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Behavioral Aspects and Change Management for Sustainable Development

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Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education

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Introduction

Since the definition of sustainable development by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987 as the “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987, p. 43), the international community is working to develop ways to promote sustainable patterns of behaviors to reach sustainability.

Different authors use some established theories with which they can explain and predict individuals’ behaviors in relation to an object, information, or subject. In the case of sustainable development, the objective is to promote behaviors in citizens that could lead to sustainability. The so-called sustainable behaviours are not only related to the environmental sphere of sustainable development. Once sustainable development has three spheres, namely: environmental, social and economic (Fig. 1), sustainable behaviors must be developed accordingly.

Fig. 1
figure 1

The three spheres of...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-graduação em Educação em Ciências: Química da Vida e Saúde, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Santa Maria, RS, Brazil

    Gabriela L. Schmitz

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  1. Gabriela L. Schmitz
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Correspondence to Gabriela L. Schmitz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences Faculty of Life Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

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  1. No affiliation provided

    Markus Will

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    Isabel Novo-Corti

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Schmitz, G.L. (2019). Behavioral Aspects and Change Management for Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2_416-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2_416-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63951-2

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