Sustainability Center Research Initiative
The Sustainability Center Research Initiative aims to map the landscape of prominent academic centers and
institutes doing substantive work in the broad realm of sustainability. The initiative, supported by the Sam
Walton Business School's Applied Sustainability Center at the University of Arkansas, uncovers the wide
variety of relevant and quality practices at “sustainability centers” throughout the academic world and serve
as a compendium of information on these centers. The research paper, A Closer Look at Applied Sustainability
Centers , sheds light on the operations of some key centers and how they influence the world of practice.
Phase I- Research for this project was conducted using three different methods – a broad internet scan, in-depth
interviews, and an online questionnaire. The first Phase of this research surveyed a variety of academic centers using
a number of metrics – in this broad scan basic information was gathered on over 200 centers throughout North America
and around the world. The summary data of these centers is available here.
Phase II- Phase II of this research involved a deeper dive into the activity, conduct, and goals of a handful of
centers,an attempt to shed light on the detailed workings of this smaller group. More specifically, 20 centers were
selected from the sustainability database for in-depth interviews. The purpose of these interviews was to explore the
development, scope, structure, and workings of these centers in order to provide an overview of their experiences.
Through these interviews detailed qualitative data not available through our earlier research was obtained. The completed
interviews shed light on the stories that brought these centers to prominence and illustrate how each center manages
itself, its staff, its programmatic work and research, and its partners.
The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education released its findings from the Sustainability Center Research
Initiative in a research paper, A Closer Look at Applied Sustainability Centers. The paper discusses the rise
of academic centers, with a focus on applied sustainability, primarily in environmental subjects, and examines a
number of those centers in detail. This information provides a survey of the current sustainability landscape, helps
schools learn from each other’s experiences and, it is hoped, inspires greater collaboration and creativity. The report
was researched and written by Rick Bunch, MBA (Former Senior Fellow, Aspen BSP), Jennifer Johnson, Ph.D.
(Research Associate, Aspen CBE), and Alex Roberts (Former Program Manager, Aspen CBE).