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I have written before about the problem of sustainability being framed purely as an environmental issue – and that when it comes to decision-making, what is best for the environment is often quickly overruled in favour of other motivators. This rhetoric-reality gap has been studied exhaustively; meanwhile, the planet continues to burn.
This article has been prompted by 2025 marking my 20th year working in sustainability, much of it within higher education. As I prepare for my next career adventure, I have been reflecting on how the priorities, language and culture in this space have evolved since the mid-noughties – and, perhaps more tellingly, what hasn’t changed.
In 2005, the ‘head of sustainability’ role did not exist. By 2008, I only knew of one director of sustainability. Most of us were environmental officers or environmental managers, often tucked in close to other operational risks such as health and safety. We were almost always positioned within the estates or facilities departments.
Even now, despite our continued professional development, the growth in our professional community and a wider recognition of sustainability as a discipline, I strongly believe we are impeded by institutional memory. Sustainability? Oh yes, that’s in estates, right? Meanwhile, the proliferation of sustainability-related research means that universities are full of academic talent; world experts in their field who are advancing scientific knowledge and understanding of what is the most wicked of problems.
Yet there remains a disconnect between those who research sustainability and applied practice. What works in theory doesn’t always translate in practice, especially when layered with extra factors such as the age, gender and seniority of responsible post-holders (or all three).
Those leading organisational sustainability efforts come from a variety of backgrounds and with different experiences. Naturally, we apply every transferable principle and experience wherever we can – that’s the modus operandi of anyone trained in sustainable development. To succeed, we must be accessible in our language and character; we must listen, translate, signpost and reassure. “Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do something!” This is so easily understood and applied in a financial setting or a financial crisis, but all too often in sustainability I still hear, “I just don’t know what I should be doing”. Meanwhile, any webinar or event with sustainability in the title is forwarded to us.
As Stephen Sterling said in his book Sustainable Education: Re-visioning Learning and Change (2001), the world isn’t suffering from a lack of information; it is suffering from a shortage of people who can join the dots and see the world as a whole.
As long as sustainability is perceived as a separate ‘thing’ – managed alongside other operations, or tucked away in the final pages of an invitation to tender (on page 69 of 70, I’ve seen it happen!) with a token weighting – it will always be considered as optional. The best approach is one of integration – to change our thinking so that we know sustainability is relevant, and it is up to each of us to understand how.
Dr Georgiana Allison FISEP CEnv FHEA, head of sustainability at Lancaster University, is relocating to New Zealand in November. She is exploring career opportunities and welcomes conversations with ISEP members in the region.
