Pathways to Cleaner Production in the Americas II: Application of a competency model to experiential learning for sustainability education

A multinational partnership called Pathways to Cleaner Production in the Americas linked faculty from seven Latin American universities and two U.S. universities to facilitate the transition to sustainability in the Americas by strengthening higher education institutions' capacity for educating young professionals in cleaner production and sustainable development, and assisting micro, small, and medium enterprises in understanding and implementing cleaner production and sustainable development strategies in their respective organizations. The ultimate outcome was to develop a workforce armed with new knowledge, skills and attitudes toward sustainability through cleaner production. To achieve the twin goals of the project, an experiential learning approach was developed to provide students with opportunities for applying knowledge of cleaner production and developing workplace competencies by working directly with micro, small, and medium enterprises to identify opportunities for cleaner production, under the supervision of faculty and cleaner production consultants. This paper examines the competencies developed from experiential learning in practicum courses and internships using CareerOneStop, an Industry Competency Model, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration. Online surveys were developed and administered to university students to understand whether they had mastered various competencies and comparisons were made across the seven partner institutions.