Environmental sustainability in Africa: Insight into paper consumption by an African university

Abstract

AbstractEnvironmental sustainability is a huge challenge in Africa as the region is currently struggling to provide sustainable systems to support daily human activities. Such activities in many African organisations include paper‐based information storage and communication which are not ecofriendly and place a huge burden on forest resources. This study therefore focused on the implication of overusing paper in an African university. Fifty offices in the university were surveyed and 59 questionnaires administered. The questionnaires were transcribed and analysed using both textual qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results showed that 6888 reams of paper (costing about 8 million Naira) are consumed annually by the university, translating to about 413 trees, which are enough to occupy a standard‐sized football pitch. It was also found that administrative staff members were generally Information Communication Technology (ICT) certified; however, many of them are still not well‐informed on the environmental implication of overconsuming paper even though they are largely aware of the benefits of paperless systems. Recommendations were offered on how to reduce the demand for paper by the university. This study is expected to create more awareness on the urgent need for African organisations to take environmental sustainability issues more seriously.