SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CAMPUSES

Abstract

Campus Sustainability is a unique opportunity of transforming educational campuses of higher learning, particularly the residential ones, into living laboratories for the demonstration of Environmental Sustainability. Higher Educational institutions play a vital role at the Regional, National and International level concerning their responsibility to society and can act as a catalyst to foster Sustainable Development. In early 1990s, campuses around the world adopted various Green Campus projects and Sustainability practices to showcase their participation in the worldwide movement of Sustainable Development. Efforts, then, were made to implement various policies for Sustainable Development of the nation through launching various Declarations at National and International levels. These Declarations focus on components e.g. - Curricula, Research, Operations, Outreach, Assessment and Reporting. Operational Campus Sustainability further addresses parameters such as Buildings, Climate, Air Quality, Dining Services, Energy, Ground, Recycling, Food, Transportation, Water and Waste. Various Campus Sustainability Association /Organizations were also formed and formulated with an objective to integrate Sustainability into Education, Research and Campus Operations. The commitment to Sustainability was also so varied in content and context with introduction of Master plans, Environmental plans, Environmental guidelines etc. (Velazquez L, et al., 2006)by some of the institutions whereas for others it was achieved through being active signatories to National and International Declarations (Wright TSA.2002). Campus Sustainability practices differed from campus to campus on the basis of the geographical location, existing cultural norms, perceptions and attitudes and finally financial resources available. In order to quantify the extent and degree of acceptable practices and alternatives of Sustainable growth adopted and their relative merits and efficiency a number of Assessment Tools have been developed in the latter part of the 1990’s and refinements and alternatives to these are continuing. As per the UGC report of 2012, the student population on India is more than 100 million in Institutions of higher learning which number more than 2000 Universities (UGC report, 2012). However, in India, Campus Sustainability is in its very nascent stage, with little or no coordinated effort being made even by many of the leading National institutions. Recent studies conducted in India highlighting various aspects of sustainability (A.Mishra.at.el.2008, Gobinath.R.2010. Alexandar, R., & G Poyyamoli.2011, Ramchandra .T.V. 2012, Beena P. & Pankaj.P., 2012, Patil.T.S. et. al.2012) are a testimony to the foregoing. P a g e | ii The present study is focused on the development of an Operational Campus Sustainability Assessment Tool for Higher Educational Residential Campuses in India. The Objective of the research is i) To establish the concept of Operational Sustainability of Campuses in terms of its components, principles, parameters and objectives. ii) To develop an approach for analysis of Operational Campus Sustainability iii) To analyze the current Campus Sustainability Practices in selected Indian residential campuses on a comparative basis, iv) To analyse stakeholders’ perception on Campus Sustainability parameters, practices, and strategies, v) To propose a Campus Sustainability Model suitable for Indian Residential Campuses, and vi) To evolve a set of suitable sustainability indicators, assessment tool and benchmarks for Indian Residential Campuses. Six residential Institutions were selected for the study namely; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (IISc), Indian Institute of Madras (IIT M), Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi (BHU), Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT K), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT B) and Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT R). Based on the availability of data and current sustainability practices observed through primary and secondary surveys, a unique approach of analysis has been developed consisting of four steps namely; Resource Consumption Analysis (RCA), Critical Area Analysis (CAA), Perception Analysis (PA) and Tool based Analysis (TBA). Based on the analysis, suitable Sustainable Indicators for Indian Residential Campuses are listed and developed an Appropriate Assessment methodology that is further integrated with proposed Campus Sustainability Model. Study on Student, Faculty and Staff population over the year’s highlight that, institutions are trying to increase Student population and decrease Faculty and Staff. This is one of the major steps taken towards Economic Sustainability. Land plays an important role in Campus Sustainability, detailed understanding and study of various land uses will help to understand productivity and consumption of various resources. Campus planning and designing of all campuses are different varying from compact planning to scattered type. Footprint areas of all campuses show that most are having nearly one-third area as built up space and remaining