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! Assessing the Practicality! for Businesses in Reducing their Negative Impact on the! Environment! ! ! ! ! ! Hannah Slaski! ! Submitted as part of the Independent Module project for: BA (Hons) Spanish and International Relations ! ! Student ID: 33241615 ! ! ! !
Introduction! ! !   ! Global concerns have escalated regarding climate change, making it one of the most seri- ous challenges of the 21st century (Xue, 2012), with the The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change insisting that climate change is due to human activities (IPCC, 1993). Rifkin (2011) argues a need for us to take account of the externalities by extending modern day economics beyond the theoretical paradigm of Adam Smith to include social issues such as the environment, pushing topics such as sustainability, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility into the public eye and onto the corporate agenda. However, some critiques such as Campbell (2006) claim that corporate social responsibility is a paradoxical term, due to the fact that social values are at odds with a business’s desire to maximize profits. This paper attempts to intro- duce the principles and critiques of sustainability and corporate social responsibility to the reader and explore in more depth if business and sustainability are fundamentally opposed. ! ! In this research project, I have chosen to use universities as a proxy for businesses in assessing the practicality for them of reducing their negative impact on the environment because as Rappa- port and Creighton (2007) acknowlegde, the Higher Education Sector is where minds are trained and developed. Universities are supposed to push the boundaries, in terms of development of re- search, education and the development of the minds of future generations. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) feels that it is crucial that the Higher Education sector con- tributes strongly to sustainable development (HEFCE, 2008), and therefore I feel that if any busi- ness can practically achieve true sustainability, universities would be the most likely type of busi- ness to succeed. Therefore, the aim and objectives of my project are as follows:! ! Aim: Assessing the pracitcality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environ- ment in order to promote a sustainable future, looking at universities as a proxy for business. ! ! Objectives: ! ! 1. To critically review the contested meanings of sustainable development in relation to the impact and role of business and to compare and contrast this with the role of universities in promoting sustainability.! 2. To review the stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK and critically examine the methods by which the effectiveness of these policies can be judged!
3. To determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain carbon re- duction targets by reviewing the emissions reduction data for 5 Universities over a 4 year peri- od. ! 4. To explore the qualitative aspects of sustainability through interviews with the Sustainability Leaders of 4 Universities and understand the challenges and successes to promoting sustain- ability within their institutions.! ! ! This dissertation is divided into four parts in line with my four objectives. In the first part I focused on the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the dissertation by looking at sustainability, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. After gaining more of an understand- ing of the main themes and critiques of these areas and how businesses interact with the environ- ment, I reviewed the literature relating to what role universities can play in this debate, and what differentiates them from other businesses and corporations in terms of their ability to achieve sus- tainability and reduce their negative impact on the environment. ! ! In the second part of my dissertation I reviewed stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK, as well as the theory behind effective policy making, in order to critcally examine the ef- fectiveness by which these policies can be judged. This helped me to determine whether or not sustainability is firmly on the corporate agenda of Higher Education institutions and if the correct framework is in place for universities to promote true sustainability.! ! After explaining my methodology in Chapter 3, the last two parts of my dissertation will be focused on my empirical study. First, I analysed the carbon emmissions reduction data for 5 uni- versities over a 4 year period in order to determine whether or not universities are successfully achieving the targets that have been set for them by HEFCE. This also gave me an idea of whether or not these targets are practical and manageable. The next and main part of my empirical study will focus on my interviews with the Sustainability Leaders of 4 Universities. The questions posed allowed the participants to express their thoughts and attitudes towards their successes and challenges in promoting sustainability within their institution. This allowed me to gain a better un- derstanding of the qualitative issues involved in sustainability, the barriers that stand in the way of achieving sustainability as well as the practifcality of promoting sustainability within their respective insitutions. