Curriculum integration

Direction: Integrate meaningful sustainability competencies for student learning

Waterloo offers an expanding variety of ways for students to learn about and build future-ready sustainability skills and experiences. Through specialized programs focused on sustainability, sustainability electives across many departments and programs of study, experiential learning and capstone opportunities, and co-curricular learning, Waterloo is preparing the next generation of sustainability leaders.

In 2025, Waterloo supported new grants to support departments in integrating sustainability in curriculum, and launched the Sustainability Leadership Certificate to help students track their progress. More programs have also integrated sustainability content within required courses, ensuring that students are receiving discipline-specific knowledge.

Future efforts will be needed to expand integration across all programs of study.

Indicators

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23 programs with sustainability learning outcomes
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23.6% of grads with sustainability competencies
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62.8% co-op work terms with sustainability experiences
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45% Sustainability Literacy Assessment passing rate

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Academic mission

Operational practice

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Actions and accomplishments

Students presenting Living Labs poster presentation in EV3 atrium
School of Pharmacy presentation on integrating sustainability into Pharmacy program

Historic curriculum integration actions and accomplishments

2024

2023

2022

  • Implemented incentives for capstone courses in Engineering to integrate sustainability thinking in their final year projects, through the Capstone Sustainable Design award
  • Created processes and systems to identify existing courses and curriculum that include important connections to sustainability topics and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Launched the new degree program, Bachelor of Science in Climate and Environmental Change, combining knowledge from biology, chemistry, physics, earth science, and human geography
  • Engaged dozens of graduate students in a three-week virtual water security summer school

2021

  • Launched the new degree program, Sustainability and Financial Management, a collaborative and interdisciplinary program between the School of Accounting and Finance and the School of Environment, Enterprise, and Development
  • Began conducting a mapping and analysis of the UN Sustainable Development Goals across the academic calendar
  • Work began on planning a Voluntary University Review of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, a part of the project being to host a workshop for instructors to reflect on opportunities for integrating sustainability in curriculum

2020

  • Integrated content on the UN Sustainable Development Goals into the Professional Development 1 course, providing a relevant learning opportunity for all co-op students on campus

2019

  • The Sustainability Diploma and fundamentals online course were approved and piloted, giving a mechanism for all undergraduates to learn about sustainability

2018

  • The Faculty of Environment began development of a Sustainability Fundamentals online course, which is available for any student on campus to provide an introduction to sustainability theory and challenges
  • The Faculty of Engineering launched the Architectural Engineering program, as a collaboration between Civil Engineering and the School of Architecture
  • Supported the World’s Challenge, where student teams picked one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and pitched their idea to a global problem

An accessible version of the data can be downloaded here: SDG Related Courses 2026 (Excel)

Methodology - Teaching & Learning

Courses Focused on/Including Sustainability

The course inventory is based on over 6,000 course descriptions within the undergraduate and graduate calendars. The Sustainability Office used keyword matching for each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, using keywords that had been developed by SDSN Global, to do a first pass of course descriptions. This method was complemented by manual review of the course descriptions from the Sustainability Office to either corroborate or reject the keyword findings, or to identify courses that may have been missed. The final inventory includes a list of courses where there are:

  • Likely connections to each SDG, where there was a keyword match and upon manual review there seemed a clear connection to the specific SDG targets
  • Potential connections to each SDG, where there was a keyword match but upon manual review it was determined that more information was needed about the course, OR that there was no keyword match but upon manual review there looked like thematic connections to the SDGs and their specific targets

The most recent inventory is based on the 2025/26 Academic calendars. In previous years, the Sustainability Office has worked through academic department chairs to confirm/validate connections to more environmental sustainability-themed courses.

Limitations and Exclusions:

  • Course descriptions are not exhaustive, and it is possible that there are many more courses that have units, modules, or case studies related to sustainability that were not included in the description. Further analysis could be conducted by looking at course syllabi.
  • Some department chairs did not respond to requests for confirmation in the past, in which case the original inventory was used. Approximately 81% of courses were verified at the time, though inclusion of the SDGs and their targets as a basis of analysis significantly widens consideration.
  • Special Topics courses were normally excluded from the count, unless the description provided a list of specific topics that could be related to sustainability. Transfer courses, high school courses, Laurier courses, and any courses that appeared in the calendar but were noted not to be offered until future years, were also excluded.
  • The academic calendar lists all courses that are available at the University of Waterloo, but does not indicate whether they were actually scheduled. Further analysis could be done through the Quest system to analyze the number of courses and sections offered.
  • Course numbers and descriptions may change year-over-year, which sometimes impacts the ability to see comparative change over time.

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