unbuilt space. This indicates an immense potential to balance the Supply and Demand ratio. P a g e | iii There is no similarity in per capita areas provided under various land uses, which indicates a lack of guidelines. There are Constant land use demands (f(C)) which do not change with increase in student population, and Fluctuating land use demand (f(t)) which changes with increase in Student and Faculty intake. It is important to study power demand patterns to understand power usage of an institution. Constant power demands(C) and Fluctuating power demands (F (t)) help to understand the critical areas in an institution. Constant power demands can further be divided into two types namely; revenue generation and essential utilities. Water consumption mainly depends upon the local climatic factors i.e. Hot summers require more water than the cold winters. Waste produced throughout the year, however, is almost similar irrespective of the time of the year. Quantification of waste at each location helps to identify the critical areas within the campus. A Comprehensive Survey with regard the stakeholders perceptions to the foregoing was conducted in thirteen institutes, spread geographically in various parts of India. Student, Faculty and Staff in all the institutes think alike and expressed their major concern for management of potable water, wastewater and storm water. Similar concerns were observed for energy related issues. As per the responses, activities related to energy, water and waste management were inadequate in their campuses. Respondents of the surveys were of the opinion that promoting efficient land use, use of bicycles, improving pedestrian paths, implementing various transportation policies and maintaining flora of the campus were among the few meriting greater priority. Sustainability Assessment of an institution is a complex task by itself and when many institutions need to be compared the complexity increases many fold. A number of Sustainability Assessment Tools have evolved to address the foregoing issues. However, technological evolution and metamorphosis of the socioeconomic environ has rendered the assessment tools inadequate to address contemporary assessment of sustainability as presently pursued. Diversity in their approach to a common goal of sustainability assessment provides a relative comparison of institution by each assessment tool. Reduction of the rating/grading/ranking of each of the sustainability assessment tools to a common datum indicated clearly that, there is poor correlation between them. Data handling and maintenance is a major issue in many of the institutions with data related to Education and Research being readily available but data related to other sustainability parameters being poorly documented if at all. In older institutes centralized data is available on campus infrastructure but data on energy consumption, water consumption and waste generation is not well documented. Thus, it is important for an institute to document the details of consumption of various resources through Data Processing Indicators so that they can be balanced by adopting various P a g e | iv sustainability measures through Strategy Indicators (SI). Periodical assessment of indicators further assists an institute to gauge the efficacy of their sustainability efforts and adopt appropriate measures accordingly. The proposed model consists of a ACTION LEVELS –DATA AVAILABILITYINDICATORS –ASSESSMENT. The Action Levels consists of four stages that include Base Data processing, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Measurement and Maintenance. Details of Data processing are worked in detail. The data availability part focuses more on availability of preliminary and detailed data. Indicator part consist of basket of data processing and strategy Indicators that are derived from survey analysis. The Assessment -part focuses on assessment of data with available Benchmarks (Qn-SAT) and Sustainability Strategies (Ql-SAT). Uniqueness of the proposed model is that it focuses operational indicators that include the entire spectrum from data processing to data monitoring. The study on “sustainability assessment of higher educational residential campuses” focuses on Operational Sustainability of higher educational campuses that can be extended to other aspects of sustainability like Social, Economical and Educational Sustainability of Indian higher educational campuses. Further Operational Sustainability is limited to only four parameters like Land use, Energy, Water, and Waste that can be extended to Transportation, Air quality, Food etc. Proposed Campus Sustainability Model adopt detailed methodology for Data processing which can be extended to Planning, Execution, Monitoring, & Measurement and Maintenance Benchmarks derived in the present research is based on only technical campuses that can be extended to other campuses to get more updated values annually. Similar research can be extended to any other residential campuses and related benchmarks can be developed accordingly. Proposed Ql-SAT utilises strategy indicators that are assessed qualitatively however, this model can help in appraising improvements quantitatively in the future.