Teaching for Sustainability – Balancing Climate Fatigue and Happy Agency

Sustainability and environmental awareness have indeed permeated nearly every sector of Denmark’s policy landscape. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals have particularly served as guidelines for educational institutions, but visible implementations are still lacking, including in nursing education in Denmark. The visible impacts of climate change have prompted professionals to adopt more sustainable practices. However, an increase in climate fatigue has been reported, which is counterproductive to the drive for behavioural change.

In this paper, we focus on nursing education to explore how a new curriculum, GREEN NURSING EDUCATION, aiming for better sustainable professional practice can be developed to balance the generic competencies of a ‘green mindset’ while also providing students with a sense of professional agency. The overarching green competences must be integrated in upcoming professionals.

Use of disposal utensils has become a new normal within health care. The Danish healthcare system accounts for approximately 6% of the total CO2 emissions. The largest reductions in CO2 emissions are expected to come from procurement and consumption, including medical equipment. Green transition requires changed behaviour by consuming less (avoid and rethink), consuming longer (reuse, repair, refurbish), and consuming more environmentally friendly (minimize, optimize, recycle, utilize) (ibid). At the same time studies show that overconsumption of disposal gloves is overrepresented among nursing students and younger nurses with a stronger sense of body distance [“I would never touch a patient without gloves”].

We ask what kind of knowledge hierarchy is at play and what it takes to establish a strong norm of behavior regarding climate change in a new curriculum.