Education for an Environmentally Sustainable Future

Anthony D. Cortese, ScD

Environmental Science and Technology
June 1992, Vol. 26, No. 6
pp 1108-1114.

In the last four decades the population of the world has more than doubled and the world's economic output has increased five-fold. This unprecedented growth is altering the face of the earth and the composition of the atmosphere. Pollution of air and water, accumulation of toxic wastes, destruction of forests, erosion of soils, and depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer threaten the survival of humans and thousands of other living species. The integrity of the earth and its biodiversity and the security of nations are at risk. These changes are a result of the cumulative and incremental effect of daily decisions by 5.4 billion people as well as the economic activities of the productive sector.

We have known for a long time that a healthy environment is essential to human existence and health. Humans can live for about 4 minutes without air, four days without water and 4 weeks without food. Plants and animals and the habitats they occupy provide the food which sustains human life. The earth and all its living organisms supply all raw materials for human activities. Since economic activity is man's way of turning natural and physical resources into products and services which have more direct and immediate utilitarian value, a healthy economy is dependent on a clean, healthy and productive environment. The same is true for every human activity -- from energy extraction and use, food production, transportation, manufacturing and consumption of material goods, to communication, housing and recreation. Moreover, we have known for centuries that contamination of the environment with heavy metals, microorganisms, physical agents, and certain organic compounds can cause serious illness, damage and death in humans and other biological species.

With the doubling of World population and a four- to five-fold increase in economic output in the next forty to fifty years predicted by the World Commission on Environment and Development, meeting human needs now and in the future will require a major shift in the relationship of humans to the natural environment. Currently, twenty percent of the world's population consume 80 per cent of the world's resources. By the time population growth stabilizes in the next century, a 5 to 7 fold increase in consumption of energy and goods will be needed just to raise the consumption level in the developing world to that in the industrialized world [1]. With this kind of growth it is clear that the planet's ecosystems as we know them cannot be maintained nor will the health or the quality of life for the majority of humans improve.

Developing Human Resources for Environmental Protection

A major shift in the relationship of humans to the environment will require a long term societal effort in environmental education. Society will need a continuing supply of environmental and population specialists to deal with population issues and to understand the natural environment and how human and economic values and activities depend on, are affected by and affect the environment and to develop strategies, policies and technologies to keep the environment clean, productive and biologically diverse as we attempt to meet human needs.

Because virtually every human activity affects the environment we need several kinds of well-trained interdisciplinary environmental professionals. Demographers and other population specialists are needed to understand the trends in population growth and to develop the strategies to stabilize population levels that are environmentally and economically sustainable. Attorneys and policy specialists are needed to develop government and industry policy, laws and regulations to protect the environment. Scientists are needed to understand the natural world, the effects of human activity on the environment, the fate and transport of pollutants in the environment and the efficacy of environmental improvement strategies. Health specialists should help understand the effects of pollution on human health and advise policymakers, patients and the public on strategies to reduce health hazards. Engineers are needed to develop a wide array of technologies and products which will minimize the generation of pollution and waste and consumption of resources, control pollution and waste and clean up and restore a contaminated environment. Economists are needed to evaluate the costs to society of pollution and resource destruction, the costs of strategies and policies to prevent or reverse pollution and resource destruction and assist in the allocation of resources needed for environmental improvement. Geographers and planners are needed to develop solutions to environmental problems which are socially, culturally, politically and economically appropriate for different parts of the US and the world.

Current Human Resource Availability and Training

These environmental professionals must be prepared to help lead society on an environmentally sustainable path. Unfortunately, there is a great shortage of such professionals. It has been estimated that 100,000 environmental professionals will be needed in the US alone to deal with hazardous waste problems by 1995. Internationally, there is a critical shortage of all types of environmental professionals, particularly in developing countries. Most developing countries have poor governmental infrastructures to begin coping with existing environmental problems let alone planning for and dealing with critically needed economic expansion.

Moreover, existing professionals need continuing education and training programs to keep up with the complexity and scope of environmental problems and technologies and strategies to reduce environmental risk. The current education and training of most environmental professionals is incomplete. Most of the professionals are trained in dealing with a subset of environmental problems, such as air pollution, water pollution, or hazardous waste but are not trained to deal with environmental issues in an integrated and comprehensive fashion. This only helps to exacerbate intermedia environmental problems that have emerged in the last two decades. For example, until 1980, pits, ponds and lagoons were used for industrial waste disposal to prevent surface water pollution with little regard for the serious groundwater pollution that resulted. Many of the recently recognized environmental problems such as indoor air pollution, wetlands protection, global climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, deforestation and loss of biodiversity are not systematically included in most of the academic degree programs educating environmental professionals.