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Chapter 1- Literature Review! ! ! ! ! In this chapter, I am going to examine the main principles, arguments and theoretical framework behind sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Once I have gained more of an understanding of the main themes and critiques of these areas and how businesses interact with the environment, I will then review the literature relating to what role universities can play in this debate, and what differentiates them from other businesses and corporations in terms of their abili- ty to achieve sustainability and reduce their negative impact on the environment. ! ! Sustainability! ! ! The 1970s club of Rome report introduced the idea that the business-as-usual scenario was extremely flawed and presented the global need to focus more closely on environmental is- sues (Meadows, et al, 1974). The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change makes it clear that climate change is due to human activities (IPCC, 1993). In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, Xue (2012) argues that the inherent development model of modern so- ciety which revolves around large energy consumption, high carbon emmissions and large scale environmental devastation, aswell as our lifestyles of uncontrolled mass consumption, needs to be fundamentally changed.! ! ! As stated by Rogers (2008), the law of diminishing marginal returns can be applied to the environment with the use of common property resources such as air, water and forests being overused by many individuals acting in their own self-interest and the services that these natural resources provide, such as air filtration, beginning to diminish as the population fill the air with con- taminants and pollutants. Hawken (et al 2008) refers to these resources as natural capital, and Blewitt (2008) adds to the term, using the words ‘critical natural capital’ referring to aspects of the global ecosystem upon which our lives depend. ! ! ! Clark and Woodrow (2013) argue that the barrier to mitigating climate change lies within the boundaries of economics and problems associated with our Smithian model of Western capitalism, implemented through neoclassical economic theories relating to an “invisible hand” balancing the forces between supply and demand in the market. Unfortunately, phenomenons such as climate change have demonstrated that market forces are no longer in balance and the free market fails to account for the social cost of climate change. Rifkin (2011) argues a need for us to take account of the externalities by extending modern day economics beyond the theoretical paradigm of Adam Smith to include social issues such as the environment. Although capital accumulation and labour
input have been traditionally stressed as important factors in the developmental model, a new goal of development is represented by a utopia in which developmental standards are measured through environmental and social progress, and not principally the GDP and economic growth of a country.! ! ! In response to the degradation of the environment and the depletion of the world’s natural resources, the terms sustainability and sustainable development came into prominence in 1987 when the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (UNWCED) pub- lished its report, Our common future, with the Brundtland report as the central reccomendation (United Nations, 1987). At the UNWCED sustainable development was defined as: ! ! ! “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” (WCED, 1987, p43.)! ! ! The idea of sustainable development moved further into the mainstream at United Nations Conference on Environment and Devlopment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Dresner, 2009). Simpson and Weiner (2009) define sustainable development as forms of human economic activity that do not cause the degradation of the environment and avoid long-term depletion of natural resources. Rogers (2007) explains that sustainable development has three dimensions: the economic, the en- vironmental and the social which are often known as the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), and can be used to monitor and assess the success of development programs or projects, emphasising that in order for the outcome of the specific project to be truly sustainable, each component requires equal attention. Robertson (2014), who describes sustainability as our adaptibility to changing situ- ations, puts these dimensions, or pillars, in different terminology, referring to them as: people, profit and planet. ! ! ! Some environmentalists have claimed that sustainable development is a contradiction in terms, and the term can be used as disguise for behaviour that continues to deplete the natural capital and systems of the earth (Dresner, 2009). The idea of sustainable development, which La- touche (2010) defines as self-sustaining growth, has admittedly become somewhat of a fashion- able phrase. Latouche (2010) describes the word development as toxic and deems the term sus- tainable development as allowing countries to maintain their levels of profit in a manner known as ‘Business As Usual’ without making a true change in habits. Brown (2009) finds the concept of ‘Business As Usual’ grossly inadequate and has developed Plan B, which he feels will lead to a truly sustainable future. Plan B’s four main objectives are: an 80% reduction in net carbon dioxide emmissions by 2020, stabilizing the population below 8 billion, eradicating poverty and a restora- tion of the earth’s natural systems such as soil.!
