Washington University in St. Louis
ER-5: Sustainability Course Identification

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
From the Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, 1987.

Washington University honors the spirit of sustainability captured in the famous quotation of the Brundtland Commission. On the other hand, we recognize that sustainability is a complex term, because it embraces concepts that as a matter of practice can be in conflict with one another. A community may overuse a limited natural resource because they perceive such exploitation is necessary to compete economically or even to survive. In another setting, a country may have an abundance of resources that could benefit other nations but its social infrastructure is unstable and inequitable making cooperation difficult. All of these complexities are combined in a world where resources are used unevenly by the world’s population. Technological advances in efficiency in food, energy, or material production, if implemented worldwide, could move more societies closer to a sustainable lifestyle, but these advances are just one component of an overall sustainable solution. At Washington University, we recognize these intricacies and view sustainability through the lenses of the environment, the economy and our social structures.

Through our research, our teaching, and our engagement with those outside of our community, we strive to create viable solutions that may address some or all three of the components of sustainable systems. We also want to help train tomorrow’s leaders to use our resources efficiently and find innovative solutions to human-environment issues.

One important way to work with our future leaders is through our sustainability-focused courses that concentrate on the concept of sustainability and our sustainability-related courses that incorporate sustainability as a topic or focus on one of the components of sustainable systems.

Each school on campus was provided with the WU Sustainability Definition and asked to complete a survey of its courses, indicating those that fall into the categories of 'Sustainabiliy-related' and 'Sustainabiliy-focused.'

Work was done by the Sustainability Office to supplement the information received from each school to complete the survey. An intern was employed for several hours to review coursework in the School of Arts & Sciences.

In some cases where the course directory was very large, keywords were used to cull down the results.