Urgent academic sustainability management action: if not now, when? If soon, what to do today?

Numerous sustainability trends and conditions, both environmental and socio-economic, appear to be at or are approaching critical levels worldwide. Climate disruption, debilitating poverty and hunger, dwindling biodiversity, child and worker exploitation, deforestation, armed violence, ocean acidification, increasing income inequality, and a host of other socio-economic and environmental sustainability challenges either remain intractable after decades of attention and/or are continuing to worsen in the next decade to the level of crises. Sustainability management academics research, teach, and perform service on topics related to these issues, but the impact of these academic sustainability actions is generally not readily apparent. One reason for this state of affairs is that academics, including sustainability academics, often operate on a much longer timeframe than sustainability challenges and solutions. However, in response to some of the challenges mentioned above, some academics perceive the need and opportunity to also act (that is, research, teach, and perform service) to address “real time” sustainability issues as part of their professional activities. This workshop proposes to attract, inspire, and encourage Academy sustainability-oriented attendees to explore both the need to act more urgently as sustainability management academics and to identify, develop, and commit to (and track) a wide range of potential academic sustainability management actions in “real time”. Examples of urgent academic sustainability actions might include researching (and disseminating) best practices in sustainability program implementation, incorporating sustainability improvement projects in course assignments, and serving on action-oriented sustainability committees, both on-campus and off-campus.