Students’ Perception of Campus Sustainability …
289
The model of Lozano et al. (2015), presented in Table 1, has been broadly cited by
many authors because it captures the core facets of HEI sustainability and, as shown
later, its adherence to SATs was empirically tested.
3 Sustainability Assessment Tools in HEIs
To endorse the effectiveness of HEIs’ sustainability practices, various Sustainability
Assessment Tools (SATs) were created and are considered a crucial element to
enable the path towards sustainability. They support the HEIs’ decision-makers on
the improvement of their plans and policies towards a sustainable higher education institution and make it possible to publish the sustainability reporting of HEIs
(Berzosa et al. 2017).
The work of Lambrechts (2015), which provides an overview of existing sustainability assessment tools, identifies the SAT contribution to the HEIs’ sustainability
process as threefold. According to this work, SATs usually contribute to (1) policy
development; (2) mainstreaming sustainable development in higher education, and
finally, (3) improving transparency and communication.
Fischer et al. (2015) studied 12 sustainability assessment tools in HEIs to analyse
the understandings of a sustainable university that are underpinning contemporary
sustainability assessment tools. Their research findings showed that these SATs
comprised at least three different monitoring purposes, from affording compliance to
predetermined standards, to determine the state of internal processes, and to provide
data for competitive performance comparisons. Several other authors carried out
similar comparative SATs analysis.
Yarime and Tanaka (2012) used a mixed-method approach and analysed 12 SATs,
and the results showed that most tools indicators were focused on operations (44%),
governance (39%) and education (8%). Berzosa et al. (2017) simultaneously applied
three SATs to compare on a real case study, namely to assess the sustainability of the
Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) in Spain. The authors analysed advantages
and differences between tools and concluded that it may be feasible to use more than
one tool for diagnosis and planning. In another study by Asmuss and Kamal (2013)
four tools were reviewed to select the best benchmarking tool for the purposes of the
University of Saskatchewan (UofS) in Canada. This work considered the following
five areas of campus life: education, operation, governance, research and community
engagement. After analysing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the following
tools: Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), the Campus Sustainability
Assessment Framework (CSAF), the College of Sustainability Report Card (CSRC),
and the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS), the last one
was chosen. STARS was considered by the authors to be the best benchmarking tool to
satisfy the UofS’s needs for assessing sustainability in all designated areas of campus
life—education, research, operations, governance and community engagement.
Finally, in the work carried out by Findler et al. (2018), the extent to which SATs
are capable of measuring the impact that HEIs have on sustainable development was
289
The model of Lozano et al. (2015), presented in Table 1, has been broadly cited by
many authors because it captures the core facets of HEI sustainability and, as shown
later, its adherence to SATs was empirically tested.
3 Sustainability Assessment Tools in HEIs
To endorse the effectiveness of HEIs’ sustainability practices, various Sustainability
Assessment Tools (SATs) were created and are considered a crucial element to
enable the path towards sustainability. They support the HEIs’ decision-makers on
the improvement of their plans and policies towards a sustainable higher education institution and make it possible to publish the sustainability reporting of HEIs
(Berzosa et al. 2017).
The work of Lambrechts (2015), which provides an overview of existing sustainability assessment tools, identifies the SAT contribution to the HEIs’ sustainability
process as threefold. According to this work, SATs usually contribute to (1) policy
development; (2) mainstreaming sustainable development in higher education, and
finally, (3) improving transparency and communication.
Fischer et al. (2015) studied 12 sustainability assessment tools in HEIs to analyse
the understandings of a sustainable university that are underpinning contemporary
sustainability assessment tools. Their research findings showed that these SATs
comprised at least three different monitoring purposes, from affording compliance to
predetermined standards, to determine the state of internal processes, and to provide
data for competitive performance comparisons. Several other authors carried out
similar comparative SATs analysis.
Yarime and Tanaka (2012) used a mixed-method approach and analysed 12 SATs,
and the results showed that most tools indicators were focused on operations (44%),
governance (39%) and education (8%). Berzosa et al. (2017) simultaneously applied
three SATs to compare on a real case study, namely to assess the sustainability of the
Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) in Spain. The authors analysed advantages
and differences between tools and concluded that it may be feasible to use more than
one tool for diagnosis and planning. In another study by Asmuss and Kamal (2013)
four tools were reviewed to select the best benchmarking tool for the purposes of the
University of Saskatchewan (UofS) in Canada. This work considered the following
five areas of campus life: education, operation, governance, research and community
engagement. After analysing the strengths and weaknesses of each of the following
tools: Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ), the Campus Sustainability
Assessment Framework (CSAF), the College of Sustainability Report Card (CSRC),
and the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System (STARS), the last one
was chosen. STARS was considered by the authors to be the best benchmarking tool to
satisfy the UofS’s needs for assessing sustainability in all designated areas of campus
life—education, research, operations, governance and community engagement.
Finally, in the work carried out by Findler et al. (2018), the extent to which SATs
are capable of measuring the impact that HEIs have on sustainable development was