NUK Sustainability Report

2026-10-07 

“What comes to mind when you think of sustainability?” When a live word cloud appeared on the screen, “environmental protection” emerged as the students’ most immediate response. But is sustainable development really just about protecting the environment? The Innovation Academy at the National University of Kaohsiung (NUK) hosted a workshop titled “The SDGs Are Not Quite What You Think”, attracting 45 students from 15 departments across the university who voluntarily signed up to participate. Through guided discussions, everyday examples, and group activities, the workshop introduced students to the diverse dimensions of sustainable development and encouraged them to identify concrete actions they could take in their daily lives.

Held on October 1, the workshop reflected the Innovation Academy’s view that sustainable development encompasses economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions, making its challenges difficult to understand or address through any single discipline alone. Taking interdisciplinary learning as its starting point, the workshop combined issue exploration, everyday observation, and hands-on activities to encourage students from different academic backgrounds to examine sustainability from multiple perspectives, understand the connections among the Sustainable Development Goals, and incorporate sustainability principles into their daily lives.

The workshop invited Hsin-Chia Ho, Director of the Office of Sustainable Development and Professor at the Center for General Education at National Taichung University of Science and Technology, to serve as the instructor. Beginning with the historical development of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Ho explained how the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), introduced in 2015, evolved from earlier development experiences into a set of issues of global concern. He reminded students that “sustainability is not synonymous with environmental protection.” In addition to environmental conservation, sustainable development must address social equity, economic development, and the needs of different population groups. When businesses or organizations claim to be committed to sustainability, their actual practices must also be examined to prevent the SDGs from becoming mere slogans or contributing to greenwashing.

To make these abstract concepts more relevant to students’ lives, the workshop explored everyday situations such as food choices, commuting methods, reusable shopping bags, electricity consumption in student dormitories, and online information. Students were encouraged to consider how individual choices relate to sustainable development. Seemingly ordinary decisions—what to eat each day or how to travel to campus, for example—can involve resource consumption, consumer behavior, and socioeconomic issues. These examples helped students recognize that sustainability is not a distant international agenda but something closely connected to everyday life.

Beyond listening to lectures, students participated in group discussions and poster creation to translate their learning into practical ideas. Each group selected an SDG, collected relevant data, analyzed implementation efforts at the international, national, and local levels, and explored the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to advance the selected goal. Each group then proposed at least three actionable measures. Through data collection, the exchange of ideas, and the presentation of their findings, students moved beyond passively receiving sustainability knowledge and began examining challenges from different perspectives and identifying feasible ways to put sustainability into practice.