! One of the weaker aspects of sustainability is the difficulty in defining it. Schaller (1993) captures this difficulty by comparing the term ‘sustainability’ to terms such as ‘truth’ and ‘justice’, which are concepts that can’t be readily defined in a concise manner. Fortune and Hughes (1997) even go as far as to argue that sustainability is an empty and condescening concept which lacks susbstance. Bell and Morse (1999) agree that there is a frustration in the lack of consensus at- tached to the definition of this broad concept. ! ! ! Within the umbrella term of sustainability, there are also some disagreements about the va- lidity of different levels of sustainability, which have lead to the terms ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustain- ability. Daly (1997) differentiates the two by stating that strong sustainability rejects the premise of unlimited substitutibility of all natural resources. Neumayer (2003) explains this in terms of trade- offs, stating that weak sustainability allows environmental quality to be traded against economic profit whereas strong sustainability does not deem any such trade-off as acceptible. Neumayer (2003) also adds that the current global economy is dominated by weak sustainability policies and practices. ! ! Corporate Social Responsibility! ! ! Love and Kraatz (2009) state that corporate reputation can either become a liability or an asset, and as a consequence, corporations are aware of the value that their reputation holds and therefore take corporate social responsibility seriously. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development describes Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as: ! ! “continual commitment of a business to behave ethically and to contribute to sustainable economic development and to improving the quality of life for employees and their families as well as local commuinites and society as a whole”! ! ! ! ! Crane and Matten (2007) describe CSR as a mindset that factors in the economic, social and environmental responsbilities of a business. Elkington (1998) introduced a manner of under- standling CSR with the Triple Bottom Line model, as a philosophy in business that determines that a company’s performance should be measured in terms of its contribution to three key areas: eco- nomic prosperity, environmental quality and social capital. This differs from a traditional Business As Usual perspective because it highlights the role of the market in creating both social and finan- cial value (Hawkens, 2004).! !
! Castello and Lozano (2009) developed a three stage model for CSR in which the stages are 1. Risk Management, 2. Responsibility Management, and 3. Civil Management. This demon- strates that companies engaging in CSR will experience an evolution from a base stage at which CSR is primarily a tool to protect reputation value up to the mature stage of Civil Management in which the corporation is intergating social issues into their responsibilites and taking a leading citi- zenship role. ! ! ! Corporate social responsibility can be considered an contradiction in terms as, in a realist perspective of international relations, actors look for specific gains that correspond with their own self-interest. Campell (2006) describes CSR as a ‘paradox’ because social values are at odds with a business’s desire for profit-making. When it comes to business, Simpson and Taylor (2013) be- lieve that the economic survival of a firm will always be its primary interest corresponds, however, companies do not operate in isolation but they act, interact and react as part of the outside world.! ! ! In 1944 Karl Polyani predicted that when the externalities of capitalism have gone too far and resulted in massive costs, socially and environmentally, the people will attempt to re-embed the market economy back into society and use governments or social movements to create new rules and social “norms”, which can be defined as standards of behaviour for particular actors (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1999). ! ! ! Social constructivist perspectives, such as those of Berger and Luckman (1966) maintain that these standards of behaviour that make up reality and impact social conditions and relation- ships are constructed through commuinication. This can be seen to be evident in the way that Ewje (2011) describes how corporations are being called to become more sustainable and socially re- sponsible due to pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders. Gray, Owens and Adams (1996) define a stakeholder as any humany agency that can be influenced by, or can influence, the activities of an organization, including governments, supranational organizations, shareholders, communities and even customers. These stakeholders are also referred to by Elkington (1994) as the ‘spheres of influence’. Stiglitz (2007) views the widening of the spheres in recent years in order to take into account the impact a firm’s decisions have on groups other than their own sharehold- ers as a positive thing that demonstrates an evolution within the corporate agenda to engage in more equitable and sustainable practices.! ! ! However, conflict of interest can exist between the stakeholders, and the shareholders - those that recieve profit from the firm. CSR according to the Triple Bottom Line Model and accord- ing to Stakeholder theory, should mean that the business should strive to coordinate stakeholder interests rather than maximising profits for its shareholders (Elkrington, 1994). The social construc-
