The “environmental sustainability” problem

While the concept of “sustainability” traditionally has emphasized the environment, the University of Florida (UF) has learned that integrating all three “legs of the sustainability stool” is a prerequisite to effecting the comprehensive institutional change sustainability proponents seek. By assessing its own degree of sustainability using guidelines established by the Global Reporting Initiative, UF united the interests of the administration with those of campus greening and social progressive constituents and, in the process, established a baseline with which to compare future metrics. Universities,are poised to gain from lessons learned outside of academia and, as at UF, are beginning to reach out not only to environmental interests, but also to social and economic constituencies. The objectives of this paper are to identify and address the major obstacles facing institutionalization of sustainability in the university as evidenced by UF's own experiences and to provide solutions for boosting the university's status as leaders in the sustainability arena.