On their path to sustainability, universities must consider both individual and organizational components. Universities are organizations that also have the capacity to learn and evolve. By means of an analysis conducted over the past 20 years at the University of Córdoba (Spain), this article identifies the variables present in the University’s environmental sustainability process, characterizing its evolution through different stages and proposing an organizational model that orders these variables into a system within the framework of complexity. This model highlights the importance of a scientific-technical structure as catalyst, facilitator, and attractor of transformative flows within the organization, which could be a key component of its evolution towards sustainability. It also underscores the possibility of using environmental awareness and the perceived norm as indicators of the system. This characterization reveals the potential of these variables as indicators of progress and anchoring points for the permanent monitoring of the system, and it will also help to design potentially more effective and forceful actions and could prove valuable as a comparison indicator between universities.

Teachers have the responsibility and the opportunity to contribute to solving the current environmental crisis by incorporating sustainability criteria in their students’ learning, thus promoting that the perspective of sustainability can permeate the entire process. University teachers are one of the fundamental elements on which the possibility of achieving a sustainable university revolves. To accelerate this process, we must overcome what paralyzes us and enhance what activates us. A motivating context, the identification of our scope of action and responsibility, and the acceptance that individual and collective action are interrelated or the emphasis on teacher training are crucial points to activate and accelerate sustainability processes in universities. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->