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The aim of this paper is to contribute to aligning higher education towards meeting the challenge of global sustainability.

The barriers to sustainability are juxtaposed against the resources, responsibilities and potential of higher education. Ideas from several models and from within several disciplines are integrated to construct a framework through the challenges can be examined and then translated into learning outcomes, expressed as graduate attributes.

The focus of education for global sustainability has been on encouraging consumers to modify patterns of resource consumption and waste management. However, there are some significant limitations to relying on consumer action. Future professionals, involved in managing resources or designing options from which consumers make choices, are in a much better position for influencing how social, cultural and environmental resources are used. To actualise this potential requires that higher education curricula offer experiences which develop graduate attributes of self‐efficacy, capacity for effective advocacy and interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as raise awareness of social and moral responsibilities associated with professional practice.

For higher education to contribute towards achieving sustainability requires support of the whole institution, and considerable professional development of staff to help them appreciate how they can lead the next generation to global sustainability. The next stage of the research into the role of higher education in building a sustainable society should focus on how these objectives can be achieved.

Considerable research has been dedicated to describing the urgent and intractable nature of the problems facing the global community and, to some extent, the need for higher education to engage with these problems. This paper takes the next step by presenting some guidelines for designing curricula to develop graduate attributes required for this work.

The aim of this paper to explain the difficulties associated with applying the science of nutrition in formulating advice to protect public health, using the example of dietary fibre.

Based on this review of relevant literature published between 1953 and 2006, the first section traces the history of attempts at constructing useful definitions of dietary fibre. Then the problems of measurement of the fibre content of foods, measurement of fibre intake in individuals and with testing for correlations with disease, are outlined.

The equivocal nature of current definitions of dietary fibre, and the lack of accuracy, validity or reliability of methods of determination, have been major limitations to developing an understanding its role in protecting human health. Perhaps more than for any other dietary constituent, the elucidation of the science describing the role of dietary fibre in human nutrition has been confounded by both known and unidentified variables.

This paper reflects an increasing scientific awareness that developments in nutrition are subject to the limitations of methods of analysis and research design. It explains why the processes of scientific investigation are often slow to reveal important relationships between dietary factors and health. This presents some difficulties for authorities charged with promoting health protective eating behaviours.

Although it has not been possible to unequivocally quantify dietary fibre or its effects on human metabolism, the research provides strong support for choosing a wide range of fresh or minimally intact plant food sources to protect health, as recommended in the FBDG's promoted in many countries around the world. The health protective effects may be achieved with moderation of the information disseminated about dietary fibre, particularly via the marketing of manufactured foods supplemented with fibre isolates.

With the global community increasingly dependent on the food industry for the supply of one of the most basic of human needs, there is an imperative to consider how it can contribute to improving public nutrition into the future. This paper aims to present some ways that food companies can review policy and practice to meet this responsibility in the 21st century.

Based on a review of relevant literature published between the 1980s through to 2010, changing attitudes and practices in the food manufacturing sector are outlined. These are analysed in the light of coinciding trends in consumer expectations and behaviour, and the development of new technologies for food production and information transfer.

Widespread concern about the environment, increasing technological innovation, growing knowledge of diet‐health relationships and changing patterns of diet‐related disease risks are redefining responsibilities across the food industry. Food companies have been criticised for some negative effects on health, in particular, for contributing to obesogenic environments in many countries. Collaborating with all stakeholders will determine the way for the manufacturing sector to make positive contributions to public nutrition in the future.

This paper contributes to the discourse necessary to identify the emerging responsibilities, set targets, develop strategies and share the tasks to be undertaken in working towards building a health protective food supply.