Sustainability Institute/Stellenbosch University become founding membersEve Annecke and Mark Swilling represented the Sustainability Institute, School of Publlic Leadership and the TsamaHub (all Stellenbosch University initiatives), at a meeting at the renowned Bellagio Centre which is located on Lake Como in Northern Italy.The meeting was initiated by the Earth Institute at Columbia University to explore the teaching of sustainability.Representatives from institutions who are engaged in the teaching of sustainable development were invited to participate in the 5 day dialogue. Some institutions are well established such as the Earth Institute, the Sustainability Institute and TERI in India, while others are still in the early stages of institution building and curriculum development.
There were participants from the Earth Institute (including Jeffrey Sachs), Oxford University (starting up), Centro de Cambio Global at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (starting up), The Energy Research Institute (TERI) in India, Centre for Sustainable Development at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria, Environment Interdisciplinary Institute at Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil (starting up), Alliance for Global Sustainability at University of Tokyo, Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations at Sciences Po in Paris, School of Sustainability at Arizona University in the USA, Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, Leibniz Institute for Marine Sciences at University of Kiev in Germany, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Peking University in China.
The title of dialogue as “Sustainable Development: Establishing an International Alliance for a New Academic Discipline”. After in-depth sharing about institutional arrangements, curriculum development and research programmes, the participants agreed to establish a new “Alliance” of institutions for the teaching of sustainability. This will be a formal alliance, and will commence with creating opportunities for collaboration between graduate students at the different institutions, including mobility of staff and students.