Green-Blue Sustainability Initiatives for Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) have always been the role model of innovative ideas and new thinking in the world, but with the environmental challenges growing more sharply, the role of the universities needs to be reimagined otherwise the transition to sustainable world will become much harder. With the rapid pace of urbanisation, the cities are more oriented towards concretisation rather than focussing on green-blue sustainability concerns. This paper attempts to appraise the green-blue sustainability initiatives taken up by various HEIs around the globe. The Indian Institutions need to learn from them and start giving due consideration to embedding green-blue sustainability initiatives into their campuses. The initiatives taken up by the different campuses can serve as the benchmarks for Indian Institutions to adopt and comply with them.

Keywords

Green-Blue Initiatives, Green Infrastructure, Sustainability, Sustainable Campus.

Introduction

Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. It involves not only the responsible use of natural resources but also the nurturing of social and economic systems that support long-term well-being (Tony Binns, 2012). Environmentalism is part of sustainability. By the late twentieth century, many of these ideas had coalesced to demand sustainable development. So many countries were still grappling with grinding poverty after decades of trying to elevate their living standards through industrialisation. Unsustainable economic growth came at the expense of ecosystem health and social equity; it did not yield enduring prosperity. It was evident that the world needs a way out for ecology to be in harmony with prosperity.

The United Nations constituted Brundtland Commission which in its final report, ‘Our Common Future’, defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (United Nations, 2015). The Commission succeeded in integrating environmentalism with social and economic priorities on the world’s development agenda. Sustainability — a holistic notion combining ecological, social and economic dimensions — acknowledges that all three must be taken together to derive sustainable prosperity. Sustainable development is an approach to growth that aims to balance human developmental goals with the sustainability of the natural environment. The final goal is a state of society in which resources and living conditions are utilised to satisfy human needs without compromising the stability and integrity of the natural system. This paper attempts to appraise the green-blue sustainability initiatives taken up by various Higher Educational Institutions around the globe.

Literature Review

The term sustainability is broad and diverse. It is crucial to adapt it to the local context to remain relevant. Various terms such as Green Campus, Eco Campus, Low Carbon Campus etc., evolve around the sustainability concept. All these concepts focused on the campuses’ physical, social, economic, and environmental concerns.

As per Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Green Campus is the one that uses little water, harvests rain, optimises energy, saves electricity, prioritises renewable energy, reduces waste, has large green cover and open spaces, encourages eco-friendly transportation and emphasises on healthy and environment-friendly living (Sareen, 2018).

A Sustainable Campus carries out these functions while maintaining a culture of environmental sustainability, ensuring that design and function are in harmony with available resources. It is a place where environmentally-conscious practices and education are closely intertwined, and where environmentally responsible principles are demonstrated through actions.

The green campus institution is a place where self-reflection, testing new ideas, and implementing them are encouraged. At its peak, it is an exemplary environmental community where all aspects, including operational functions, business practices, academic programmes, and individuals, are interconnected, offering educational and practical benefits to the institution, the region, and the global community (Taisce, 2016-17).

Eco-Campus is a programme that provides a flexible phased approach to higher educational institutions for implementing an environmental management system at the higher and further education levels. Participants get an opportunity to study this system and they receive recognition in the form of bronze, silver, gold, and platinum medals. (Limited, 2021).

Climate Neutral Campus is a campus that does not contribute to any net climate impact due to the emission of carbon or other greenhouse gases. The university can most effectively accomplish its goal by implementing a series of actions that decrease aggressive energy usage, transition to low or no impact energy sources, and ultimately, offset carbon emissions. (Laboratory, 2022).

The concept of Green School was first introduced in Europe in 1990’s and later, following the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, a need was felt to take necessary actions in every area in which humans impact the environment. In late 19th century when primary focus was only on environmental considerations, the Kyoto Declaration of 1993 made it obligatory for institutions to review their operations and reflect as best practices of sustainability (Sauve, 2007). The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 further catalysed the efforts to bring about shift from “educating about the environment” to “educating for sustainability” developing the urgent need for awareness about over-exploitation and misuse of resources in the quest of our future development (Pandya, 2015). In the view of this crisis the need emerged to deepen our understanding to meet the environmental challenges that we are facing today by enabling the children with appropriate skills to intervene in environmental, economic and social issues which have been viewed earlier in isolation.

