The Role of Higher Education
Stakeholder Networks for Sustainable
Development: A Systems Perspective
Valeria Ruiz Vargas, Alberto Paucar-Caceres, and David Haley
1 Introduction
The United Nations supported the development of the Millenium Goals that were
adopted in Millennium Declaration in 2000 (UN 2000). Later, these Goals were
developed through a participatory process that became the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs; UN 2015). Sustainable development has been defined as “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987: 41). Apart from the Earth Charter,
(Earth Charter Commission 2000), sustainable development is the only framework to
date that speaks to a wide range of people, including policy makers, internationally
(Estes 2010; Baker et al. 2005). Furthermore, like the Earth Charter, the SDGs are
considered by many to be a democratic framework to address such transformative
global challenges. However, there are large portions of the population that are still
not aware of or are confused by the SDGs and there are critics who consider them
to be too orientated to the values of the North (Kahn 2010: 20).
The United Nations have suggested that the transition to sustainable development ought to be achieved by the engagement of society at all levels (UN 2015). The
V. R. Vargas (B)
Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chester Street, Manchester
M1 5GD, UK
e-mail: v.vargas@mmu.ac.uk
A. Paucar-Caceres
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, All Saints Campus, Oxford Road,
Manchester M15 6BH, UK
e-mail: a.paucar@mmu.ac.uk
D. Haley
Zhongyuan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, China
e-mail: davidhaley@yahoo.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_9
123
Stakeholder Networks for Sustainable
Development: A Systems Perspective
Valeria Ruiz Vargas, Alberto Paucar-Caceres, and David Haley
1 Introduction
The United Nations supported the development of the Millenium Goals that were
adopted in Millennium Declaration in 2000 (UN 2000). Later, these Goals were
developed through a participatory process that became the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs; UN 2015). Sustainable development has been defined as “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987: 41). Apart from the Earth Charter,
(Earth Charter Commission 2000), sustainable development is the only framework to
date that speaks to a wide range of people, including policy makers, internationally
(Estes 2010; Baker et al. 2005). Furthermore, like the Earth Charter, the SDGs are
considered by many to be a democratic framework to address such transformative
global challenges. However, there are large portions of the population that are still
not aware of or are confused by the SDGs and there are critics who consider them
to be too orientated to the values of the North (Kahn 2010: 20).
The United Nations have suggested that the transition to sustainable development ought to be achieved by the engagement of society at all levels (UN 2015). The
V. R. Vargas (B)
Department of Natural Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University, Chester Street, Manchester
M1 5GD, UK
e-mail: v.vargas@mmu.ac.uk
A. Paucar-Caceres
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, All Saints Campus, Oxford Road,
Manchester M15 6BH, UK
e-mail: a.paucar@mmu.ac.uk
D. Haley
Zhongyuan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, China
e-mail: davidhaley@yahoo.com
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities, Sustainability and Society: Supporting
the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63399-8_9
123