Education: to be, or not to be, sustainable.
Introducing sustainability in the curriculum, also known as greening the curriculum and education for sustainable development (ESD), would seem a no-brainer. From a moral or normative viewpoint the obligation to sustainability, defined by its economic, social and environment pillars, is unconditional irrespective of whether or not the predictions regarding our global climate long term are to be believed. 
Recent reports revealed that more than 80% of HE students consider that sustainable development should be actively promoted and incorporated into the curriculum by UK universities1 and that students are more likely to be receptive if sustainable development is incorporated in their professional environments rather than the domestic scene.2 The literature covers an increasing number of disciplines including business, management, IT, chemistry and engineering and aspects such as pedagogy design (Lockrey and Johnson, 2013), the effectiveness of changes to the curriculum (Lambrechts et al., 2013) and the added value of extra-curricular activities and greening the campus  (Lu and Zhang, 2013). The Quality Assurance Agency and Higher Education Academy (HEA) have demonstrated their support by producing new guidance for HE providers that focus on competences and the aim of achieving a shift in mind-set that will, it is hoped, affect actual behaviour via a change in position or attitude3 and the NUS has been working with the HEA since 2010 to assess student experiences of ESD and understand the attitudes and skills developed as a result.4
Other actions across the education sector, however, present a mixed and perhaps more confusing message. The support from some HE institutions seems hesitant and spasmodic as introduced sustainability focused modules continue to be optional (see Hoare et al, 2008), compulsory units have been stopped (Lu and Zhang, 2013) and for some providers the focus remains directed primarily towards estates and premises.5 Even though the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, reinstated the topic of climate change in the National Curriculum at Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) after public lobbying, it is at the loss of sustainable development6 and schools are very much left to their own devices in taking the lead, or not, on such matters. The 2014 National Curriculum document for primary schools does not include words like climate change, sustainability or sustainable development at all7; although neither does some of the latest DfE guidance regarding school financing and budgets.8 Yet…are these students not the very sector of the population that has the most to gain from the full integration of sustainability in the curriculum?
Let’s hope that this is not another example of the lack of buy-in by today’s decision makers that will cost our future generations.

1http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/sustainability/2013_student_skills_final_report
2http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/43221/SITA%20UK%20NUS%20Report.pdf
3http://www.qaa.ac.uk/ImprovingHigherEducation/Pages/Leading-Curriculum-Change.aspx 
4http://www.nus.org.uk/en/greener-projects/greener-curriculum/greener-curriculum/ 
5www.eauc.org.uk/sorted/files/esd-embedding_1.pdf
6http://www.wwf.org.uk/wwf_articles.cfm?unewsid=6741  
7https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-primary-curriculum
8https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284968/Schemes_for_financing_schools.pdf

Hoare, A., Cornell, S., Bertram, C., Gallagher, K., Heslop, S., Lieven, N., MacLeod, C., Morgan, J., Pickering, A., Wells, S. and Willmore, C. (2008) Teaching against the grain: multi-disciplinary teamwork effectively delivers a successful undergraduate unit in sustainable development. Environmental Education Network 14(4): 469-481.

Lambrechts, W., Mulà, I., Ceulemans, K., Molderez, I. and Baeremynck, V. (2013) The intregation of competences for sustainable development in higher education: an analysis of bachelor programs in management. Journal of Cleaner Production 48:65-73.

Lockrey, S. and Johnson, K.B. (2013) Designing pedagogy with emerging sustainable technologies. Journal of Cleaner Production 61: 70-79.

Lu, S. and Zhang, H. (2013) A comparative study of education for sustainable development in one British university and one Chinese university. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 15(1): 48-62.