Climate change in higher education across the US: tracking policy action

Purpose Education, in general, and higher education institutions, in particular, play a crucial role in driving the societal changes needed to address the climate crisis. While growing, there is still relatively little research on the inclusion of climate change in higher education, either within or across institutions, including in relation to education policy. Design/methodology/approach Higher education policies from all 50 US states and Washington D.C. were collected and analyzed for climate change content. Policies were collected and analyzed using a whole institution approach across the areas of: overall governance, teaching and learning, facilities and operations, community engagement and research. Findings Most institutions had no climate change content in their policies. When present, climate change was included to a very low extent. Climate change content was usually found in overall governance and facilities and operations policies and focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions through carbon offsets or renewable energy credits. Universities with larger student populations that were research intensive or climate- or sustainability-affiliated tended to have more climate change content. Institutions in states that were Democrat-led, had a climate plan or were climate-affiliated also had more climate change content. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to benchmark how US higher education institutions include climate change in education policy.