For too long, water-related issues have been pushed underground but with the changing times, people have become aware that the grey alone cannot cope up with the challenges of climate change. The Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) paradigm marries these two types of infrastructures and values together in a union that is greater than the sum of its parts. BGI integrates hydrological and biological water treatment trains into systems where green features are seamlessly overlapping with blue features (Fletcher, 2015). Throughout the evolution of cities securing sufficient water for health, hygiene and economy, has been a greater challenge. The era of industrialisation has given rise to water- borne diseases such as cholera, black fever and typhoid. Consequently, the municipal authorities promoted public health and sanitation in cities by providing sewerage systems and fresh drinking water for the residents. Although the global case studies of Green Interventions may differ in terms of density, nature, size and the goal that they want to achieve, the learning from these case studies would be very useful for other communities in creating their green infrastructure framework and addressing the problems and challenges faced by them. See Table 1.

Table 1: Blue-Green Initiatives Around the Globe

Various universities around the arena are both planning or imposing their sustainable campus plans with incentives from federal and state governments in the form of tax incentives for buildings that surpass the standards set by using the authorities. Ball State University is making plans to install huge geothermal cooling and heating machine in its campus, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne installed the sector’s first solar glass window in 2013, University of Oxford changed electrical installations inside the old homes with energy green LED lighting, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has advanced a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold-licensed studies laboratory, University of Minnesota’s Morris Campus features a biomass gasification plant, fuelled by way of crop residues from the nearby farms, Georgetown College has prepared a grasp Plan for 2037 that heavily addresses campus-wide sustainability and energy, Università degli Studi di Milano and Politecnico di Milano has been working on the mission Città Studi Sustainable Campus that makes a speciality of redevelopment of an academic district (called Citta Studi) in Milan at the standards of sustainability, Yale College focused, as part of their strategic plan for sustainability, on sub-institutional level planning and action and many greater projects are being taken up globally (Network, 2014).

Methodology

This research paper attempts to appraise the green-blue sustainability concerns taken up by various HEIs for embedding sustainability into the institutions. The institutions are the growth centres where people from far away come together and then spread to different parts of the world. The paper studies the journey of green-blue sustainability concerns in India vis-a-vis other countries in the world.. It tracks down that how the journey of green-blue sustainability concerns evolved in the earlier stages from Harrapan civilisation in India and the legacy was even continued further but with coming up of urbanisation, the cities focused more on concretisation rather than giving due consideration to green-blue sustainability concerns in the city planning. In the case of round the globe scenario, the HEIs have well addressed the concerns by deriving various targets, themes and strategies to be achieved by them in the near future. They have set the timelines for achieving the various goals and also the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been modified so that they could be incorporated in the Institutional level. In case of India, no such research focusing on green-blue sustainability concerns in HEIs, has been carried out as yet. The studies carried out till now in India focus only on achieving the SDGs and their targets by 2030 as proposed by the United Nations. Through this research paper, the authors throw light on how the institutions round the globe have taken up various initiatives for achieving green-blue sustainability concerns into their institutions so, that these could serve as best practices for Indian Institutions to adopt and motivate them to practice sustainability on their campuses too.

Results and Discussions

HEIs have always been the role model of innovative ideas and new thinking in the world, but with the environmental challenges growing more sharply, the role of the universities needs to be reimagined by educating the students, staff and faculty to play a role in supporting sustainable development in their lives. Higher education Institutes shape the leaders of tomorrow and unless the future generations have sustainability embedded in their mindset and skillset, the transition to sustainable world will become much harder (Iain Patton, 2021). The HEIs conduct research and offer insight to overcome the societal, environmental and economic challenges by breaking new grounds and putting back more into the society and environment than it takes. If designed and managed efficiently these campuses can depict how the cities can also operate efficiently within the limits of finite land, water, energy, biodiversity and waste. The institutional areas can act as laboratory to demonstrate ideas and technologies and innovate a practical approach. If all the educational campuses get involved in demonstration and being part of the change the multiplier effect of this localised action can also be conveyed at a big platform for cities to adopt.

Campuses have an important role not only in the development of knowledge and understanding in the students but also in creating the foundation of environmental ethics. Institutions have long been the catalyst for social and political actions as well as centres of learning. It is a well-established fact that ethics, skills, values, habits and attitudes are inculcated from early stage of an individual’s life through their institutions and surroundings. All these efforts are augmented if we have a sense of belongingness towards our surroundings and environment by nurturing them growing capacities as the learners through its green environment connecting them with their surroundings. These are the seeds of change that are borne at the campus which will grow and eventually spread far away.

