De Montfort University’s vision and commitment is for all taught provision to address sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whether these courses are related to business, nursing, arts, journalism, engineering or any other area.
The university’s ethos is not just to address sustainability and the SDGs through courses where sustainability is the focus, but rather for this to infuse into all its educational activities.
There are some taught programmes and modules that stand out by taking sustainability and the SDGs as a starting point, in relation to the wider academic discipline.
Such courses were mapped and identified in 2024 through the use of a new keyword search approach, which examined DMU’s database of course descriptors (name, summary, learning outcomes) for all 512 programmes and all 3,513 modules.
Core keywords for terms such as “Sustainable”, “SDGs” and “Sustainability” were used to indicate a cross-cutting focus on these issues, indicating a dedicated focus going above and beyond embedding sustainability within teaching learning and assessment.
In 2024, 30 per cent of programmes and 15 per cent of modules had a dedicated focus on sustainability based upon this definition.
DMU programmes highlighted by this approach include:
- Energy and Sustainable Building Design
- Global Health
- Architecture and Sustainability
- Energy and Sustainable Development
- Sustainability, Social Justice and Human Rights Law
- Construction Management and Sustainability
Highlighted modules with a dedicated focus include:
- Business and Sustainability
- Critical Perspectives on Ethical and Sustainable Fashion
- Leadership and Business Sustainability
- Contemporary Issues in Sustainable Business
- Sustainable Building Principles
- Sustainable Design and Technology
- Planning and Sustainability
- Sustainability in Action
- Sustainable Development in Practice
- Sustainable Energy and Transport
- Design Innovation and Sustainable Futures
- Practical Systems Thinking
- Sustainability in Architecture
Associate Professor Andrew Reeves, DMU’s academic lead for Education and Sustainable Development, said: “The SDGs are a core part of the taught curriculum and embedded throughout our teaching.
“They are not some tag-on or extra focus, but front and centre in everything we do at the university.”
DMU’s commitment has been shown in the annual SDG Teach In - a campaign by Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK), which aims to put the SDGs at the centre of all stages of education from schools, to colleges and universities.
As part of the campaign educators from around the world are encouraged to pledge via SOS-UK to link one or more of the SDGs to their teaching, learning and assessments during the month of March.
In both 2023 and 2024, DMU was the top-ranked university in the UK for the number of teaching staff pledging to include the SDGs in their lecture.
Also, students on every DMU course were able to enrol in 2024 in co-curricular activities with a sustainability focus including accredited Carbon Literacy Training and the Sustainability Advocates programme.