22
A comprehensive list of readings and reports on environmental education touches
on every aspect of sustainability as we learned from Table 2.1 , but the link with
leadership angle is left unexplored till the early 1990s. Gunderson et al. [ 7 ] provide
insights into leaders and managers trying to solve natural resource and other environmental problems. Without mentioning leadership, Moser and Dilling [ 8 ] provide
a comprehensive look at the communication challenges presented by climate
change. In the twenty-fi rst century, environmental education is turning toward a
community of partners so that students, teachers, NGOs, and politicians can work
together to identify and resolve socio-ecological problems. In order to make these
fundamental changes, leadership is pivotal for driving the change. As well,
leadership capacity is needed across a broad range of stakeholder groups, including
politicians, city offi cials, and emergent leaders in the public and private sector, also
researchers, educators, communities, and individual citizens [ 9 ].
Today, the challenge for fostering leaders is how higher education policy and
provisions can be reoriented or retrofi tted in a way that is organizationally practicable, academically acceptable, and educationally sound. Higher educational institutions have a crucial role to play. Therefore, when we say reorienting higher
education , the tasks we have to observe are how the existing knowledge on environmental education and sustainability can be extended as well as establishing the
role that the higher educational institutions can play. There must be a balance in
society between investing for sharing existing scientifi c knowledge and further
extension of that knowledge. Our strong emphasis on leadership pedagogy refl ects
our belief that under the present circumstances it is more important to extend basic
knowledge of how the world works for the common good than for a few specialists
to master further details of their special disciplines. As described in Chap. 1 ,
APIEL was born through such reoriented environmental education at The
University of Tokyo. However, Asian universities have been relatively slow or distant from the global movements of networking in environmental education and
leadership development. In addition, participatory leadership programs in higher
education in Asia have been weak so far while various international environmental
leadership programs have been launched by the United Nations Environment
Programme and/or universities in Europe and North America.
2.1.2 Evolution of Environmental Leadership Over Time
and Space
Leadership in this chapter entails environmental concerns and takes place in two
dimensions: space and time. The type of leadership—transactional leadership
shown by the Western industrial paradigm of the past few 100 years—premised on
using resources regardless of social and environmental concerns is no longer desirable in a world that recognizes universal human rights and sustainable development.
The contemporary view of leadership can be defi ned as a process of infl uence that
occurs within the context of relationships between leaders and followers, and
involves establishing vision, aligning resources, and providing inspiration to achieve
T. Akiyama et al.
A comprehensive list of readings and reports on environmental education touches
on every aspect of sustainability as we learned from Table 2.1 , but the link with
leadership angle is left unexplored till the early 1990s. Gunderson et al. [ 7 ] provide
insights into leaders and managers trying to solve natural resource and other environmental problems. Without mentioning leadership, Moser and Dilling [ 8 ] provide
a comprehensive look at the communication challenges presented by climate
change. In the twenty-fi rst century, environmental education is turning toward a
community of partners so that students, teachers, NGOs, and politicians can work
together to identify and resolve socio-ecological problems. In order to make these
fundamental changes, leadership is pivotal for driving the change. As well,
leadership capacity is needed across a broad range of stakeholder groups, including
politicians, city offi cials, and emergent leaders in the public and private sector, also
researchers, educators, communities, and individual citizens [ 9 ].
Today, the challenge for fostering leaders is how higher education policy and
provisions can be reoriented or retrofi tted in a way that is organizationally practicable, academically acceptable, and educationally sound. Higher educational institutions have a crucial role to play. Therefore, when we say reorienting higher
education , the tasks we have to observe are how the existing knowledge on environmental education and sustainability can be extended as well as establishing the
role that the higher educational institutions can play. There must be a balance in
society between investing for sharing existing scientifi c knowledge and further
extension of that knowledge. Our strong emphasis on leadership pedagogy refl ects
our belief that under the present circumstances it is more important to extend basic
knowledge of how the world works for the common good than for a few specialists
to master further details of their special disciplines. As described in Chap. 1 ,
APIEL was born through such reoriented environmental education at The
University of Tokyo. However, Asian universities have been relatively slow or distant from the global movements of networking in environmental education and
leadership development. In addition, participatory leadership programs in higher
education in Asia have been weak so far while various international environmental
leadership programs have been launched by the United Nations Environment
Programme and/or universities in Europe and North America.
2.1.2 Evolution of Environmental Leadership Over Time
and Space
Leadership in this chapter entails environmental concerns and takes place in two
dimensions: space and time. The type of leadership—transactional leadership
shown by the Western industrial paradigm of the past few 100 years—premised on
using resources regardless of social and environmental concerns is no longer desirable in a world that recognizes universal human rights and sustainable development.
The contemporary view of leadership can be defi ned as a process of infl uence that
occurs within the context of relationships between leaders and followers, and
involves establishing vision, aligning resources, and providing inspiration to achieve
T. Akiyama et al.