tivist theory asserted by scholars such as Bourdieu (1991) and Foucault (1972) that language is an essential tool for social mediation and supported by Golob and Podnar’s (2011) view that dialouge can maximise stakeholder engagement and through strategies of transparency to foster trust and legitamcy, effective decision making can be achieved. For this reason, Ihlen, Barlett & May (2011) define CSR as an attempt at negotiation between the firm, their stakeholders and the public in general. With regards to language being an essential tool for social mediation, Benz (2000) asserts that rather being a positive tool, the ‘greening’ of the language associated with CSR activities can instead have a negative effect, with environmentalists feeling that the true message is being dimin- shed.! ! ! Corporate reputation has been found to have a positive impact on the profits of that organi- zation (Garberg and Fombrum 2002; Groenland 2002; Whetton and Mackey 2002). Grayson and Hodges (2004) found that such reputation was influenced greatly by the level of commitment shown by the company to CSR although Manescu (2010) argues that companies may have little personal gain from involving themselves in CSR as he disagrees that the level of profit generated by CSR activities is significant. Godfrey (et al., 2009) summizes that because CSR activities are voluntary in nature they can be seen as gifts to stakeholders. However, as Ilhen (2008) states, the cost for corporations of not keeping up with the changes in ethical standards can be costly, demonstrating that even if there is an insignificant amount of profit to be made for the company by indulging in CSR, it is still an important issue that needs to be incorporated into their corporate agenda, for the sake of their reputation if nothing else. Wettstein (2010) adds to this by stating that companies can no longer make do with solely reducing their negative impacts, they are now in- creasingly expected to engage in proactively creating positive impacts.! ! ! Although there are positive examples of the use of CSR, in the majority of cases compa- nies are not obliged to disclose their CSR information and therefore it can be difficult to get com- panies to release this material, as they can be unsure of the benefits of doing so (Simpson and Taylor, 2013). According to Arrevelo and Fallon (2008) the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) represents a global framework to demonstrate the implications of CSR within the business com- muinity, with the intention of bringing environmental and social issues more into the mainstream with the hope that businesses will take it upon themselves to incorporate some of the UN’s goals into their objectives.! ! ! According to Sun, Stewart & Pollard (2010) CSR has been widley regarded as a a failed practice. One of the reasons for this is that CSR has in some cases been criticized as a PR cam- paign or ‘greenwashing’ activities (Tench, Sun, & Jones, 2012). Society can often be skeptical about the reality of a firm’s environmental and societal commitments (ChrisitanAid, 2004) and this
is in some instances caused and made worse by the existence of a phenomenon known as gre- enwashing, defined by Greenpeace as the misleading of the public by businesses regarding their own environental policies and practices. According to TerraChoice (2008) it is an overwhelming percentage of businesses that are misleading consumers to believe their products and behavious are more sustainable than they really are, through green marketing. ! ! ! The claim to be taking responsibility beyond that of profit seeking is recognized as a major corporate strategy to maintain legitamacy. For this reason, Mcwilliams, Siegel & Wright (2006) claim that CSR is more appropriately defined as what the corporation is doing that goes beyond basic compliance of what is required of them by law and benefits society in ways that don’t corres- pond directly with the interests of the firm. ! ! Universities Role in Sustainable Development! ! ! If any kind of business or corporation is capable of engaging in true sustainability or CSR actions, Rappaport and Creighton (2007) argue that academic institutions are the most inclined, as their primary focus is the education of future generations, and so their concern for the future should outweigh the desire to carry out Business As Usual policies in the face of climate change. ! ! “The higher education system is where these minds are trained and developed. Therefore, it is crucial that the sector contributes highly to sustainable development.” (Stern, 2008)! ! ! Filho (2000) describes the Higher Education sector as being well-suited to leadership of sustainability and greening movements. As well as having the tools and being in a position that makes universities well-suited to lead, it can also be argued that they have a great responsibility to propogate an environmentally sustainable future, due to the fact that graduates