Extract

With recent evidence of record greenhouse gas emissions pointing to a period of dangerous climate change in the coming decades (Clark, 2011; Harvey, 2011), there is an urgent need for institutions in the public and private sectors to adopt new approaches to low-carbon living for their own survival as well as for the communities they serve (Hunt and Li, 2011; National Research Council, 2009; Romm, 2007). In a growing number of universities around the world, sustainability researchers and practitioners are seeking ways to scale up their efforts, with a view to transforming higher education and wider society. While the overarching challenges of climate change and sustainability are common across cultures and continents, the development of responses clearly requires localized approaches tailored to the needs of individual institutions and communities. Research in the field of organizational change suggests that times of uncertainty can encourage imitation as ‘organizations tend to model themselves after other organizations in their field that they perceive to be more legitimate or more successful’ (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983, p. 152).