Barriers to Change: Confronting Obstacles to Behavior Change for Sustainability in Students at Arizona State University

Sustainability is a critical global issue that requires urgent action at all levels, as emphasized by the U.N. 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Education has been identified as a key driver for advancing sustainability globally, and higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to contribute to the social, economic, and environmental transformations required to tackle the world's most pressing issues due to their capacities to produce groundbreaking research, innovative solutions, and critical education to address sustainability issues across disciplines. However, these efforts alone are not enough to confront the sustainability challenges we face in the present and future, as ultimately, change for sustainability must occur in human behavior at the community and individual levels. Universities can play a key role in promoting behavior change due to their status as living laboratories, and their responsibility to prepare students, regardless of discipline, for addressing the challenges they will face as leaders in the future. By addressing student behavior change for sustainability, universities can create a model for changing community behaviors and produce future leaders in all disciplines that will be prepared to confront global sustainability issues. As a university recognized for its dedication to sustainability, this study addresses barriers to behavior change for sustainability in students at Arizona State University (ASU). Despite ASU’s championing of sustainability, the overall university community has yet to consistently practice sustainable behaviors, especially students. To understand why sustainable behaviors are not being practiced at ASU, interviews with ASU students, staff, and faculty find barriers to behavior change at the university pertaining to university infrastructure, campus culture, messaging, and student engagement. The study recommends actions to address these issues, as well as recommends further research into the individual sustainability issues where these barriers occur.