• In This Section
May 14, 2025

In response to shifting political landscapes and growing institutional challenges, AASHE hosted a Community Discussion Series in March and launched an accompanying Impact Survey. With over 300 registrants participating in the discussion series and 366 anonymous survey responses, the feedback revealed both pressing concerns and innovative responses from sustainability champions navigating today’s complex environment.

In this post we will include recommendations and resources related to the six themes that were identified from these discussions as well as include quotes and suggestions received from participants. Specifically, you’ll learn:

✅ What is AASHE doing to support institutions, and
🤝 What the community can do to adapt, advocate, and continue advancing sustainability on their campuses.

1. Policy & Advocacy

The Challenge: Members are concerned about restrictive policies and legal actions potentially threatening sustainability initiatives and are seeking guidance on advocacy and navigating obstacles.

What is AASHE doing:

What the community can do:

  • Frame sustainability as a financial strategy to resonate with fiscally conservative stakeholders:
    • “We pitch sustainability as a cost-avoidance strategy—if it saves money, it gets more traction.”
  • Leverage academic freedom to protect climate and social justice curriculum.
  • Build cross-departmental alliances to embed sustainability into operations, finance, academics, and student affairs:
    • “If sustainability only lives in one office, it’s vulnerable. We need champions in finance, operations, and academics.”
    • “The more allies we have across campus, the harder it is for sustainability to be sidelined.”
  • Stay flexible, focused, and grounded in long-term goals:
    • “The landscape changes, but we keep going. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

2. STARS Reporting & Flexibility

The Challenge: Institutions are increasingly concerned that public sustainability reporting could expose them to legal or political risk. There is some fear of pressure to remove STARS reports entirely or at least data regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Members are looking for ways to ensure that they can continue their reporting efforts in the current climate.

What is AASHE doing:

  • Gathering feedback from members on how to evolve STARS in response to current challenges.
  • Requiring visitors to login to view detailed STARS data.
  • Offering free resources, support, and low-cost training on STARS through the Resources & Support Center, the online STARS community, and workshops.

What the community can do:

Many institutions around the globe continue to use the AASHE STARS framework as a foundation for internal accountability.

“STARS has become our anchor… Even when priorities change at the top, we can still point to it as a recognized framework.”

  • Use STARS as a framework to maintain continuity and progress despite political or leadership shifts.
  • Focus on data collection and reporting as a way to demonstrate value without drawing political controversy. STARS reporting helps justify sustainability efforts by framing this work as “data-driven decision-making.”
  • Collaborate with peer institutions to benchmark and strengthen sustainability efforts. Comparing to other schools can be helpful in conversations with senior decision-makers.
  • Create internal accountability mechanisms that persist through administrative changes.
    • “Even when leadership shifts, STARS keeps us accountable. It’s not just about optics; it’s about long-term progress.”

3. Convening, Community-Building & Education

The Challenge: There is a strong desire for peer connection, collaboration, and emotional support to navigate today’s political and institutional pressures. At the same time, there is a clear need for accessible, affordable training and practical resources to help staff build resilience and share effective strategies.

“We need to be banding together—learning how others are responding and adapting… The more AASHE can bring us together, hold these conversations and space for us to connect, the better.”

What is AASHE doing:

What the community can do:

  • Actively engage in AASHE’s opportunities—attend webinars, post in online communities, and participate in peer groups to learn how others are responding and adapting.
  • Share what’s working, what’s not, and how you’re adapting, especially in politically or legally challenging contexts.
  • Use online spaces like AASHE’s member community and communities of practice online boards (free to anyone to join) to hear each other, share what is going on, co-create strategies, and offer support to peers.
    • “I appreciated the opportunity to connect with other AASHE members who are like-minded… our group felt like ‘therapy.’”
  • Share webinars and other AASHE opportunities with your campus community.
  • Collaborate externally with other universities, nonprofits, and community partners to strengthen efforts:
    • “We’re stronger when we work together—sharing resources, ideas, and support makes a difference.”

4. Funding and Access

The Challenge: Federal funding for higher education is in jeopardy and budgets for sustainability are threatened.

