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An important facet of student’s sense of belonging is students’ relationships with, and time spent in, the university campus. The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion that access to campus “green space”, including parks, fields and gardens, may bolster students’ sense of belonging, improve well-being feelings and promote place attachment.

The authors surveyed students in different locations (including three green and one non-green campus spaces) across a large UK campus-based Northern institution. 146 students participated in the study in one of the four campus locations. The authors investigated how being in green spaces on campus may impact students’ sense of belonging, well-being and place attachment. The authors also qualitatively explored students’ perceptions of campus spaces through Ahn’s (2017) 10 Words Question measure.

Analyses demonstrate that students surveyed in green spaces reported significantly more positive sense of belonging, compared to students surveyed in non-green campus spaces. Campus location did not impact well-being, however. Students associated green spaces on campus with “calm”, “positive emotion” and “nature” words and non-green spaces with “busy”, “social” and “students”.

Taken together, the results of this paper suggest that access to green spaces can be important for campus sense of belonging. Thus, efforts should be made to ensure the sustainability of these important spaces across university campuses.

This study crucially examines how occupying green spaces on university campuses may impact students’ feelings of belongingness. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that uses field-based methods to understand students’ feelings whilst occupying green spaces.

This study aims to investigate the entry-level student’s awareness of environmental sustainability focussing on the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) campus and measure the effectiveness of the course materials. A comparison between the students who took the general education sustainability (GESU 121) course face to face and the ones who tool it online was applied.

This study was descriptive in nature, and the data is obtained using a cross-sectional survey of the students attending the UAEU in 2020. The data collection was done in two semesters, Spring 2020 [face-to-face class] and Fall 2020 [online class, after COVID-19 effect]. A total of 160 participants responded to the survey. The Pearson’s Chi-square test for independence was conducted and used to identify if any statistical differences exist between the studied variables.

This study revealed that the awareness of environmental sustainability was increased in both groups [face-to-face students and online students], after taking the course. In addition, around 80% of the students were interested to participate in sustainability initiatives on the UAEU campus. The students’ perception of the statements about the UAEU campus environmental sustainability varied from Spring 2020 (53.3% were not sure that the UAEU campus is environmentally sustainable) to Fall 2022 (63% of the online students believed that the campus is environmentally sustainable).

Students’ awareness and perception are very important to improve the environmental sustainability of the University campus. The novelty of this study is to examine the awareness of entry-level students among the environmental sustainability focussing on the UAEU campus and examine the effect of COVID-19 [online classes] on delivering the course knowledge. The findings of this study provide the information for the improvement of the course for the future semesters.

This study sought to assess the process of initiating a sustainable recycling program at the University of Jordan. It illustrates the potentials of recycling, perceived awareness of recycling by the students and staff, as well as challenges to a sustainable waste recycling program. This study aims to identify the barriers and challenges that face a sustainable waste recycling program at the University of Jordan.

The study consisted of investigating waste recycling potential on campus, inspecting general environmental awareness toward recycling and running an experimental recycling study on part of the campus. A waste characterization study was conducted to assess the current waste status and recycling extent. A questionnaire survey was carried out to obtain information on the students’ and staffs’ awareness of waste recycling and management on campus. In the experimental recycling study, seventy units of waste segregation bins were distributed on campus. The recycling efficiency was evaluated at two schools; the School of Engineering and the School of Medicine. The administrative support and collaboration while running the recycling program were also observed.

Overall, waste recycling at the University of Jordan has an appreciable opportunity and potential. A substantial amount of waste can be diverted from going to the landfill. Data showed general positive recycling rates except for plastic. Also, the recycling rates show great potential for enhancing. The recycling at the University of Jordan faces several barriers and obstacles. The greatest barrier was identified as the lack of cooperation of the administrative system on campus. The administrative support for the recycling program was strong only at the initiation of the recycling program. Administrative support has a vital influence on the recycling program. It has the potential of boosting it or bringing it to halt. Future studies should focus on investigating recycling efficiency for the entire campus and focus more on increasing pro-environmental behavior among students and staff in higher education institutions.

The value of this research lies in it being conducted in a large campus university in a developing country. Also, the study used a diagnostic approach that is based on evaluating an environmental sustainability program as it evolves inside a higher education institution. The study illustrates the challenges that face universities in developing countries while adopting green campus initiatives.

Despite an emerging trend in the higher education sector toward sustainable campuses, comparative analyses that span multiple themes across multiple campuses are still limited. The purpose of this paper is to reduce such a gap by comparing universities that are members of the International Sustainable Campus Network across themes that are related to environmental quality.

