The Ethical and Ecological Limits of Sustainability in Higher Education

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Sustaining and Belonging in Higher Education

Abstract

In this paper, I offer a decolonial critique of the limits of mainstream sustainability efforts in higher education. In doing so, I identify colonialism as the primary cause of climate change, and the primary condition of possibility for modern higher education. I suggest that failure to address the centrality of colonialism in both climate change and higher education is not a problem of ignorance, but rather a problem of denial that is rooted in enduring investments in the continuity of existing institutions and a modern/colonial habit-of-being. I argue that in order to face the ethical and ecological impossibilities of making higher education institutions sustainable, we will need to set our horizons of hope beyond the promises that they offer.

Author

• Sharon Stein, The University of British Columbia