Sustainability prioritization dynamics: how educational institutions shape student behavior through environmental values

Sustainability has been placed at the core of higher education in India through the National Education Policy 2020. While global higher education institutions have increasingly integrated sustainability practices, developing countries such as India still face significant research and implementation gaps. The present study examines how institutional efforts shape students’ sustainability values and behaviors, with a focus on the mediating role of students’ understanding and efforts (SUE) and the moderating influence of home culture. With the descriptive design, a survey questionnaire grounded on theories was used to gather primary data for this investigation, collecting responses from 452 University students through Stratified random sampling from the region of Karnataka, India. Following the data collection, statistical techniques, such as measurement model and structural equation modeling, were applied to evaluate the direct and indirect impacts. As per the results, institutional sustainability policies (ISP), sustainability curriculum integration (SCI), sustainability-focused extracurricular activities (SFEC), and institutional commitment to sustainability (ICS) significantly contribute to students’ environmental values (SEV), which further boost students’ pro-sustainability behaviors (SPB). As per the descriptive notion, students strongly feel the responsibility to practice a sustainable lifestyle (M = 3.99). Moreover, SUE mediates the relationship between institutional efforts and SEV and home culture (HC) moderates the relationship between SUE & SEV. This study recommends that educational institutions design effective educational strategies for better implementation of sustainability, as it heightens social responsibility in students’ behavior. Integration of sustainability in curriculum and extracurricular activities must be incorporated to expose students to achieving sustainability goals. The study is useful for developing countries because it provides a framework to deal with the specific problems that hold back these countries from implementing sustainability education. This research contributes to the achievement of the SDGs, especially SDG 4, which advocates for Quality Education, and SDG 13 on Climate Action.