Embedding sustainability into cross-disciplinary practice in higher education: A case study of built environment and business

Abstract

Sustainability has been burgeoning as a worthy feature in contemporary higher education practices in different disciplines around the world. In parallel, there are pressures for internationalising the curriculum as well as crossing boundaries among disciplines to enhance learning. In respond to such demands, a collaborative project was set to further explore the best way to integrate sustainability as a unifying theme involving the built environment, engineering and business studiesamong six higher education institutes in the UK/EU and Australia. The collaborative project involves staff and postgraduate student mobility that requires harmonisation of curriculum and action learning research among project participants to enable experiential learning journey in sustainability management. This paper reports on the initial synchronisation effort undertaken for this collaborative project between a UK based School of the Built Environment and Graduate School of Business in Australia. The main focus at this early stage is on the identification of a common groundin understanding sustainability between the two disciplines operating in two different countries. The origins of and drivers of sustainability on both disciplines in each countries are explored, compared and contrasted to pave a platform for subsequent stages of synchronising practices.