Public knowledge about ‘sustainability’ is scattered and incomplete

Based on Colin Kuehl, Aaron Sparks, Heather Hodges, and Eric Smith. Nature Sustainability (2021).

Existing survey tools that measure public understanding of ‘sustainability’ reveal widespread confusion – suggesting that efforts to educate the public about sustainability have not been successful.

The Policy Problem

Sustainable development has long been a central goal of the environmental movement, the United Nations, and other international agencies. One strategy for achieving sustainability is educating people on the topic around the world. In response, a global group of scholars and practitioners, with U.N. support, designed and fielded the ‘Sulitest’, a survey tool to assesses knowledge of sustainability and sustainability practices. The Sulitest has been taken by over 160,000 people across 63 countries. Despite its widespread use, there has been little systematic analysis of the data or what it says about the public’s understanding of sustainability.

Key Findings and Proposed Solutions

  • Policymakers should not assume that the public understands them when they are discussing sustainability as a goal.

  • Policymakers and educators should be particularly cautious when using the popular Sulitest as a diagnostic tool for assessing sustainability knowledge.