Governance Implications of The UN Higher Education Sustainability Initiative

This paper reviews progress of a sample of n=307 signatories to the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative which commits Higher Education Institutions to making smart commitments to achieve one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Preliminary survey of n=307 HEIs via on-line questionnaire and database search.
Findings reveal a difference between HEI governance that is ‘instrumental’ and governance that is ‘holistic’ in relation to sustainability.
Implications identified for achieving the SDGs in general and for academic-business partnerships in particular.
Practical implications for enterprise (developing a tool to measure sustainability mindset) and for enterprise education (sharing of best practices from other HEIs).
Improved understanding of sustainability mindset will inform decisions about approaches to governing and operationalising sustainability in organisations.
The survey is not original but the emphasis on sustainability mindset (compassion, empathy, connectedness to SDGs) is.