educated at these institutions of higher education go on to manage many of society’s important institutions (Report and Declaration of The Presidents Conference,1990)! ! ! Given these ideas, it is not surprising that HEFCE (2008) announced in their report: Sus- tainability: statement and strategic action plan that the Higher Education sector should become a leader in driving sustainability forward to a high level. In their report: Carbon reduction strategy for higher education in England HEFCE (2010) also demonstrated that they hold ambitious targets for universities around the UK, with an aim to reduce their carbon emmissions by 34% from a 1990 basline by 2020. ! ! ! The process of ‘greening’ of universities, and institutions of higher education is not restric- ted to reducing carbon emissions alone, and is defined by Creighton (1999) as a process involving
the reduction of on-site and off-site environmental impacts that result from decisions made by the campus and campus activies, alongside an initiative to raise environmental awareness within the commuinities of the university. ! ! ! The best way for universities to tackle their responsibilities as leaders and as role models to future generations is for them to: “promote a whole institution approach to environmental practice” (Howard, et al. , 2000, p. 84). Orr (1994) also supports this statement on the importance of taking a hollistic approach to sustainable development within the university, arguing that the en- tire environment within which students are educated needs to fulfill sustainability criteria. This vis- ion is consistent with Daly’s (1992) idea of strong sustainability. ! ! ! In terms of raising environmental awareness within the commuinities of academic institu- tions, it is not only business policies that need to be ‘greened’ but also the curriculum. At the UN conference for Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 reccomended that the issues of environment and development are integrated into edu- cation at all levels (UNCED, 1992). According into research aimed at investigating students atti- tudes towards sustainable development conducted by the Higher Education Academy (HEA, 2012) noted that 80% of students believe that sustainable development should be actively promoted by their universities and over two thirds of the students would like to have sustainable development included in the curriculum and taught as part of their degree courses. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Chapter 2 - Sustainability Policies! ! ! ! In this chapter I am going to review the stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK and critically examine the methods by which the effectiveness of these policies can be judged. Rappaport and Creighton (2007) suggest there is an importance in setting concrete targets, as quantifiable goals can be regularly assessed and this commitment can be used to influence pur- chasing decisions within that university.! ! ! “Goal statements are powerful motivators that provide direction to planners and implementers. They send signals to individuals inside and outside the organization that an issue is important.”! (Rappaport and Creighton, 2007, p. 220)!   ! These goals and targets are set in relation to specific indicators that relate to the environ- mental impact of the institution. As explained by the United Nations (2007) in Indicators of Sustain- able Development: Guidelines and Methodologies, indicators are important tools which help to clarify information to policy makers and to measure progress towards goals. As Lawrence (1997) states, the central idea of using indicators is to determine whether situations are improving, or get- ting worse. ! ! ! In order to review stated sustainability policies of UK Universities it is important so under- stand the indicators relevant to the HE sector:! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Figure: A. Title: Criteria weighting for the 2014 People & Planet Green League Methodology. Source: People and Planet (2014) ! The above graphic displays the indicators that community pressure group, People and Planet, use as metrics in order to rate Universities on their achievements in sustainability, published annually in their Green League table (People and Planet, 2014). ! Carbon Reduction ! With the 2008 Climate Change Act (CCA) the UK Government commited to a carbon reduction tar- get of 80% by 2050 against 1990 levels, and the reduction target for 2020 is currently set at 34%. HEFCE based their reccomendations for carbon management to HEIs to follow national targets. This target currently encompasses Scope 1 and 2 emmissions but does not include Scope 3. (HEFCE, 2011) ! As this is a concrete and specific target which has been set by HEFCE, and HEFCE encouraged all HEIs to implement their own Carbon Management Strategies, as stated in their publication: Carbon reduction tagret and strategy for higher education in England (HEFCE, 2010), it is easy to see this reflected in institunional strategies, for example: ! “The 2010 Carbon Management Strategy set targets in line with a HEFCE recommendation of a 34% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 based on a 2005 baseline.” (Leeds Beckett Universi- ty, 2012: p 6) !
