White Paper: Implications of appointed actors’ academic-operational positioning on prioritised domains for sustainability work: Insights from three universities in Europe and North America
This paper compares sustainability governance at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and the University of Toronto. Drawing from mixed-method, qualitative case-studies of the three universities, this paper seeks to understand how the academic and/or operational positioning of sustainability actors within the institutions influence the prioritization of certain domains over others in the advancement of sustainability at the universities. The purpose of this paper is twofold:
- Help upper management and staff at universities understand the benefits and challenges according to the positioning of sustainability actors or centres within their institution’s hierarchical structure;
- provide “Sustainability in Higher Education” (SHE) academics with additional insight on recent developments of sustainability in universities.
This work was made possible by the kind donation of Wendy Adams.