Environmental-friendly techniques that support sustainability, reduce waste, increase efficiency, employ renewable energy sources, and encourage recycling in the building, water, solid waste, energy, and landscaping sectors are crucial while tackling campus sustainability issues. The green campus programme would open avenues for the educational societies to practice sustainability and strive towards making their campus self-sufficient. This would educate the community at a larger level and foster environmental literacy into its educational mind-set, which is the need of the hour.

Indian Scenario

In the floodplains of the Indus Valley Civilisation in prehistoric times, green practices began to evolve throughout the Indian subcontinent. One of the first examples of a well-planned water management system that implemented green principles at the city level was Mohanjodaro. Historically all the major cities inhabited green practices in human settlements which was evident from Udaipur established in 1559 A.D. which had artificial lakes designed around the city to fulfil the water demands. Jaipur, built in 1726 A.D. was designed on the principle of Shilp Shastra which had a planned open space network. New Delhi, the last city designed in British era had British and American style influenced design of open spaces along with a hierarchy of green spaces spread all around the city.

Cities planned after the British era also featured extensive networks of green spaces. For example, Chandigarh, planned in the 1950s, the New Delhi Master Plan of 1962, and the Gandhinagar Plan of 1965, all incorporated a hierarchy of open and green spaces ranging from the city level to individual neighbourhoods. To facilitate the urban planning in the developing cities in India, the Town and Country Planning Organisation (TCPO) created the Model Town and Country Planning Act in 1962 to incorporate the idea of green spaces into the Master Plan. However, due to inadequate planning and execution, the connection between the green spaces and natural drainage patterns was severed. As a result, Indian cities started to deviate from green methods that were widely used in ancient towns. From the 1970s to the 1990s, major cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Bangalore all experienced these kinds of variations.

In India, the term ‘infrastructure’ has traditionally been associated primarily with grey infrastructure—comprising bricks and mortar—often at the expense of green infrastructure in urban areas. The concept of green infrastructure was first mentioned in the Indian context during the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969–74), which emphasised environmental protection as a key component of a healthy lifestyle, though only in a limited ideological sense. In 2008, India formulated National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) by Ministry of Environment Forestry and Climate Change (MoEFCC) in response to United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and United Nation’s Green Economy Initiative. The NAPCC included 12 missions dealing with sustainable habitat, water, agricultural, forestry and multi-sectoral approaches. In addition, two flagship projects by MoHUA, i.e. Smart Cities Mission and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) were also launched focusing on improving urban living that includes blue and green components as part of mission intervention (Driver, 2021). In addition to these programmes, the Government of India (GoI) has proposed Mission Amrit Sarovar to harnesses the potential of ponds and rejuvenate them to tackle climate change and conserve water. Also, Green Highway Policy has been proposed by GoI that promotes eco-friendly national highways through community participation and sustainable development. In order to provide sustainable, resilient and liveable cities, the green infrastructure is the need of the hour for the Indian cities as well as round the globe. In Indian cities, since the blue and green infrastructure is declining rapidly and grey is increasing constantly, a number of initiatives have been taken as given in Table 2.

Table 2: India’s Blue-Green Initiatives

The Institute of Town Planners India (ITPI) published the Urban Development Plan Formulation and Implementation (UDPFI) Guidelines in 1996 to further execute the agenda of green practices. The Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines 2014 required that at least 15% of the total area of the city be set aside for green and open spaces and there should be at least 10-12 square meters of green area per capita in the city. An all-encompassing law for environmental protection from all angles was the Environment Protection Act of 1986. Nevertheless, there are no laws or regulations that expressly address the preservation and improvement of green areas. The Service Level Benchmarks (SLBs, 2008) and Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT, 2014) directed the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to guarantee that there was 10–12 square meters of green spaces available per person.

The nation’s top university, Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) took the lead in addressing environmental concerns and societal issues in 2013 by implementing the Green Agenda in a gradual phased manner. The energy sector is under a lot of strain due to urbanisation and economic growth, which is increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Given this, the Central Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MoNRE) has launched the Solar Cities Programme to build Green Campuses, with the goal of reducing the demand for fossil fuels by at least 25 per cent and conventional energy by at least 10 per cent over the course of five years. For the same, the circular dated 10 March, 2016 circulated by the University Grant Commission (UGC) to all the educational institutions coming under UGC to become partners for the noble cause and send their proposals as per the guidelines of the MoNRE. This programme provides a financial assistance of up to 5 lakhs for preparation of master plan and a detailed project report focussing on energy efficiency measures, enhancing supply from renewable energy, water and energy audits.

