as-usual solutions; novel approaches are needed, for example, solution-oriented and transformational sustainability research efforts (Lang et al. 2012; Sarewitz et al. 2012;Wiek et al. 2012; Miller et al. 2014). Similarly, a large-scale educational transformation is needed to equip a new generation of professionals (not only sustainability professionals!) to address sustainability challenges through problem-solving approaches that integrate systems thinking, structured anticipation,value-laden deliberation, evidence-supported strategies, and strong collaboration across government, businesses and civil society (Wiek et al. 2011a).