In total, 34 universities are included in the sample. Indicators are systematically reviewed and clustered into ten themes. Common indicators (CIs) are identified in seven themes for at least seven and at most 20 campuses. At the absence of CIs, the given theme is assessed based on the measures applied. The results indicate the average levels of performance in the sample and/or the scope of the measures that are undertaken.

According to related values, an average campus spent 233,402 MWh of energy in buildings, 838,317 m³ of water on campus, generated 4,442 tonnes of waste, and emitted 75,354 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. The average recycling rate was 50 percent, the average single occupancy vehicle rate in campus commuting was 34 percent, and on average, there were 152 sustainability-oriented courses. Best practices from the measures included energy audits for data centers, retrofit of water intense laboratories, and on-site renewable energy projects.

In addition, a unified monitoring framework is proposed to improve subsequent comparative analyses of campuses. Universities must focus on the use of the campus as a living laboratory to guide society toward a more sustainable future.

This paper aims to clarify the differences between students’ travel behaviours in Australia and China and the association between students’ environmental attitudes and their travel behaviours in both countries.

The paper extensively reviewed most of existing literature work on commuting patterns of higher education students with referring to different studies around the world and then used it to build a theoretical framework and conceptual model to relate the travel patterns of students to built environment, personal demographics and environmental knowledge/consideration. An online survey was used with 230 students at Mawson Lakes campus of University of South Australia and Beiyangyuan campus of Tianjin University (China). Statistical tests (i.e. mean test, one-way analysis of variance, factor analysis) were used to analyse the data.

The study reveals that a high dependence on private vehicles amongst students at the Mawson Lakes campus, whilst a more environmentally sustainable modal choice dominated at the Beiyangyuan campus. Those who studied at Mawson Lakes campus tended to have stronger involvement in environmental activities than their counterparts at Beiyangyuan campus, which presented a clear association between environmental awareness and the travel behaviours of the sampled students.

The study focussed on two respective campuses of both universities in Australia and China. Future work could be expanded with students at all campuses of two universities.

The study affirmed the value of nurturing environmental awareness for students in both universities to encourage more environmentally sustainable travel behaviours amongst students. The paper provides policy recommendations such as establishing infrastructure, and facilities for new stream of mobility included sharing bike schemes, which would be very practical due to flexibility and cost effectiveness within University campuses. The paper attempted to transfer lessons from Chinese bike friendly society to Adelaide’s car dominated campus.

This study brings remarkable contributions as comparing university students’ travel behaviours in two different nations. It is the first one in Australia, which links the environmental concerns among university students with their travel behaviours. The paper was successful in getting the gap between theory and practice filled to some extent. The paper has a capability to be used as an evidence-base work in the area of sustainability education.

This paper aims to identify campus greening initiatives on a sample of universities in Romania reflected in the university curricula, the behavioral patterns of students and teachers, the administrative actions that carry out empirical investigation of students/teachers/management staff perception on campus greening (based on self-administered questionnaires); detect the way campus greening initiatives are promoted/made visible; and identify the gaps and needs of the universities under scrutiny in terms of campus greening initiatives.

The current research relies on two major components reviewing campus greening-related activities and initiatives, as reflected in the scientific literature and university curricula (empirical and quantitative assessment) and inquiring selected universities’ about the campus greening programs they unfold through questionnaire surveys (qualitative assessment).

Generally, sustainability topics (e.g. environmental protection, waste management and sustainable development) are largely addressed and, to some extent, applied in faculties dealing with earth sciences (e.g. geography, ecology) and technical sciences (e.g. environmental engineering). This can be explained by the traditional theoretical background of the first, and the experimental-oriented profile of the latter, which supports the development of innovative technologies (green technologies). However, there is a need to better undertake and promote greening initiatives for most of the higher education institutions in Romania. Some spatial (between institutions throughout Romania) and structural (according to the profile of the institutions) disparities are visible.

The limitations of the study might be the small number of universities providing a positive feedback to the questionnaire survey and the degree of subjectivity of some of the answers, directly linked with the professional background and issue awareness of the persons who answered the questions.

The findings can be useful to the university managers to better orient their actions toward campus greening, increasing their knowledge and awareness toward sustainability-related actions.

This is the first attempt reporting in the literature to analyze the campus greening initiatives to a large number of universities in Romania based on a common approach, identifying the main gaps and challenges in this process.

Smart campuses can be seen as the future of higher education efforts, especially for their contributions to sustainability and to encourage innovation. This paper aims to present the benefits of smart practices in a Higher Education Institutions and highlights its connections to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The methodology is divided into three steps: first, an international search and assessment of smart practices at universities; second, the identification of smart practices in a university campus in southern Brazil; and third, the presentation of the benefits of smart practices and their relationship with the SDGs.