The sustainable campus programme is intrinsically tied to the education sector’s potential for future expansion. Higher education’s gross enrolment ratio is expected to rise from 26.3 per cent in 2018 to 50 per cent by 2035, according to the National Education Policy, 2020 (Ministry of Human Resource Development., 2020). According to the All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) 2018–19, there are currently 60,000 higher education institutions in India (MHRD, 2018-19). It can be surmised that by 2035, the universities would be triple in number and the colleges would be double making the higher educational infrastructure responsible for at least 2.9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions (Roychowdhury, 2021). With the rapid expansion of the education sector, the demand for green campuses is growing stronger. This aligns with the objectives of the National Education Policy (NEP), which advocates for a holistic understanding of the environment beyond the traditional syllabus, while also aiming to build essential skills and capacities among both students and staff.”

The World Green Infrastructure Congress held in Bangalore in 2018, conceptualised to address urban infrastructural development with environmental considerations taken into purview. The World Green Infrastructure Congress is an annual event held by World Green Infrastructure Network to showcase futuristic design projects, state of art technologies, best practices and green city planning initiatives taken worldwide. In 2018, Bangalore was chosen as the destination for the conference in accordance with Indian Green Infrastructure Network which is a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) driven to carry out nationwide environmental education programmes and activities. In 1906, Bangalore became one of the first cities in India to generate electricity from hydroelectric power plant and The Forbes magazine named it as one of the the fastest growing cities. With the fast catching concept of green infrastructure, the city retains its name of garden city due to the abundance of lush green parks, gardens and tree lined avenues (Network W. G., 2018).

Scenario Round the Globe

“Environment Management Plan (EMP) 2017-2021” of Australian National University (ANU) establishes challenging goals for its all campuses to innovate, take the lead in the sustainability issue, and cut emissions associated with university operations. The University’s major initiatives for 2021 and beyond were outlined in the Environmental Management Plan, and the progress of these initiatives had to be reported on an annual basis. The EMP has been founded on three principles: long-term economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. The responsibility of implementing the plan resides with Vice Chancellor of the University and Facilities and Service division. The University also supports 17 SDGs that are outlined into nine themes by the EMP, i.e. culture, built environment, energy and emissions, water, recycling and waste management, pollution prevention, transport, landscapes and biodiversity, and heritage (Australian National University, 2014). The target and strategy for achieving the nine themes of the campus are given in Table 3.

Table 3: Targets and Themes of ANU

Beyond the Buildings

Sustainability Report, 2017 by University of Copenhagen focuses on sustainability initiatives of the university from both teaching as well as research perspectives and environmental footprints of the university buildings. The university has approximately 50,000 students and staff working in more than 60 buildings covering an area of 247.10 acres. Since the establishment of Green Campus in 2008, the university has worked extensively to reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Air travel accounts for 25 per cent of University’s emissions which is said to be reduced in 2017 by shifting to virtual conferences and meetings. The energy consumption as per full time equivalent has reduced by 33 per cent since 2006 due to retrofitting of current buildings, transition from steam-based heating to water-based heating, energy efficient building operations and making energy efficiency as an integral part of building planning in the campus. The waste generation of the university is 22 per cent lower in 2017 than in 2012 and the recycling rate fell from 33 per cent in 2012 to 31 per cent in 2017 (University of Copenhagen, 2017).

Incineration is still the most common method used for waste disposal. The waste of the campus is sorted into 18 different groups and recycled as much as possible. The water consumption on campus is monitored by works department to reduce water losses. Every year in May spring festival is held in the campus displaying variety of sustainability activities including Sustainability Science Centre spread talks, sustainable food solutions, green campus initiatives and climate innovation workshops. In 2017 the Sustainability Science Centre mapped the courses related to sustainable development and found 100 such courses being taught with at least 5 in every faculty. The university is also a member of Copenhagen Sustainability Initiative and offers 2 master - level interdisciplinary courses on sustainability on an annual basis.

“Sustainability Strategy 2020-2025” of University of Bristol offers 15 major themes that address sustainability challenges in its operations, teaching, research, and community. The 15 themes stressed upon by the university along with the aim and areas of action that need to be undertaken by the university are as follows (University of Bristol, 2019):

Table 4: Themes and Action of University of Bristol

“The University of Bayreuth’s Sustainable Strategy” published on 28 January 2021. The university is committed towards goal of climate neutrality by 2030 and describes their path to green campus in this report. The University attempts to shape the process of coexistence on campus and beyond the campus in a sustainable and responsible manner with the involvement of all the stakeholders. It strives to achieve sustainable development into all the fields of action i.e. governance, teaching research and infrastructure (University of Bayreuth, 2021). (Table 5).