Pollution specialists are rarely trained in natural resources management, conservation or preservation of biodiversity and vice versa. And when taught about public policy strategies for moving society toward environmentally responsible action it is usually about government mandated "command and control" regulation. However, the diverse and diffuse nature of human activities which are causing environmental transformation and degradation clearly require that society utilize every possible tool to change the behavior of individuals and institutions. As articulated by the EPA Science Advisory Board in its recent report, Reducing Risk, these tools should include market incentives, technology transfer, technical assistance, research and development, the provision of information to government, industry, and the public, and education and training [2].

Finally, the current education and training programs produce people largely oriented toward controlling, remediating or cleaning up environmental problems. We must change our philosophy to anticipating and preventing pollution and maintaining the productivity of biologically diverse ecosystems as the strategy of choice. This new thrust is espoused both by EPA Administrator Bill Reilly, the EPA Science Advisory Board and the UN Commission on Environment and Development. Economic development, industrial, transportation, agricultural and other strategies that reduce the consumption of resources, the use of toxic substances, the production of wastes and preserve the productivity of ecosystems are essential to prevent further environmental degradation, to protect human health and to meet the basic needs of current and future generations. Such strategies involve changing products and industrial processes; substituting less toxic materials and less polluting fuels; increasing energy, water and materials efficiency; conserving natural resources, e.g., sustainable use of renewable energy and natural resources; reuse and recycling of "waste" products and maintaining natural parks and biological preserves. Pollution prevention and environmental sustainability is not a central theme of most environment and development professional education programs. A recent survey by EPA's National Advisory Council on Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT) found that only 10-15 of the nation's nearly 400 engineering schools have significant coursework in pollution prevention [3]. Where it is taught, it is often one strategy of environmental management usually in a special course.

There is a huge gap in the knowledge of professionals and workers in all fields and of the public concerning the way in which their actions both depend on the environment and affect the quality of the environment and public health. Environmental education is not a central part of the mission of all levels of education -- from K-12 through colleges, universities and professional schools. Current education at all levels is based on developing knowledge, understanding, skills, and competency in specific disciplines, e.g., mathematics, science, economics, chemical engineering. Understanding the natural environment and how human activities depend on and affect it are absent from the regular curriculum. This is in part due to an emphasis on developing the analytical and critical thinking skills which come from studying specific subjects and, in part, to develop the specialized knowledge necessary for the job market.

Higher Education and Environmental Protection

Colleges, universities and professional schools educate most of the people who develop and manage society's institutions and train the teachers who educate children from the kindergarten through high school, vocational schools and community colleges. For these reasons, universities bear profound responsibilities to increase the awareness, knowledge, technologies and tools to create an environmentally sustainable future. Universities have all the expertise necessary to develop the intellectual and conceptual framework to achieve this goal. Universities must play a strong role in education, research, policy development, information exchange and community outreach to help create an equitable and sustainable future.

Understanding the interactions between population and human activities and the environment and developing strategies, technologies and policies for an environmentally sustainable future are among the most complex issues with which society must deal. Because colleges, universities and professional schools have been organized into specialized areas of knowledge and traditional disciplines ( e.g., biology, economics), it is often difficult to convene the necessary skills for the teaching and research on these issues. For example, earth science is approached as if the world were a collection of separate biological and physical systems instead of treating the biosphere as a fully integrated functioning life system. Tenure and promotion of faculty and curriculum and degree requirements are largely controlled by disciplinary faculty in different schools of study. Administrators (presidents and deans) have limited day in academic direction. Quality scholarship is often synonymous with originality in a single discipline. For these reasons, academic programs to produce environmental specialists and to perform needed research usually are started with and sustained with external funding (soft money). Because they are multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary they are often considered to be academically less rigorous and inferior to traditional academic programs. And they are often considered as "temporary" or "faddish" programs by their academic peers.

In addition to these institutional factors, predominant societal beliefs contribute to the absence of environmental education as a central part of education at all levels. Most of us in the western, industrialized world believe that the natural environment exists primarily for human use before other species; that natural resources are free and inexhaustible; that the natural environment will adapt to and assimilate any changes and byproducts caused by humans; that technology can solve all environmental problems without any inconvenience; and that each person's daily activities have a small, local, and insignificant impact on the environment and other humans. This is reflected in current status of environmental education in schools of management and business. It is estimated by the Management Institute of Environment and Business that about 25 of the 1200 such schools in the US have a course on business and the environment and none require the course for graduation [4].

