Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 59.36
Liaison Ben Dharmendra
Submission Date July 30, 2021

STARS v2.2

University of Sydney
AC-1: Academic Courses

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 7.10 / 14.00 Zoe Morrison
Strategy Advisor
Strategy Office
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Part 1. Sustainability course offerings

Figures required to calculate the percentage of courses offered by the institution that are sustainability course offerings:
Undergraduate Graduate
Total number of courses offered by the institution 2,549 2,157
Number of sustainability-focused courses offered 116 122
Number of sustainability-inclusive courses offered 68 76

Percentage of courses that are sustainability course offerings:
8.12

Part 2. Sustainability course offerings by department

Total number of academic departments that offer courses:
161

Number of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
93

Percentage of academic departments with sustainability course offerings:
57.76

Documentation

A copy of the institution’s inventory of its sustainability course offerings and descriptions:
Do the figures reported above cover one, two, or three academic years?:
One

A brief description of the methodology used to complete the course inventory :
Primary Data Sources: Unit of Study Handbook and Sydney Courses
Unit of Study inventory of all units (UoS) offered in 2019 was supplied. Each UoS was manually searched and description for the UoS included in the database. Each UoS was manually checked and cross validated as to its alignment to all 17 SDGs (the University metric for 'sustainability'). The Global indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development* was used to identify whether a UoS aligned with an SDG. The direct correlation to a goal or contribution to a target or indicator was used to indicate whether the UoS was sustainability-focused or Sustainability-intensive. Consultations with UoS Coordinators were also used to understand more ambiguous UoS descriptions. Project UoS that encourages or 'could' have a project linked to an SDG were not counted unless the UoS teachings were sustainability-focused.

* As contained in the Annex of the resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/71/313), annual refinements contained in E/CN.3/2018/2 (Annex II), E/CN.3/2019/2 (Annex II), and 2020 Comprehensive Review changes (Annex II) and annual refinements (Annex III) contained in E/CN.3/2020/2.

How were courses with multiple offerings or sections counted for the figures reported above?:
Each offering or section of a course was counted as an individual course

A brief description of how courses with multiple offerings or sections were counted:
N/A

Optional Fields 

Website URL where information about the sustainability course offerings is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
---

Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The URL provide is not as accurate as the database provided due to the way our system Sydney Courses understands the word sustainability. A project in 2021 is to accurately tag units of student based on the inventory already undertaken by the team. Tagging of courses aligned with SDG will become a BAU practice.

NB1: The number of academic departments v's departments offering courses is different as we have 9 academic departments that are research only or teach but do not have units assigned to their departments (i.e. they teach on behalf of other departments/Faculties.).

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.