Education for Sustainability, the Link Between Food and Fashion Industries: Case-Based Learning

Education for sustainability aims to ensure that learners can adopt more sustainable lifestyles. As younger generations are said to be increasingly informed and sensitive about sustainability in their choices and habits, universities face two questions: does education for sustainability still make sense? And, if yes, which teaching method proves most effective and why? The paper highlights the results of an educational experience designed within the Erasmus+ project Fashion&Food Synergy for Sustainability and implemented with 143 students attending three different universities: Università Cattolica in Italy, ISEM-Fashion Business School in Spain and Radboud University in the The Netherlands. The objective is three-fold, to describe and share: a) an innovative methodology to address case studies in fashion&food research and teaching; b) the usage of these case studies to promote problem-based learning among university students, and c) the efficacy in fostering conscious and globally aware behaviours. Three focus groups underscore how this new teaching method helped the students shift from individual actions to collective responsibility through the enhancement of cross-disciplinary and sustainability skills. The results of the project confirm that university-level sustainability education, designed using problem-based learning and the analysis of real case studies, supplemented with opportunities for collective reflection can effectively encourage the adoption of more sustainable behaviours by university students.