Session Information
99 ERC SES 08 K, Sustainability in Education Research
Paper Session
Contribution
This research brings an overview of the characteristics and impacts of “sustainability on campus” as living laboratories for sustainable development initiatives of Europe, in comparison to other geographical, cultural, social and environmental contexts (continents).
Higher education for sustainable development has been a global trend on recent years. Among the most relevant addressed issues are the challenge to transfer sustainable development approaches to universities (Adomssent et.al., 2007), the integration of sustainability in education through changes in higher education (Barth, 2011), the student´s points of view on higher education as an innovative approach to provoke changes (Barth et. al., 2011) and the analysis of key competencies for sustainable development (Rieckmann, 2012). With regards to campus sustainability in higher education evaluation measures, Townsend and Barrett (2015) in Jain, S., et. al. (2017), states that limited information is available, highlighting the need to develop specific tools or frameworks that may be used for assessing the sustainability initiatives on university campuses.
Starting on a theoretical basis, sustainability science has been defined as a discipline that addresses the understanding of the dynamics of human-environment systems and facilitates the design, implementation, and evaluation of practical interventions (Clark & Dickson (2003) in Zen, I. S. (2017)). On this regard, Zizka, L., et. al. (2021) emphasizes the potential and relevance that academic institutions have to promote change and therefore contribute directly in the implementation of sustainable development priorities. The same author continues to argue that besides the political willing at the international and national levels to address the role of higher education institutions on sustainable development, there is still the need of deepening and expanding studies related to concepts like “green university” or “sustainability on campus”.
Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar (2008) in Martek, I. et. al. (2022), with reference to sustainability initiatives in universities, states that traditional practices and regulations related to environmental issues are mainly implemented in a reactive manner, with a high degree of inefficiency and low guarantee of being sustainable on a long term.
Another topic that has recently emerged is the analysis of operating the university campus as a living laboratory for sustainability problem-solving institution. McMillin and Dyball (2009) in Cohen, B. (2018) refer to the connections that are made visible to students and campus community between theory and practice. Shawe, R., et. al., (2019) have also found evidence in the literature predominantly concentrating on campus actions and changes, without addressing university outreach activities.
Following these findings, the current research aims to identify what are the common variables that characterizes the current trends of “sustainability on campus” initiatives as a living laboratory for sustainable development. A holistic multiple case study will be conducted on five selected universities. Therefore, the general objective is to identify common variables that characterize current trends in “sustainability on campus” initiatives as “living laboratories” for sustainable development.
Three specific research objectives are formulated as follows: (1) define a theoretical and conceptual framework of the university campus as a living laboratory for sustainable development; (2) identify commonalities and differences among selected variables of current “sustainability on campus” practices on different environmental contexts; and, (3) design a systematic scheme of variables that represents a university campus as a living laboratory for sustainable development.
The research questions related to the data to be collected are: How are the common variables of the “Sustainability on Campus” initiatives functioning as a living laboratory for sustainable development? and, how is the natural environment impacting on the built environment sustainability initiatives of each university campus?
Method
Multiple-case analysis is a method for in-depth exploration of similarities and differences across cases in support of conceptual generalizability and theoretical predictions. This method facilitates the comparison of commonalities and differences in events, activities, and processes of the units of analyses (Yin, 1994). According to Dawson (1997), Snow & Thomas (1994) and Wolfgramm (1997) in Chaves and Weiler (2016), as an empirical investigation that studies a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, a multiple-case study searches to expand and analyze a theory (analytical generalization) rather than enumerate frequencies (statistical generalization). Through a replication logic analysis, the selected cases will be tested through two contradictory theories: (1) sustainability on campus initiatives as living laboratories for sustainable development are necessary for the implementation of an Education for Sustainable Development approach in higher education institutions; and, (2) There is no need of establishing and implementing sustainability on campus initiatives as living laboratories for sustainable development in order to promote an Education for Sustainable Development approach in higher education institutions. On this regard, the theoretical propositions to be analyzed in the multiple case study are: “sustainable development is implemented as an institutional initiative of the university”; “sustainability on campus” initiatives aim to link Education for Sustainable Development in higher education institutions to campus design and facility management; “sustainability on campus variables belongs to a social, economic, environmental and institutional systemic approach” and, “a university campus as a living laboratory involves its institutional framework and all daily activities derived or not from a specific initiative”. The units of analysis of the multiple–case study are five different university campuses. Two of them are campuses that have sustainability on campus and living laboratories initiatives under an ongoing implementation process and three of them are universities that do not have sustainability on campus and living laboratories initiatives currently undergoing. The collected data from each unit of analysis will be related to the above mentioned contradictory theories and theoretical propositions. This analysis will include a combination of data collection techniques, such as interviews, documents analysis, webpages revision and collaboration with experts.
