Peter Devereux

This chapter explores Curtin University’s sustainability agenda, which is reflected in a number of programs and achievements. However, many pressing global issues, such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Sustainability, Ethics and Governance require a systems understanding and the 2030 Agenda provides an appropriate framework for this. Complex systems, such as a university are made up of multiple, interrelated and interdependent departments. Systems thinking in higher education has much to contribute to sustainability discourses, providing a theoretical foundation and a university wide testing laboratory for interdepartmental discussions and alignment of goals and strategies and their implementation. Curtin University has identified the need for a coherent and sustainable systems approach. This chapter outlines a theoretical model exemplifying how, using a complex systems thinking approach, the numerous projects can be integrated across the key stakeholdersStakeholders and measured against socially responsible and sustainable best practices. In particular, Deming’s systems thinking theory, which is the complex systems thinking approach chosen offers an opportunity to explore dynamic processes and interconnections making use of collaborative relationships and multifaceted inquiry. The chapter highlights the complexity, challenges and benefits of this approach as a demonstration in microcosm, the challenges and opportunities for successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Volunteer tourism or voluntourism has become an extremely popular form of tourism as well as attracting significant and growing academic attention (Wearing & McGehee, 2013). In 2001 Wearing defined volunteer tourism (drawing on his own research in community based ecotourism and volunteer tourism in Costa Rica) as: “those tourists who, for various reasons, volunteer in an organized way to undertake holidays that might involve aiding or alleviating the material poverty of some groups in society, the restoration of certain environments, or research into aspects of society or environment” (Wearing, 2001:1). The significant growth in academic interest in the topic is reflected in a web of science search for volunteer tourism peer reviewed literature which counts 1 for 2001, 4 for 2008, 15 for 2013 and 41 for 2016 and the publication of a review paper in the leading journal Tourism Management (Wearing & McGehee, 2013) and several journal special issues.

This chapter highlights the power of volunteerism as a method for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It emphasizes the importance of a relational approach in helping to energize and sustain locally appropriate strategies. Using case studies from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Western Australia and the Philippines, it analyses methods to facilitate voluntary action that makes practical contributions. The case studies demonstrate that the nature and quality of relationships are key to successful voluntary action for sustainability. Volunteerism is shown to have increased the respective community’s capacity to tackle sustainability issues itself strengthening reciprocity, relationships, capacity and ownership. The four methodological principles highlighted for successful voluntary action embed mutual learning and accountability, reciprocal benefit, and foster synergies over trade-offs.

This chapter explores the ever-evolving forms of stipended transnational volunteering (STV). When transnational volunteering is stipended or mandatory, it can be considered a hybrid between employment, volunteering, and/or compulsory service. This chapter provides a brief historical background, as well as contemporary trends of STV. The section on usable knowledge focuses on the provision of stipends and other financial supports to transnational volunteers, as well as how their rationale has become increasingly affected by the outcomes and priorities of donors or development projects. The section on future trends also discusses the slowly growing movement toward more South–North and South–South transnational volunteer placements. This chapter also explores research needed to better understand the differences between stipended volunteering for development cooperation and volunteering for intercultural understanding and global citizenship.

A key difference from other types of volunteering is the usually long-term nature of STV, which tends to range from four months up to two or more years (allowing for renewal of formal commitments).