Universities as drivers of Sustainability - A strategic perspective

Schools of Architecture at European and US Universities, see themselves as drivers for a sustainable transformation of society towards a zero-emission society. In USA the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) was initiated by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) and has compelled American universities to work in a systematic process with sustainability. Danish Universities see themselves as innovative fora for sustainability, however, they do not work with a common system, but each university work with its own process of sustainability strategy implementation and documentation. In this paper, a mapping of strategies, implementation processes and documentation at two Danish universities are compared to how two American universities in the STARS work with and document sustainability. The study presents the strategic framework of each universities’ work with sustainability and how they implement and document the results. The two Danish universities focus their organization on a broad view of sustainability and a self-developed framework of metrics rooted in United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the Time Higher Education Ranking System and the Ui green metrics administered by the university management. The American Universities focus on different sustainability topics within the STARS program. However, they give the authority to separate sustainability organizations within the university structure. This paper explores the pros and cons of having a common systematic approach within which universities can unfold their sustainability strategies.