What is AASHE doing:

  • Prioritizing affordability and access by offering cost-effective and free access to various trainings, resources, and programs (including scholarship and pay-what-you-can options)
  • Providing inclusive community spaces, like the Communities of Practice (open to all, regardless of membership)

What the community can do:

  • Seek alternative funding sources, including grants, donor contributions, and partnerships.
    • “When state funding dries up, we turn to private donors who care about sustainability.” Connect with donors to let them know “we need you more than ever.”
  • Use energy savings and operational efficiencies to fund future sustainability initiatives.
    • “We track every dollar saved from energy efficiency and reinvest it into more projects.”
  • Collaborate with other institutions to share resources and reduce costs.
    • “Regional partnerships have helped us cut costs—we don’t have to do everything alone.”
  • Reach out to alumni as speakers/panelists instead of paying external speakers.
  • Adapt to political and institutional shifts by staying flexible and focusing on long-term goals.
    • “The landscape changes, but we keep going. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

5. Student Support

The Challenge: Students are facing heightened uncertainty around their academic and career paths in sustainability. Emotional well-being is also impacted, as students navigate climate anxiety, a loss of support structures like DEI offices, and limited institutional guidance or engagement opportunities—leaving many feeling isolated and disempowered.

What is AASHE doing:

What the community can do:

  • Empower students as leaders and sustainability advocates who can push initiatives forward independently.
    • “Students are often the most effective messengers. When they take the lead, administrators listen differently.”
  • Provide hands-on sustainability experiences through internships, research projects, and student organizations.
    • “Giving students real-world sustainability work experience helps them stay engaged and builds future leadership.”
  • Create mentorship structures to ensure that sustainability knowledge is passed down.
    • “Institutional memory is fragile. If we don’t have a way for students to train each other, progress gets lost.”
  • Leverage student passion and activism to support sustainability investments by institutional decision-makers.
    • “Student voices carry weight. They can push for changes that staff sometimes can’t.”
    • “Sharing positive stories with AASHE’s newsreel – seeing successes, tallying successes.”
  • Engage sustainability-minded businesses, governments, and organizations in demonstrating to students the value of sustainability skills in the workplace.
  • Offer real-world experience through internships, research, and student orgs.
    • “Giving students real-world experience helps them stay engaged and builds future leadership.”
  • Maintaining community and connection: Providing spaces for students to connect with peers, faculty, and staff for support, strategy sharing, and emotional resilience
    • “Connecting with others doing this work is helpful—sharing important updates that may impact our work and finding ways to support each other and our students.”
  • Acknowledging and validating their feelings: Recognizing the reality of the situation and being open with students about the challenges while providing encouragement.
    • “One thing we can do is acknowledge their fear. We owe it to students we work with to be honest and frank with them – this is real.”
    • “I keep reminding my students that this is a blip. Don’t lose hope…”

6. Strategy / Messaging / Institutional Resilience & Visibility

The Challenge: AASHE and its members are struggling to remain mission-focused given quickly shifting policies and institutional responses. Institutions are under increasing pressure to scale back or reframe sustainability efforts in response to political scrutiny.

What is AASHE doing:

What the community can do:

“We make sure sustainability is written into policies—so it’s not dependent on one person or one administration.”

  • Institutions need to strategically communicate their efforts, align messaging with long-term institutional goals, and build resilience that withstands political and leadership changes.
  • Emphasize broad community and student support for sustainability: Institutional environmental and sustainability initiatives positively impact college attendance decisions for the majority of students and parents (The Princeton Review, 2025).
  • Adjust communication strategy and reframe messaging to resonate across political and institutional lines:
    • Use terms like “resilience planning,” “energy independence,” “inclusive excellence,” or “student success.”
    • “We don’t call it ‘climate action’ anymore. It’s ‘resilience planning’—and that resonates better in our state.”
    • “Words matter. We’ve learned to talk about ‘preparedness’ instead of ‘climate change’ to get broader support.”
  • Keep sustainability efforts alive by focusing on practical, low-profile wins.
    • “Sometimes, you have to fly under the radar. Small, incremental wins add up over time”. Some members feel that for now, they must “Keep your head down, have patience, do the work but don’t call attention to yourself.”
  • Leverage institutional identity and strategically position sustainability as part of the institution’s mission and values to shield and sustain work:
    • For faith-based institutions, aligning with religious mission statements has helped protect sustainability values.
    • A research-intensive university’s climate center has continued publishing policy briefs under its research office, emphasizing the evidence-based, peer-reviewed framing of their outputs to keep publishing actionable science for policymakers.

By actively participating in the initiatives, programs, and resources that AASHE provides and implementing the strategies and approaches shared by peers, the community of sustainability professionals in higher education can work collectively to navigate current challenges, build resilience, and continue advancing sustainability efforts on campuses. AASHE recognizes the ongoing nature of this conversation and remains open to hearing from our members about challenges and ideas at any time. Email us at info@aashe.org to share additional thoughts with us!