Background

It is widely accepted that there is a need to foster literacy about sustainability, both within and outside higher education institutions. By doing so, one can foster a deeper awareness of sustainable development and its many ramifications into both, professional and personal behaviors. However, the extent to which sustainability literacy exists or is being practiced, has not been sufficiently exploited.

The Symposium “Sustainability Literacy: Faculty, Staff, and Students as Agents of Change” will address this gap. It will focus on the means, methods and processes via which sustainability awareness and literacy may be fostered and deployed, as tools via which we can promote and support sustainability efforts, both within higher education and beyond.

Promoting participatory and inclusive approaches to sustainability, towards the use of literacy, may provide a sound basis for a broader engagement of faculty, staff, and students into matters related to sustainable development. A broader sustainability literacy may lead not only to increased awareness, but also to improvements in both teaching and research programs.

The transdisciplinary Symposium will bring together lecturers, researchers and practitioners from a wide spectrum of the Social and Natural, and Physical Sciences, the Humanities, public health, and other domains of higher education, representing sustainability in the widest sense.