How to describe, define and work with sustainable development and how it relates to quality management : a study of Swedish Universities

Sustainable Development (SD) has been on the agenda for some time. SD is an overall objective of Swedish Government policies. In an official document, Strategic Challenges - a Further Elaboration of the Swedish Strategy for Sustainable Development (Comm. 2005/06:126), issued in 2005 by the Swedish Government the national strategy from 2004 is further elaborated. It is stated that the strategy covers the following three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. It stems from a long-term vision of sustainable development and is related to international sustainable development efforts, including UN initiatives and the EU's strategy in the area. Already 2004 it became obligatory for Swedish schools and universities to include sustainable development in the curriculum. Thus, Universities should be in a good position to interpret what sustainable development is and transferring it to actions. It is after all universities who will provide the people to live and lead the change needed. Universities in Sweden have now had 6 years to work with sustainable development and there should be good examples of how this can be done. Interesting questions are how universities have interpreted sustainable development and how they are working with it. This paper presents an explorative study on to which extent the Governments sustainability strategy has been absorbed and become part of the strategy of the Swedish universities. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss how sustainable development is being interpreted. We also look at how the value per harm concept could contribute to the understanding of sustainable development. It is an exploratory case study on how 17 Swedish universities integrate SD in its mission. It is obvious that all of the studied universities have broken down the university decree into its lowest common denominators and managed to mark some of its educations by placing a sustainability sticker here and there in their course catalogues and policy documents but we are sorry to say it but beneath this superficial surface the is not much, from a sustainability point of view, integrated, wise, insightful and sound teaching going on. The question then is, how did all this happen? The collected data show that all universities are aware of the university decree. A problem with the decree is that it is vague while it clearly calls for action. This is perhaps a possible approach if the attitude is that anything goes. But as the aim is to accomplish directed action on a sustainable development that through their activities shall promote sustainable development that ensure that both the present and coming generations are guaranteed a sound environment, economic as well as social well-being and justice, this is a not so efficient approach. This mission is too vague and there are not enough guidelines on how to interpret it, create a meaningful strategy, implement, manage, measure, or report on it