Raleigh, N.C. — Among higher-education conferences, the one that got underway here Sunday is unusual. In the exhibit hall, vendors show off $15,000 composters as if they were sports cars. The registration clerk asks you if you require a vegan meal plan. People calculate the environmental impact of taking the stairs versus the escalators to conference sessions.

It’s the national conference of the Association for the Advancement for Sustainability in Higher Education, and thanks to the popularity of sustainability these days, the conference is bigger than ever. This year’s event drew about 1,750 attendees from more than 400 institutions. Compare that to the association’s conference two years ago at Arizona State University, which drew about 600 people.

“We have our own convention center and everything,” said a joking Julian Dautremont-Smith, the associate director of AASHE.

Young faces abound. Many of the people here at the Raleigh Convention Center are students who have been sent by their institutions. Ithaca College, I hear, sent a whole busload from New York.

The conference this year also features a number of luminaries: Van Jones, president of Green for All; Vandana Shiva, the environmental activist from India; Peter Senge, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology management guru; and Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, who spoke last night about oil shortages, stresses on food and water supplies, and climate change.

“This has to be one of the most positive trends — how fast this organization has grown,” he said. Although that growth is spectacular, he said, it’s not enough — he has been talking about sustainable development for more than three decades, and he still sees a world in decline. He suggested that AASHE change its name to something with a little more flair — the Association for Higher Education Saving Civilization, or something like that.

Joking aside (although I don’t think he was joking), the association’s rapid growth had some folks here wondering what the organization will look like in the future. Will it grow even more? Will it develop regional chapters, like other higher-education organizations? Or will attendance here reach a peak in popularity? Is sustainability a fad that will go away in a few years?

Certainly the problems that the sustainability crowd grapples with — environmental crises and their connected social and cultural problems — are not going away anytime soon. In fact, the dimmer the future for the planet, the more vital this organization must be, because its entire mission revolves around the idea of imagining a better future for the planet and higher education’s role in that.

Updates from the conference will appear on Buildings & Grounds over the next couple of days. —Scott Carlson