Making Sustainability Part of Every Student’s Curriculum

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) has made a corporate commitment to ensure that “sustainability will be a feature of all our students’ experience”. In order to address this goal ARU has sought to ensure that sustainability is embedded within every taught course across each of our four faculties (Science and Technology, Arts, Law and Social Sciences, Health Social Care and Education and the Lord Ashcroft International Business School). This paper provides a critical review of the individual, discipline specific and institutional challenges encountered and the how these have been addressed. Special mention is made of the significance of strategic level interventions and the support provided by the Higher Education Academy’s Green Academy programme in levering such interventions. The crucial importance of developing a definition of sustainability which is meaningful, non-threatening and encourages engagement, both from academic staff and staff supporting academic activities will be stressed. This paper will be useful to anyone involved in embedding sustainability into HE curricula.