Future Environmental Education

We need a concerted national and international strategy to ensure that there is an adequate and continuing supply of environmental professionals. These professionals must be trained to understand environmental issues in a holistic and integrated fashion involving population, natural resources and pollution. Pollution specialists must be trained to address environmental impacts in all the environmental media (air, water and land) and to both anticipate and prevent as well as control and remediate environmental problems. And they must learn all the tools available to encourage environmentally sustainable action by individuals and institutions, not just government regulation.

While this strategy is necessary it is not sufficient to lead us on an environmentally sustainable path. Because all members of society consume resources and produce pollution and waste, it is essential that all of us understand the importance of the environment to our existence and the quality of life and that we have the knowledge, tools and ethic to carry out our daily lives and professions in ways that minimize the impact of our actions on the environment. That is, the ability to have a sustainable future is entirely dependent on having the next generation of human beings be environmentally "literate and responsible."

Environmental literacy and responsibility require a new educational strategy at all levels -- K-12, colleges and graduate and professional schools. The environment should not be solely a special topic or a subject for professionals who will work on environmental problems. Because the environment provides the basis for life and is a major determinant of the quality of life, it must be a fully integrated and prominent part of all education. This will allow broad, continuing and repetitive exposure to the environmental issues in the proper context -- related to all human activities, ideas and values. This is especially important for education of professionals in business, engineering, science, medicine, architecture, economics, government, science, demography and law. With such knowledge and understanding, these professionals will help make our productive sector and government more efficient in the use of natural resources and energy and reduce adverse impacts of their activities on society. Business and industry will be more competitive and successful and will improve community and government relations.

What would it mean for professionals to be environmentally literate and responsible? A focus on two professions -- business management and engineering -- provides some insight.

Environmental degradation and pollution are among the most important concerns for business, industry and government. Environmental pollution affects the health and productivity of workers, the general public, fisheries, agriculture and forests. Depletion and destruction of natural resources will constrain short and long term economic growth. Societal actions such as laws, regulations, taxes, legal and financial liability for environmental damages and restoration will increasingly limit business decisions. Investors and consumers are demanding increasingly environmentally responsible economic products and activities. Pollution control and waste management costs are rising rapidly. Citizen opposition to industrial activities and waste management facilities are rapidly accelerating and may affect the right or the ability of industry to operate in many locations. Moreover, job seekers (particularly graduating students) are increasingly questioning the environmental record and commitment to environmental stewardship of potential employers. The ability of the productive sector to remain competitive and to sustain their activity will increasingly depend on their response to environmental issues.

Since most major business decisions affect the environment, engineering and business school students should be taught how the products sold and services rendered, production facility design and location, choice of technology and process for production materials, management of unwanted byproducts such as pollution and wastes, mergers and acquisitions of businesses, real estate transactions, and investments affect the quality of the environment and human health. They should also be taught what the private sector's legal and financial liability is for the pollution and waste, how environmental regulation by government and the judicial system will affect their business and what they can do to reduce compliance costs. The value of business decisions, technologies, products and services that encourage less energy and resource intensity and less pollution and waste must be part of their education. Because the effect of pollution and waste on people and the environment are not part of conventional pricing of goods and services, nor is the depletion of natural resources, business and engineering students must be taught the economic principles which properly account for these effects in both the short and long term and how current methods of short term economic analysis mitigate against environmental protection. Students should also be taught organizational strategies for management of environmental issues and problems within corporations. Future business leaders should understand how consumer and investor pressure for environmentally responsible products, services and manufacturing will affect business competitiveness. And they should be taught the social responsibility of the productive sector in minimizing environmental impacts throughout the entire production cycle -- from the extraction of resources through production, use and final disposal. This will lead to more efficient ways of producing goods and services while preserving the natural bases upon which the entire production cycle depends.

The Talloires Declaration

How do we make environmental education an integral part of the nation and the world's education? In October 1990, Tufts University president, Jean Mayer convened 22 university presidents from 13 countries at the Tufts European Center in Talloires, France to discuss the role of universities and, in particular, the role of university presidents in working toward an environmentally sustainable future. Assisted by internationally respected environmental leaders, the presidents discussed the role of universities in education, research, policy formulation, and information exchange in managing human impact on the environment. Since the majority of the presidents were from developing countries, concerns about population, resource depletion, poverty, and the need for substantial assistance from industrialized countries received equal attention with local, regional, and global pollution problems. Many of the observations about the nature and structure of higher education discussed earlier were also discussed.