Some universities are determined to go ‘above and beyond’ the targets set by HEFCE, for example Manchester Metropolitan University (2015) have pledged to reduce their emmissions from their buildings and vehicles by 35% by 2016 from a 2005 baseline, and then by 50% by 2021. The am- bition to set themselves a target that is 16% higher than the target committed to by the UK gov- ernment is impressive. It perhaps correlates with Wettison’s (2010) idea that it is no longer good enough for a business to simply reduce their negative impacts to comply with legislation, but in- stead they are expected to proactively seek a more positive impact. ! HEFCE admits that mosts of its funding has been directed towards carbon reduction, upon gov- ernment requests, however they state that they recognize to need to address wider environmental issues (HEFCE, 2014). Aside from carbon reduction, the lack of guidance can mean that institu- tions can have a lack of direction in creating policies around other sustainability indicators. This lack of legislation can be seen as a disadvantage as Kane (2011) states that the advantages of stricter legislation is that it puts the company in a proactive position for stakeholder engagement and if the legislation is implemented it rewards the companies that achieve true sustainability in order to create further competitive advantage over their less green rivals. ! One issue with University sustainability policies is that many of them lack clarity by not setting quantifiable targets which can be measured and evaluated on a regular basis to effectively deter- mine the progress made. Heinen (1994) deems that sustainability needs to have relevent scales and appropriate measurement methods designed for a long-term prospect and Reynolds (2012) concurs that a business cannot say whether or not it has achieved a goal if it is not possible to measure that achievement. However, Kane (2009) points out that it would be wrong to focus ec- slusively on numbers as there are also qualitative, less tangible aspects to sustainability such as public perceptions of business, aesthethic qualities of your facilities and staff attitudes. ! In reviewing the stated policies of Universities within the UK it was evident that sustainability is not always explicitly stated. For example, in The University of Manchester’s Strategic Plan for 2020 (University of Manchester, 2014) Environmental Sustainability is mentioned as their 8th enabling strategy to achieve their third core goal of Social Responsibility. However, no Key Performance In- dicators are set for this particular enabling strategy that would provide quantiative measurements for these goals. This appears to be standard practice amongst university strategic plans (University College London, 2014;) , to not explicitly mention sustainability or set out quantifable targets and Key Performance Indicators, but to embed sustainability into their strategic plans in more vague and subtle ways.! ! There appears to be an issue surrounding the vagueness, and lack of clarity in the aims of univer- sities within the UK in their sustainability policies, which in the long term may make progress diffi- cult to measure and may not lead to a promotion of true sustainability within the institutions. How-
ever, to assess the effectiveness of carbon reduction policies, I will quantitatively analyse carbon emmissions data in Chapter 4, and in Chapter 5 I intend to interview Sustainability Leaders from institutions within the UK in order to gain a better understanding of the qualitative aspects of sus- tainability.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Chapter 3 - Methodology! ! ! As I said in Part 1, the aim of this study is to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environment. By developing my aims and objectives at the beginning of the project, I have a clear understanding of the purpose of my research and which methods will help me to generate meaningful findings. ! ! When designing the research, I had to decide if I wanted to employ quantitative or qualitative mea- sures. Holliday (2002) suggests that quantitative and qualitative paradigms reflect different per- spectives of the world, taking into account that sustainability is a multifaceted topic, I felt that purely looking at numbers would lead me to a superficial conclusion. I therefore decided my research should consist of quantitative and qualitative measures.! ! It was important for me to include quantitative measures in order to determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain sustainability targets. Therefore I chose 5 uni- versities in the West Yorkshire region and analysed their data for carbon emmissions reductions over a period of 4 years.! ! However, I decided the main focus of my project would be the qualitative side of my research, in order to gain a more detailed outlook on the thoughts, experiences and attitudes of the participants in relation to the practicality for universities in reducing