IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v9y2021i2p29-40.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Universities, Sustainability, and Neoliberalism: Contradictions of the Climate Emergency Declarations

Author

Listed:
  • Kirstie O’Neill

    (School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, UK)

  • Charlotte Sinden

    (School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, UK)

Abstract

UK universities have been successively declaring a climate emergency, following the University of Bristol’s lead in 2019. Universities are key actors in climate change education, and potentially progressive organisations researching, teaching and implementing low carbon futures. Using universities’ sustainability strategies, we present a secondary analysis identifying neoliberalism’s significant role in influencing universities’ sustainability policies and practices. This plays out through university boosterism where universities use their sustainability work to claim sustainability leadership, representing a form of sustainability capital to attract funding and potential students. Furthermore, we suggest a cognitive-practice gap exists between those researching sustainability and those implementing sustainability in universities. Thus, we conclude that there are inherent tensions in universities’ sustainability governance, with universities embodying contradictory sustainability discourses and advancing a form of green capital. Entrenched neoliberal ideologies present challenges for those declaring a climate emergency and how such declarations are subsequently operationalised.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirstie O’Neill & Charlotte Sinden, 2021. "Universities, Sustainability, and Neoliberalism: Contradictions of the Climate Emergency Declarations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 29-40.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:29-40
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v9i2.3872
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3872
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v9i2.3872?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holly Jean Buck, 2015. "On the Possibilities of a Charming Anthropocene," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 105(2), pages 369-377, March.
    2. Chukwumerije Okereke & Harriet Bulkeley & Heike Schroeder, 2009. "Conceptualizing Climate Governance Beyond the International Regime," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 9(1), pages 58-78, February.
    3. Kian Goh, 2019. "Urban Waterscapes: The Hydro‐Politics of Flooding in a Sinking City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 250-272, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Briony Latter & Christina Demski & Stuart Capstick, 2024. "Wanting to be part of change but feeling overworked and disempowered: Researchers’ perceptions of climate action in UK universities," PLOS Climate, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(1), pages 1-29, January.
    2. Anna R. Davies & Vanesa Castán Broto & Stephan Hügel, 2021. "Editorial: Is There a New Climate Politics?," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 1-7.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kirstie O’Neill & Charlotte Sinden, 2021. "Universities, Sustainability, and Neoliberalism: Contradictions of the Climate Emergency Declarations," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 29-40.
    2. Heike Schroeder, 2010. "Agency in international climate negotiations: the case of indigenous peoples and avoided deforestation," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 317-332, December.
    3. Fred Gale & Francisco Ascui & Heather Lovell, 2017. "Sensing Reality? New Monitoring Technologies for Global Sustainability Standards," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 17(2), pages 65-83, May.
    4. Schleich, Joachim & Dütschke, Elisabeth & Schwirplies, Claudia & Ziegler, Andreas, 2014. "Citizens' perceptions of justice in international climate policy: Empirical insights from China, Germany and the US," Working Papers "Sustainability and Innovation" S2/2014, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    5. Javier Gonzales-Iwanciw & Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen & Art Dewulf, 2023. "How does the UNFCCC enable multi-level learning for the governance of adaptation?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-25, March.
    6. Nygren, Anja, 2021. "Water and power, water’s power: State-making and socionature shaping volatile rivers and riverine people in Mexico," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    7. Jeff Birchall, 2014. "New Zealand's abandonment of the Carbon Neutral Public Service programme," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 525-535, July.
    8. Norichika Kanie & Hiromi Nishimoto & Yasuaki Hijioka & Yasuko Kameyama, 2010. "Allocation and architecture in climate governance beyond Kyoto: lessons from interdisciplinary research on target setting," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 299-315, December.
    9. Naghmeh Nasiritousi & Björn-Ola Linnér, 2016. "Open or closed meetings? Explaining nonstate actor involvement in the international climate change negotiations," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 127-144, February.
    10. Linda K Westman & Vanesa Castán Broto, 2019. "Techno-economic rationalities as a political practice in urban environmental politics in China," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 37(2), pages 277-297, March.
    11. Lucie Sovová & Petr Jehlička & Petr Daněk, 2021. "Growing the Beautiful Anthropocene: Ethics of Care in East European Food Gardens," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-17, May.
    12. Eleni Dellas & Philipp Pattberg & Michele Betsill, 2011. "Agency in earth system governance: refining a research agenda," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 85-98, March.
    13. Mark Carey & Christian Huggel & Jeffrey Bury & César Portocarrero & Wilfried Haeberli, 2012. "An integrated socio-environmental framework for glacier hazard management and climate change adaptation: lessons from Lake 513, Cordillera Blanca, Peru," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 112(3), pages 733-767, June.
    14. Eleanor Andrews, 2019. "To save the bees or not to save the bees: honey bee health in the Anthropocene," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 36(4), pages 891-902, December.
    15. Moritz Albrecht, 2012. "Public Procurement and Forest Governance: A German Case Study of Governmental Influences on Market-Driven Governance Systems," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 1(1), pages 1-20, September.
    16. Michele Betsill & Philipp Pattberg & Eleni Dellas, 2011. "Editorial," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-6, March.
    17. Nicole J. Wilson & Maria G. Lira & Grace O’Hanlon, 2022. "A systematic scoping review of Indigenous governance concepts in the climate governance literature," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 171(3), pages 1-23, April.
    18. Vanesa Castán Broto & Domingos Augusto Macucule & Emily Boyd & Jonathan Ensor & Charlotte Allen, 2015. "Building Collaborative Partnerships for Climate Change Action in Maputo, Mozambique," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(3), pages 571-587, March.
    19. Sen, Amrita & Unnikrishnan, Hita & Nagendra, Harini, 2020. "Imperilled Waterscapes: The Social-Ecological Transformation of Lakes in Bengaluru," Ecology, Economy and Society - the INSEE Journal, Indian Society of Ecological Economics (INSEE), vol. 3(02), July.
    20. Anya M. Galli & Dana R. Fisher, 2016. "Hybrid Arrangements as a Form of Ecological Modernization: The Case of the US Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grants," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-19, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:29-40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.