The conference resulted in a declaration of actions to be taken by participants to make environmental education and research a central goal of universities around the world (Figure 1). Since that time, 125 university presidents from 32 countries have signed the declaration. In addition, the Conference of European Rectors (representing 490 university rectors) has endorsed the declaration's principles which are also referenced in the preparatory documents for the UN Conference on Environment and Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

The Tufts Initiative

With the strong direction and support of President Jean Mayer, Tufts has made a major commitment to ensuring all students graduating from Tufts in the Schools of Engineering, Liberal Arts, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Nutrition and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy are environmentally literate and responsible citizens. This is being done through the Tufts Environmental Literacy Institute (TELI) which develops the capability of faculty in a wide variety of disciplines to incorporate the teaching of environmental issues and perspectives within their teaching specialties. This strategy will ensure that students will receive broad perspectives and continuing exposure to environmental issues in the context of their professional studies.

Established in 1990 with support from the Allied Signal Foundation and later with additional support from Union Carbide and EPA, TELI conducts two-week intensive workshop each spring on environmental science, engineering, policy and management for faculty from a variety of disciplines. The program is conducted by environmental specialists from academia, government , industry and environmental groups. Faculty, with modest financial and technical support, work on revising their regular curriculum to integrate environmental issues and perspectives during the summer. Revised curricula are reviewed by other faculty and, after evaluation, are made available to faculty at other universities as part of a larger strategy to extend the reach of TELI programs.

The results to date have been very encouraging. In its first year, TELI developed the capability for 25 Tufts faculty members to incorporate the teaching of environmental issues into such diverse curriculum in mechanical engineering, economics, history, international diplomacy, drama, sociology, and chemistry. This year 45 faculty members from Tufts and 10 other universities, including universities in Brazil and Canada participated in the program. A member of the Supreme Soviet, a Korean development economist, an Indian university president and a Brazilian university faculty member joined tufts environmental specialists in conducting the program. As a result, between 5000 and 8000 students have been or will be exposed to environmental issues and perspectives in non-environmental courses in 1991 and 1992.

For example, an engineering professor has redesigned the freshman course in Engineering Design involving 200 students. Using the university itself as a case study, students identified ways to reduce the use of fuel, electricity, water, and solid materials and the production of pollution and wastes in three major Tufts buildings. An economics professor developed a course in Environmental Economics and Policy which involved executing a major project in cost/benefit and life cycle cost analysis on products used by Tufts dining services, water conservation, fertilizer use, transportation and composting. A Spanish professor has revised all 6 major courses required for a major in Spanish to include environmental readings from Spain and Latin America and to make environmental issues and controversies the subject of paper topics and debates. Two civil engineering professors have modified their courses in geotechnology, soil mechanics and foundation engineering to use environmental problems such as landfills, sludge disposal and waste containment and cleanup along with more traditional examples such as dam building. A direct result has been the formalization of a new MS degree in environmental geotechnology. A drama professor is using an environmental theme as the content base for two acting courses. In both, acting is being taught, but the environment is the topic or theme for many in-class exercises and homework assignments (e.g., personal storytelling, scenes from existing plays, and selected readings about the environment).

Our long-term goal is to have TELI serve faculty from high schools and other universities in the Northeastern US and universities in developing countries. The strategy for the latter is to develop the capability of universities to establish their own TELI unique to their culture, but connected with Tufts. We are planning to conduct a training program for faculty from the Universities of Sao Paolo, Mato Grosso and Brasilia in Brazil in the summer of 1992. By developing the capability of 500 faculty members from Tufts and other universities over the next 5 years, 75,000 to 100,000 students will receive broad, continuing and repeated exposure to environmental issues in the context of their regular disciplinary studies.

TELI programs are complemented by another new initiative, Tufts CLEAN! (Cooperation, Learning and Environmental Awareness Now!), a demonstration program initiated with EPA funding in 1990 to reduce the local, regional and global environmental impacts of Tufts' activities on our three campuses. Tufts CLEAN! is engaging students, faculty, staff and administration in pollution prevention strategies which we hope will be an example for other universities, nonprofit organizations and industry. Because Tufts is a microcosm of the larger community, the manner in which it carries out its daily activities is an important demonstration of ways to achieve environmentally sustainable living. By practicing what it preaches, the university can both engage the students in understanding the "institutional metabolism" of materials and activities and have them actively participate in minimizing their environmental effect on both the Tufts and larger communities. Tufts CLEAN! is also making it possible for faculty and students to try out new knowledge and skills developed through TELI programs. To date, a university environmental policy and a university-wide structure have been established by President Mayer and efforts in recycling and energy conservation have been expanded.

