We Can Only Do It Together: Addressing
Global Sustainability Challenges
Through a Collaborative Paradigm
Helen Avery and Birgitta Nordén
1 Introduction
A consensus is emerging in both scientific circles and international policy discourse
that business-as-usual approaches to sustainability have led to a critical state, and that
urgent measures are required to reverse these dynamics. At the same time, national
and international commitments to address the crisis remain reluctant to reconsider
the assumption that growth can continue unchecked (Alexander 2012; Gough 2017;
Adloff and Neckel 2019). Indeed, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
the argument is even made that growth should be encouraged to provide the necessary resources for implementing the goals, and efforts for sustainability in higher
education seldom question that paradigm (Ruiz-Mallén and Heras 2020).
In recent decades, we have seen that growth, as such, does not address inequity
within or across states, and instead tends to reinforce an extractivist model that
concentrates control over resources and key technologies in a small number of hands
(Acosta 2013). Technological advances have not offset environmental impacts and
emissions continue to rise. Climate change and other environmental impacts continue
to disproportionately affect the poorest, destroying the basis of their livelihoods.
Both armed conflicts and economic warfare, aimed at control over water, minerals
and hydrocarbons, drive internal displacement and forced migration, increasing the
number of people worldwide that no state is willing to take responsibility for. It
H. Avery (B)
Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies and Centre for Environmental and Climate Science,
Lund University, Lund, Sweden
e-mail: helen.avery@cme.lu.se; helen.avery@lnu.se
Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
B. Nordén
Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
e-mail: birgitta.norden@mau.se
© 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_16
239
Global Sustainability Challenges
Through a Collaborative Paradigm
Helen Avery and Birgitta Nordén
1 Introduction
A consensus is emerging in both scientific circles and international policy discourse
that business-as-usual approaches to sustainability have led to a critical state, and that
urgent measures are required to reverse these dynamics. At the same time, national
and international commitments to address the crisis remain reluctant to reconsider
the assumption that growth can continue unchecked (Alexander 2012; Gough 2017;
Adloff and Neckel 2019). Indeed, in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
the argument is even made that growth should be encouraged to provide the necessary resources for implementing the goals, and efforts for sustainability in higher
education seldom question that paradigm (Ruiz-Mallén and Heras 2020).
In recent decades, we have seen that growth, as such, does not address inequity
within or across states, and instead tends to reinforce an extractivist model that
concentrates control over resources and key technologies in a small number of hands
(Acosta 2013). Technological advances have not offset environmental impacts and
emissions continue to rise. Climate change and other environmental impacts continue
to disproportionately affect the poorest, destroying the basis of their livelihoods.
Both armed conflicts and economic warfare, aimed at control over water, minerals
and hydrocarbons, drive internal displacement and forced migration, increasing the
number of people worldwide that no state is willing to take responsibility for. It
H. Avery (B)
Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies and Centre for Environmental and Climate Science,
Lund University, Lund, Sweden
e-mail: helen.avery@cme.lu.se; helen.avery@lnu.se
Linnaeus University, Växjö, Sweden
B. Nordén
Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden
e-mail: birgitta.norden@mau.se
© 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_16
239