Expected Outcomes
Sustainability in higher education literature emphasizes the need to project a system´s approach (Lidstone L., et. al. 2015). This implies a whole holistic institutional effort to implement “sustainability on campus” initiatives. In this case, the same author refers to learning activities beyond the classroom that could include all facets of the university on campus daily life: education (curricula), research (student and faculty research for sustainability), operations (transforming building, procurement, maintenance practices, human resources, and student administration), and community outreach (including the broader community in these efforts). The initiatives to implement “sustainable campuses” or “green campuses” have grown in the last years across the world. However, according to Garrido-Yserte, R., & Gallo-Rivera, M.-T., 2020) there are different definitions of sustainable university campus and different interpretations or approaches to implement “sustainability on campus” initiatives. Therefore, although “sustainability on campus” has been included in the most recent debate on strategies to promote sustainability in universities, its implementation strategies lack of an international or regional consensus. The expected outcomes or findings of this research are to contrast the inclusion and exclusion theoretical framework (starting point) through the identification of the most relevant variables that coincide with the “implementation” and “put into practice” of the science of sustainability framework in higher education institutions. The geographical context of the current study reaches contemporary cases that are located in different environmental-geographical contexts (continents), in order to identify a link between diverse natural environments and their respective built environment sustainability management characteristics. The emphasis of the study will be focus on European higher education institutions that coincide with the above mentioned methodological criteria in order to have comparison parameters with other institutional strategies that are focused on the implementation of “sustainability on campus” initiatives as living laboratories for sustainable development.
References
Chaves and Weiler (2016) Los estudios de casos como enfoque metodológico. Cohen, B., Lawrence, K. T., Armstrong, A., Wilcha, M., & Gatti, A. (2018). Greening Lafayette: A model for building sustainable community. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 19(7), 1239-1258. Garrido-Yserte, R., & Gallo-Rivera, M.-T. (2020). The Potential Role of Stakeholders in the Energy Efficiency of Higher Education Institutions. Sustainability, 12(21), 8908. Jain, S., Agarwal, A., Jani, V., Singhal, S., Sharma, P., & Jalan, R. (2017). Assessment of carbon neutrality and sustainability in educational campuses (CaNSEC): A general framework. Ecological Indicators, 76, 131-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2017.01.012 Lidstone, L., Wright, T., & Sherren, K. (2015). An analysis of Canadian STARS-rated higher education sustainability policies. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 17(2), 259-278. Martek, I., Hosseini, M. R., Durdyev, S., Arashpour, M., & Edwards, D. J. (2022). Are university “living labs” able to deliver sustainable outcomes? A case-based appraisal of Deakin University, Australia. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(6), 1332-1348. Shawe, R., Horan, W., Moles, R., & O’Regan, B. (2019). Mapping of sustainability policies and initiatives in higher education institutes. Environmental Science & Policy, 99, 80-88. Yin, R. (1994): Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks. Zen, I. S. (2017). Exploring the living learning laboratory: An approach to strengthen campus sustainability initiatives by using sustainability science approach. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 18(6), 939-955. Zizka, L., McGunagle, D. M., & Clark, P. J. (2021). Sustainability in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs: Authentic engagement through a community-based approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 279, 123715.
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