Photo: David Lee
by Corey Allen | December 16, 2024
An innovative program that aims to offer sustainability education to the University of Toronto’s nearly 80,000 undergraduate students has been shortlisted for a global education prize by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds).
U of T’s Sustainability Pathways Program was among this year’s 14 shortlisted nominees of a QS Reimagine Education Award for sustainability literacy, selected from more than 1300 submissions across 18 categories.
The program, created by the President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change, and Sustainability (CECCS) – a group of faculty, staff, students and alumni representatives – combines sustainability courses, co-curricular activities, campus-as-a-living-lab projects and capstone leadership training to educate students across the university’s three campuses.
Delivered through a three-tiered system, the Pathways program encourages students in any discipline to help create a more sustainable future and become Sustainability Citizens, Scholars or Leaders, with opportunities to earn a certificate or minor in sustainability as part of their degree.
“The Sustainability Pathways Program is equipping U of T students with the interdisciplinary skills and knowledge needed to be effective agents of change and respond to the pressing challenges of the 21st century,” said John Robinson, CECCS co-chair and professor in the School of the Environment and Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. “Our goal is to ‘reach the rest’ – students who would not otherwise engage with sustainability as part of their degree. This approach is helping to shape the next generation of sustainability leaders, regardless of their field of study, while also providing a transformative educational experience for students.”
First launched in 2020, the Pathways program has since seen strong uptake, and now offers access to sustainability education to more than 86 per cent of U of T’s total undergraduate population. Student enrolment in the program’s Scholar tier has also increased by 27 per cent for 2024. And U of T currently offers more than 2,000 sustainability related courses and more than 100 graduate programs with sustainability content.
The QS category prize recognizes institutions for their “exceptional commitment to advancing sustainability education”. First place was awarded to NEOMA Business School in France, announced last week during the higher education firm’s annual conference in London, England. In addition to U of T, the shortlisted nominees in the sustainability literacy category also included the University of Waterloo, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and IE University in Spain, among others.
The prize announcement follows U of T being named the world’s most sustainable university a second year in a row by QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2025.