Abstract
Although various initiatives have been undertaken by the universities worldwide to ensure that their campus operates sustainably, there are emergent barriers that pose serious challenges to the practitioners and subsequently hinder the successful implementation. The research for this paper was built upon the discussion concerning ‘campus operations’, which is one of the dominant sustainability elements in the university systems. It analyzes the barriers for green campus operations implementation through a methodological approach, which was implemented in two tiers. For identification of the barriers, a comprehensive review of the literature was performed and consulted with academic experts who have been involved in greening campus operations in the university. Next, interpretive structural modeling was used to analyze and develop a model of interactions, mutual influence, and relationship among barriers. The results revealed an eighteen-barrier interpretive structural model with eight levels. The analysis indicated that ‘lack of awareness’, ‘lack of knowledge’, ‘resistance to change’, and ‘inefficient communication’ are the dominant barriers with high driving and low dependence powers. The research findings highlighted the importance of this structural model for universities to facilitate the implementation of campus operations by removing the dominant barriers.
Highlights
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been regarded as the essential party for accomplishing sustainable development (SD) [1,2], which was outlined from the Brundtland Report as ‘Our Common Future’ to the 2030 Agenda with the 17 SD Goals as ‘Transforming Our World’ [3], due to its unique intellectual contributor to sustainable societal transitions
The important characteristics of interpretive structural modeling (ISM) thoroughly enumerated by [42]: this methodology is interpretive as the judgment of the group will define whether and how the various elements are related; it is structural based on the correlation whereby an overall structure is extracted from the complex set of variables; it is a modeling technique as the specific relationships and overall structure are portrayed in a digraph model; it contributes to impose order and direction on the complication of relationship among different elements of a system; and it is predominantly intended as a group learning process, as it is applied by individuals
The barriers that hinder the implementation of this sustainability element pose serious challenges for both technical experts and managers of HEIs
Summary
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been regarded as the essential party for accomplishing sustainable development (SD) [1,2], which was outlined from the Brundtland Report as ‘Our Common Future’ to the 2030 Agenda with the 17 SD Goals as ‘Transforming Our World’ [3], due to its unique intellectual contributor to sustainable societal transitions. Multiple initiatives have been launched by HEIs to promote campus sustainability from international declarations on education to the creation of campus sustainable networks and assessments since the 1990s [4]. The implementation of campus operations has observed significant progress than other developmental initiatives [5,6]. It is one of the most recognized strategies for fostering sustainability in university systems as stressed in various international declarations [7]. Washington-Ottombre and Bigalke [9] revealed that campus operations has contributed the highest percentage (43.7%) in the development of campus sustainability out of other modes, i.e., co-curriculum (29.9%), organizational change (22.7%), partnerships (18.4%), curriculum (15.9%), research (15.5%), and outreach (6.8%)
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