Table 5: Measures Taken by University of Bayreuth

“University of Auckland Sustainability Report 2019” by the University of Auckland, New Zealand outlined some of the activities of the university that contribute to the achievement of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The actions taken up by the University to achieve sustainability on campus are given in Table 6 (University of Auckland, 2019).

Table 6: Strategies of University of Auckland

Conclusion

Incorporating sustainable development into HEIs is still a new subject for India as they are in their early stages. Even though some campuses might have taken initiatives but they are largely not known to the masses. Due to absence of monitoring and evaluation system of sustainability initiatives, no holistic rating or ranking system could be developed in India. Thus, any benchmarks for higher educational institutions cannot be defined as there is no information about extent of sustainable development in Indian universities. In India the sustainability initiatives are taken only on an ad-hoc basis to fulfil the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) criteria and get NAAC accreditation. So far, not a single higher educational institute has published its sustainability reports since coming up of the SDGs.

A number of case studies presented in this paper can help us learn about the various goals and targets set by various foreign institutions for embedding sustainability into their higher educational institutions. Various sustainability rating systems have also been established all over the world such as Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating Systems (STARS), College Sustainability Report Card, Sustainability Campus Index by Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), etc. but no such sustainability rating systems is present in any of the Indian institutions. A holistic and comprehensive guide for the campuses regarding the kind of measures, their extent of development and benchmarks for their assessment and measurement is the need of hour for Indian institutions.

References

Australian National University (ANU). (2014). Environment Management Plan 2017-2021. Australia: ANU Green Publications.

Bajpai. (2017). Energy Conservation Building Code. New Delhi: Ministry of Power, Government of India.

Card. (2012). Factors contributing to institutions achieving environmental sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, pp. 166-176.

Climate. (2014). Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report. New Climate Economy.

Driver. (2021). Blue-Green Infrastructure: An Opportunity for Indian Cities. Observer Research Foundation, pp. 1-37.

Education. Greening the Campus. New England: New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission and Environmental Training Center.

Fletcher. (2015). The evolution and application of terminology surrounding urban drainage. Urban Water Journal, pp. 525-542.

Iain Patton. (2021). The UNEP Sustainable University Framework. (pp. 1-20). United Kingdom: UNEP.

IEA. (2017). Retrieved from http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/The_Future_of_Cooling.pdf.

Laboratory. (2022, March 20). Climate Neutral Research Campus. Retrieved from nrel.gov.in: http://www.nrel.gov/climate-neutral/.

L. Yang. (2014). Application research of ECOTECT in residential estate planning. Energy and Buildings, 195-202.

Limited. (2021, March 20). nqa.com. Retrieved from Eco Campus: https://www.nqa.com/en-gn/certification/standards/ecocampus.

MHRD. (2018-19). All India Survey on Higher Education. New Delhi: MHRD.

Ministry of Human Resource Development. (2020). National Education Policy. New Delhi: MHRD.

Network. (2014). Best Practices in Campus Sustainability: Latest Examples from ISCN and Gulf Schools. Switzerland: Global University Leader Forum.

Pandya. (2015). Towards a Green School: Resource Book on Education for Sustainable development for Elementary Schools. New Delhi: NCERT.

Roychowdhury. (2021). Green Campus Movement. New Delhi: Center for Science and Environment.

Sareen. (2018). Green Sense: Educational Campus Inventory. New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment.

Sauve. (2007). Three decades of international guidelines or environment-related education: a critical hermeneutic of the united nations discourse. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, pp. 33-54.

Sustainia. (2014). Green Guide for Universities. Copenhagen: International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) and Sustainia.

Taisce. (2016-17). The Green-Campus Programme. Dublin: The Environmental Education Unit, Taisce.

Tony Binns. (2012). An Introduction to Sustainable Development. London: Taylor and Francis Group.

University of Auckland. (2019). Sustainability Report. Auckland : The University of Auckland.

University of Bayreuth. (2021). Our Path to Green Campus. Bayreuth: The University of Bayreuth.

University of Bristol. (2019). Sustainability Strategy 2020-2025. Bristol: University of Bristol.

University of Copenhagen. (2017). Beyond the Buildings: Sustainability Report. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.

United Nations. (2015). The 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals. New York: United Nations.