Abstract
In order to reach organisational sustainability goals and to comply with increasing regulatory requirements, organisations such as universities have to decide which measures will be best suited to attain these goals. An accepted approach is to base these decisions on an assessment of hard facts that consider the effectiveness and the (financial and technical) feasibility of each measure. In this paper it is argued that the subjective user perspective (i.e. of staff members affected by these measures) is a third aspect that should be considered when evaluating the suitability of sustainability measures. Adding the user perspective will gain insights into the acceptance of potential measures and into the positive influence on users’ attitudes and behaviour. In addition, not accepted measures or measures that are given low priority by users will hinder the implementation and success. This paper presents a three-part evaluation process of applied environmental management approaches such as the “eco-mapping” approach to collect environmental data on office spaces and combining these findings with the results from personal interviews with staff members occupying these office spaces. Based on the gathered information, it is possible to map different measures against the three dimensions—effectiveness, feasibility and acceptance—in order to prioritize their usefulness.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Goals for sustainable development can be defined regarding the economic development, social development and environmental protection (c.f. United Nations 2002). These dimensions can be described as the three pillars of sustainable development (United Nations 2005). The environmental dimension of sustainable development as one pillar focuses on the negative human impact on the improvement of ecosystem services. The example described in this paper focuses on this environmental dimension.
- 2.
With EMAS organizations take a proactive approach to improve their environmental performance (c.f. European Commission (2015a).
- 3.
Fairness should not only be installed in order to increase the social aspect of sustainability, but also in order to increase acceptance and effectiveness of environmentally relevant measures.
References
Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. doi:10.1016/0749-5978(91)90020-T
Bamberg, S., & Möser, G. (2007). Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 27(1), 14–25. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2006.12.002
Baumgärtler, T., & Popovic, T. (2015). Nachhaltigkeit in der DNA. In Dz Bank (Hg.) 2015—Nachhaltigkeitsbericht 2014 (p. 37).
Black, J. S., Stern, P. C., & Elworth, J. T. (1985). Personal and contextual influences on househould energy adaptations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70(1), 3–21. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.70.1.3
Colquitt, J. A., Scott, B. A., Rodell, J. B., Long, D. M., Zapata, C. P., Conlon, D. E., et al. (2013). Justice at the millennium, a decade later: A meta-analytic test of social exchange and affect-based perspectives. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 199–236. doi:10.1037/a0031757
Daily, B. F., & Huang, S. (2001). Achieving sustainability through attention to human resource factors in environmental management. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 21(12), 1539–1552.
Disterheft, A., Caeiro, S., Azeiteiro, U. M., & Leal Filho, W. (2015). Sustainable universities: A study of critical success factors for participatory approaches. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 11–21.
Disterheft, A., da Silva Caeiro, S. S. F., Ramos, M. R., & de Miranda Azeiteiro, U. M. (2012). Environmental management systems (EMS) implementation processes and practices in European higher education institutions: Top-down versus participatory approaches. Journal of Cleaner Production, 31, 80–90.
European Parliament. (2009). Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS), repealing Regulation (EC) No 761/2001 and Commission Decisions 2001/681/EC and 2006/193/EC.
European Parliament. (2012). Directive 2012/27/EU of the European Parliament and of the council of 25 October 2012.
European Commission. (2015a). EMAS—The European Eco-Management and audit scheme. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/emas/about/index_en.htm. Accessed January 06, 2016.
European Commission. (2015b). EMAS Easy. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/emas/tools/emaseasy_en.htm. Accessed January 25, 2016.
Folger, R. (1977). Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of voice and improvement on experienced inequity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(2), 108–119. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.2.108
Fridrihsone, A., & Kettemann, R. (2015). Eco GIS—Spatial facility management as ArcGIS online app. 2015 Esri user conference paper sessions, San Diego, California.
German EMAS Advisory Board at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature conservation, building and nuclear safety EMAS—Ablaufschritte. http://www.emas.de/teilnahme/ablauf/ablaufschritte. Accessed January 07, 2016.
Govindarajulu, N., & Daily, B. F. (2004). Motivating employees for environmental improvement. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 104(4), 364–372. doi:10.1108/02635570410530775
Greaves, M., Zibarras, L. D., & Stride, C. (2013). Using the theory of planned behavior to explore environmental behavioral intentions in the workplace. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 34, 109–120. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.02.003
Landesregierung Baden-Württemberg. (2012). Nachgefragt bei Kretschmann: Auf dem Weg zur klimaneutralen Landesverwaltung. https://www.baden-wuerttemberg.de/de/service/media/mid/weg-zur-klimaneutralen-landesverwaltung/. Accessed January 25, 2016.
Sammalisto, K., & Brorson, T. (2008). Training and communication in the implementation of environmentalmanagement systems (ISO 14001): A case study at the University of Gävle, Sweden. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16, 299–309.
Schwartz, S. H. (1977). Normative influence on altruism. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 221–279). New York: Academic Press.
Tinker, H., & Tzoulas, K. (2015). The benefits and challenges of developing and implementing an environmental management system using a participatory approach: A case study of Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. In L. Leal Filho, U. M. Azeiteiro, S. Caeiro and F. Alves (Eds.), Integrating Sustainability Thinking in Science and Engineering: Innovative Approaches, Methods and Tools (pp. 325–438). Springer, Heidelberg.
United Nations. (2002). Report of the world summit on sustainable development: Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August-4 September 2002. A/CONF.199/20, New York.
United Nations. (2005). United nations general assembly: World summit outcome. Resolution A/60/1.
Acknowledgments
This research within EnSign project is founded by the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg, Germany. We also thank our reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bäumer, T., Worm, D., Müller, P., Zimmermann, S., Popovic, T., Pagel, C. (2017). So Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want. In: Leal Filho, W., Skanavis, C., do Paço, A., Rogers, J., Kuznetsova, O., Castro, P. (eds) Handbook of Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development in Higher Education. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47889-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-47888-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-47889-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)