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This paper aims to provide data on the self-perceived state of sustainability consciousness of first-year Hong Kong students.

Within a mixed-method research design framework, the authors conducted 787 questionnaires and collected 989 reflective narratives of first-year students of a university in Hong Kong, who were enrolled in the General Education course.

Attributed to students’ immersion in compulsory sustainability education modules within liberal studies programs in secondary through higher education (HE), the quantitative results revealed an increase in the self-perceived knowledge and behavioral aspects of sustainability consciousness of Hong Kong students and their low engagement in sustainability-related civic, campus or action groups. However, qualitative results revealed three aspects of the students’ sustainability consciousness: intentionality to make a difference; engagement with complex questions about identity, society and nature; and eschatological perspectives, which included imaginative, future-oriented and action-oriented approaches to critical reflection, supported by the rhetoric of hope, promises and commitment for better future.

The study provides insights into the challenge of implementation of the United Nations-based sustainable development model in the Hong Kong educational system through the formal liberal studies curriculum. It advances the field by constructing a momentum for conceptual changes in sustainability education research toward design of the non-linear and culturally sensitive frameworks for sustainability implementation in HE. This allows to utilize universities’ unique capacities for fostering students’ sustainability consciousness in a continuous and systemic way.

The purpose of this paper is to build a detailed description of the Global Seminar (GS) curricula model by exploring its on‐the‐ground participatory practices in America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Within a qualitative research design framework, the authors interviewed 20 faculty members from the USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Italy, Australia, Sweden, Honduras, South Africa, Germany, Austria, and Denmark. They observed 11 class sessions; and analyzed available course documents.

The GS model provides a broader notion of teaching and learning for sustainability that incorporates greening and education for sustainability into curricula. This participatory model proves the emerging shift towards a new paradigm of teaching and learning for sustainability in academia.

This paper shows how academia can address sustainability through curricula models that promote a fundamental change to the dominant academic paradigm and challenge the existing understanding of sustainability in higher education.

The inherit complexity of an educational system further complicates the challenge of introducing technology-based educational initiatives into a school environment. Once introduced, the initiative has the potential to become self-sustaining or to cease once the term is over. Such uncertainty makes the use of expensive information technology (IT) in schools “risky business,” which requires school leaders go above and beyond their current routine to extend the system's capacity to sustain the innovation. A discretionary behavior of school leaders and teachers is one of key factors that contribute to or prevent the sustainability of an innovation. A lack of understanding of what encourages an individual's discretionary behavior and how discretion is fostered in school practices contribute to the challenge of innovation's sustainability. If the individuals’ discretion is required to sustain a technology-based educational program within a school, do their actions dwell outside or inside of the school environment? More importantly, how does a discretionary chain of command operate and can it be aligned? In this chapter we use an “ecological model” approach to describe the influential factors, which affect project's sustainability by transforming effective discretionary approaches of school leaders and teachers from policy to practice. We draw our description of the model on the results of the empirical study of Hong Kong schools involved in the design and strategic IT implementation of the e-Leadership Enhancement Project (eLEP).