The results showed that globally, the area most covered by smart practices in universities is the environment and, specifically, focused on waste reduction. in the context of this case study, the benefits of implementing smart practices mainly reach SDGs 4 and SDG 9, especially due to aspects of teaching technologies for the new classroom models and the optimization of campus infrastructure management.

The study encourages other universities to implement smart practices in their campuses, to becoming smart campuses while they also collaborate in achieving the SDGs while raising the discussion on the importance of committed actions taken on a university campus with the UN SDGs, to leverage synergies on campus operations at universities.

This paper presents a set of smart practices that universities are applying both globally and locally (in southern Brazil). In addition, it contributes to sustainability research by showing how smart practices have the potential to promote SDGs in universities, especially through campus operations.

Safety and security (S&S) are critical concerns in South Africa, especially in Cape Town, one of the country’s most crime-ridden cities. The University of Cape Town (UCT), situated on a large, open campus, has experienced increased malefaction. Facilities management (FM) services at universities bear the primary responsibility for providing S&S to their communities. To comprehensively understand and address the community’s demands regarding S&S, the current study was conducted to investigate the challenges specific to open universities. This study aims to determine whether implementing community-based FM (CbFM) principles and using technological innovations could offer a more effective and sustainable solution.

The study adopted interpretivist overarching case study methodology, which is ontologically based. A mixed-method approach was used to incorporate the strengths and limitations of the weaknesses of both methods. The data collection took the form of an online survey of the university community and semi-structured interviews with university executive management to obtain data from the single case study of UCT. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data, and thematic analysis was used to identify emergent themes from the qualitative data.

The study presents an overall view of the provision of S&S at UCT, the unique challenges faced by management and the main S&S issues affecting the community. Moreover, the study reveals that UCT has implemented community participation processes in the past with limited success. This is because the strategies implemented constitute a narrow perspective of community participation. Therefore, a much smarter and more inclusive perspective using technological innovation is required for successful community participation to occur and to be successfully used in providing S&S toward achieving future-proofing facilities.

This research has demonstrated the influence of CbFM and innovative technologies on the S&S of the open campus. Hence, future-proof facilities can be achieved when FM actively engages university communities in managing campuses through technological innovation.

Purpose – This chapter explores how a group of African academics at a university in South Africa experience belonging at varying levels of geographical scale. It considers how race, class and professional status intersect to influence the scholars’ experiences.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Narrative interviews were conducted with 24 individuals from nine African countries. All were current doctoral or postdoctoral fellows at the University of the Free State. The focus is decidedly qualitative in approach, with an emphasis on understanding the subjectivity of the people under study.

Findings – The interviews reveal that, while participants have struggled to forge a sense of belonging to South African society due to high levels of xenophobia and structural racism, they have found other spaces to validate their professional identities and, hence, forge a sense of belonging. These spaces include certain university departments and meeting places at the university. Importantly, these spaces have a very specific, local location, but are international in their linkages and their orientation. The professional identity of the scholars helps them overcome challenges to traditional modes of belonging based on race and class in the South African context.

Originality/Value – The findings contribute to broader discussions on the scale of migrant belongings and on the increasingly complex ways migrants relate to space and place. It also offers a new perspective on the belonging(s) of international scholars, which is largely understudied in the South African context.

The objective of corporate real estate management is to optimally attune corporate accommodation to organisational performance. At universities, the dynamic process to match supply and demand is often hindered by difficulties in the allocation and use of space. This is a challenge for the Dutch universities and perhaps also European universities, which own large and ageing real estate portfolio’s in need of (re)investment: how can universities invest their resources as effectively as possible and not in space that will be poorly used? The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of smart campus tools to improve space use on campus.

First, a survey at 13 Dutch universities is conducted, consisting of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with Dutch campus managers. Then, semi-structured interviews are held with a number of parties in other industries to explore the use of smart tools in other contexts.

The universities’ demand for smart tools is mainly directed at the automatic and continuous collection of real-time space use data for education spaces and giving students insight into the availability of study places on campus. The tools at the Dutch universities focus largely on effectiveness: helping their users in their search to find a space that supports their activities. In other industry sectors, the results suggest that the use of smart tools is more directed towards efficiency: maximizing the use of existing space or optimising the operations of the organisation.

Although the use of smart tools in practice has gained significant momentum in the past few years, research on the subject is still sparse. By providing a framework for smart tools, as well as exploring the work done in theory and in practice, the authors hope to increase discussion and research on the subject from the perspective of corporate real estate.