Encouraging Environmental Education Globally

In view of the rapid environmental changes occurring around the world how can we encourage the education necessary to move us toward an environmentally sustainable path?

Development Assistance

Since over 90% of the world's population growth and much of the economic growth expected in the next 40 years will be in developing countries, it is important that environmental education be made a priority as economic development occurs. Industrialized countries should provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries to catalyze the environmental education effort. A percentage of development assistance should be set aside for environmental education and training so that new economic development can be done in an environmentally sound manner. This policy should be applied to bilateral as well as multilateral financial assistance agents such as the World Bank.

The financial and technical assistance should be applied to short term training of the existing professionals in government and industry and to development of the capability of universities to produce environmental specialists.

Faculty and Curriculum Development

The shortage of well-trained environmental specialists and the development of an environmentally literate and responsive workforce will require a broad effort in faculty and curriculum development at all levels of education. Faculty development will involve adding new faculty and retraining existing faculty in colleges and universities so that they can both produce environmental specialists and perform the research necessary to put us on an environmentally sustainable path. It will also require a significant increase in funding for research on environmental science and environmentally friendly technologies and policies since the availability of research funding drives the research and education at most research oriented universities. Faculty development programs must also be targeted toward the general faculty in primary and secondary schools as well as in higher education. Programs such as the one being tried at Tufts have the potential to reach a broad number of students very quickly. For example, for a modest investment -- an annual cost of $250 million -- 100 regional centers worldwide focused on high school and college faculty and curriculum development could train 50,000 faculty who would, in turn, educate 1-2 million students per year. In addition, each center could train approximately a thousand practicing professionals per year.

Creating the Demand

Students, parents of students, alumni, prospective employers and organizations funding research and education (government, industry and foundations) are all consumers, clients or supporters of higher education's services. They each have varying levels of influence on academic direction and the programs of the university but collectively have the greatest potential to encourage innovation in environmental education. To date, all of these stakeholders have exerted modest influence on higher education concerning environmental education and little influence on pollution prevention education.

If we are to encourage higher education to produce the environmentally aware professionals and environmental specialists needed to lead us on an environmentally sustainable path, its stakeholders must accelerate their request for environmental education and research. There is a growing student demand at colleges and universities in the US and internationally for environmental education and for the institutions to reduce the environmental impact of their own operations. This "greening" of campuses must be encouraged and expanded. Government which provides over 90% of the funding for research must make a larger portion of its research budget (over $15 billion in basic research in the US annually) available for environmentally sound technology development and for environmental science and policy. For example, EPA support to universities for environmental research is about $50 million annually. EPA and other federal agencies need to expand their funding of both environmental education and research. Finally, prospective employers (e.g., government and industry) must begin to communicate with higher education both directly and through their hiring practices about the need for both environmental specialists and environmentally literate and responsible graduates in all fields.

Summary

All of these actions are necessary to produce the educated workforce necessary to lead us on an environmentally sustainable path. EPA should play a dual role of providing direct support for environmental education and lead an intergovernmental and intersectoral effort to develop a long-term societal strategy for environmental education. This is extremely important because it is impossible to take environmentally responsible action unless we are so motivated and have the knowledge and tools to do so. As the Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum recently said, "In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught."

Bibliography

1. Our Common Future. Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations. 1987.

2. US Environmental Protection Agency, Science Advisory Board. "Reducing Risk: Setting Priorities And Strategies for Environmental Protection." SAB-EC-90-021. September 1990, pp. 15, 21.

3. Allen, D. "Survey of Pollution Prevention Education in US Engineering Schools." Report of the Pollution Prevention Focus Group, Pollution Prevention Education and Training Committee, EPA National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. May 1992.

4. Arnold, M. Personal Communication. World Resource Institute's Management Institute of Environment and Business. Washington, DC: 1990.

5. "The Role of Universities and University Presidents in Environmental Management and Sustainable Development." Report and Declaration of the Presidents Conference at the Tufts University European Center, Talloires, France: October 4-7, 1990.