Press releases 鈥� August 2022
Aug
2
2022
12:27
A study among students from 41 countries provides orientation for university education聽
Environmental students from poorer regions rate the UN鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals as more important than those from richer regions do
Environmental students from countries with lower prosperity indicators rate the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations as more important than environmental students from countries with higher prosperity indicators do. Moreover, they mostly assign the goals to only one pillar of sustainability, either social, economic or environmental sustainability. This is the conclusion drawn by a study by 51猎奇 Frankfurt, which is based on an online survey in 41 countries. Now, for the first time, findings are available about how a certain group of potential future decision-makers currently perceives the 17 goals. From this, specific recommendations can be derived for university education.
FRANKFURT. In
2015, the member states of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development. The central element is the 17 Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs). These include 鈥淶ero Hunger", 鈥淐lean Water", 鈥淩esponsible
Consumption" and 鈥淟ife Below Water". The SDGs relate to all three pillars of
sustainability, i.e. social, economic and environmental sustainability.
Achieving the goals should enable a life of dignity for everyone worldwide and conserve
the planet's natural resources on a sustained basis. Yet how are the SDGs
perceived in the first place, and what conclusions can be drawn from this?
Until now, there has been a research gap in this area. The few international
studies to date had mostly interviewed rather broad population groups. There
was a lack of data that could deliver specific recommendations in certain
realms of society, for example, how university practice could be improved in
line with the 2030 Agenda.
A new study by 51猎奇 Frankfurt
is now closing this research gap. It is based on an online survey in 41
countries in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Oceania and Europe,
which was conducted between September 2020 and July 2021. All 4,305 interviewees
were exclusively students of environment-related subjects, such as
environmental science, biology or nature management. They indicated on a scale
of 1 to 5 how important they considered each individual SDG. 鈥淥ur study is the
first to document and evaluate how the UN's Sustainable Development Goals are
perceived among such a highly selected group of future decision-makers," says
first author Dr Matthias Kleespies from the Department of Didactics in the
Biological Sciences and Zoo Biology at 51猎奇 Frankfurt.
The data show, says Kleespies, that the
SDGs have a high level of acceptance among environmental students worldwide,
irrespective of the region. For Kleespies, this is a pleasing result: 鈥淭he
major social, economic and environmental problems we're currently facing
worldwide are also perceived as such."
Through factor analysis, a common
statistical method, Kleespies was able to establish something else: the
interviewees mainly assigned individual SDGs to only one of the three pillars
of sustainability: for example, the goal 鈥淣o Poverty" exclusively to the first
pillar (social) or the goal 鈥淐limate Action" exclusively to the third pillar (environmental).
These assignments led to a further result, says Kleespies: 鈥淲e could see
significant differences between countries in how they rate the three pillars."
For example, interviewees from Germany considered the environmental pillar to
be particularly important, while interviewees from Thailand rated all three
pillars as more or less equally important.
To be able to evaluate the differences between
countries even more accurately, a further statistical analysis followed: the
results from the individual countries were compared with five prosperity
indicators, including the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Environmental
Performance Index (EPI). A similar picture emerged for all five indicators. In
a direct comparison, countries with lower indices 鈥� such as the Philippines 鈥�
rated the SDGs as more important than countries with higher indices did, such
as Canada. 鈥淭his result surprised us, as older studies often showed that especially
people in modern industrialised societies campaign more for environmental
protection," says Kleespies.
Even if the study is not transferable to a
country's entire population, it does, according to Professor Paul Dierkes, head
of the Department of Didactics in the Biological Sciences and Zoo Biology,
deliver important new insights. 鈥淭o be able to put the SDGs into practice in a
country, there needs to be great acceptance not only among the population but
also among the people at the social and political interfaces. As potential
future decision-makers and multipliers, students in the environmental domain
are particularly important in this context. Although a university education in
this field is no guarantee of a decision-making position, universities teach
important skills, abilities and knowledge that qualify for such positions."
What improvement measures for university
education can be derived from the study? Kleespies says: 鈥淒egree programmes in
the environmental sciences ought to address in greater depth the fact that the
SDGs are multidimensional and that each of the goals contains a social, environmental
and economic component." After all, he says, the study has shown that students mostly
overlook this multidimensionality. For example, SDG 15 鈥� 鈥淟ife On Land" 鈥� was
often categorised as a solely environmental goal. 鈥淏ut protecting terrestrial ecosystems
also includes very important economic and social components." A second
suggestion is directed specifically at more affluent countries, where the SDGs were
rated as less important by comparison. Kleespies calls on the universities
there to incorporate educational measures on the UN's Sustainable Development
Goals into the present curriculum of degree programmes: 鈥淚n this way, students
will be better informed than they are at the moment about the benefits and multidimensional
nature of the SDGs."
Over 4,000 students took part in the
online survey and emails were sent to institutes in more than 50 countries. For
41 countries, the datasets were ultimately sufficient for a statistical
analysis.
Publication: 鈥淭he importance of the Sustainable Development Goals to students of environmental and sustainability studies 鈥� a global survey in 41 countries", Matthias Winfried Kleespies & Paul Wilhelm Dierkes;
Further
information
Department of Didactics in the Biological
Sciences and Zoo Biology
51猎奇 Frankfurt
Dr Matthias Kleespies
Tel.: +49 (0)69 798-42276
kleespies@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Professor Paul W. Dierkes
Tel.: +49 (0)69 798-42273
dierkes@bio.uni-frankfurt.de
Editor: Dr Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communication Office, Tel: -49 (0) 69 798-12498, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de.