their negative impact on the environment. The participants I interviewed were Sustainability Leaders of Higher Education Instiutions within the UK, as they have the expert knowledge and practical experience required for me to gather meaningful results. After careful consideration, I decided to use interviews rather than surveys, questionnaires or focus groups. I felt this would be the best way to get answers to my questions and my research would be enriched by the fact that a semi-structured interview style would allow a greater detailed discussion to take place, and the freedom for the participants to fully elaborate and articulate their ideas.! ! Despite the advantages of using this type of interview method there are also disadvantages, for example, Breakwell (1990) states ‘The interview approach relies heavily upon respondents being able and willing to give accurate information’. Before conducting my interviews I was aware that there was a chance that the Sustainability Leaders I had chosen as participants might not be hap- py disclosing their thoughts and perspectives with an undergraduate student, especially if they feared that I would publish data which cast them or their university in a negative light. In order to get around this obstacle, I garunteed that I would keep the findings of my data completely confi-
dential, by ensuring the anonymity of both the Sustainability Leaders and their institutions when publishing the data. I also decided that for the quantitative part of my analysis and the qualitative part of my analysis I would look at different universities, so that I wouldn’t compromise the confi- dentiality of the interview participants by allowing someone to determine their identities based on their carbon emmissions reductions figures from Chapter 4 of my project. ! ! Sampling! ! In order to help me understand the complex issues surrounding the practicality for universities of reducing their negative impact on the environment, it was essential that my participants had wide knowledge and experience in this area, therefore my sample was 4 Sustainability Leaders of uni- versities within the UK. As Sustainability Leaders are extremely busy professionals, 4 was the highest sample size I was able to obtain at this time. ! ! There is no doubt that if my sample size was larger, or carried out at a different time, or within a different area of the UK, the findings may be different. However, I feel this sample size still allowed for a variety of responses, perspectives and experiences and there were some agreements be- tween participants on certain topics, as well as some disagreements. I feel as though the richness of my findings represents the complexity and mutlifaceted nature of the project aim.! ! In order to maintain the anonymity of my participants, I will list them as I referred to them in my In- terview Results section, along with their job titles at their respective universities:! ! Interview 1- Participant 1: Sustainability Manager! Interview 2- Participant 2: Head of Environmental Sustainability! Interview 3- Participant 3: Sustainability Manager! Interview 4- Participant 4: Director of Sustainability! ! ! Research process and ethics! ! Prior to the interviews I contacted all the participants via email and sent them a Participant Infor- mation Sheet (see Appendix A), a Consent Form (see Appendix B) and also a copy of the interview questions (see Appendix C) in order for them to be fully aware of the nature of my research. I made sure that they understood the purpose of the interview, that their identity would remain anonymous knew that they could withdraw at any time. ! !
The digitally recorded interviews took place in April 2015. Interviews varied in length from 15 to 20 minutes. All respondents were interviewed in a quiet room in their workplace, and signed consent froms prior to recording. ! ! During my interview I had designed a framework of questions from various topics I wanted to ask about but I ensured that discussion was encouraged in order for the respondent to lead the ques- tion in the direction they wanted or elaborate further, which allowed for a variety of different re- sponses from the participants. ! ! I transcribed the interviews myself, to ensure that they were kept confidential and kept the files in a password protected file on my laptop, along with the audio recorded interview files. During the transcription of my interviews, I listened to them very carefully in order to convey the information in accurate detail. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Chapter 4 - Carbon Emmissions Analysis! ! ! In this chapter I am going to determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain sustainability targets by reviewing the data for the carbon emissions reductions of 5 universities in the UK and analysing the progress made by these institutions. This analysis will allow me to determine whether or not universities are reducing their carbon emissions in line with current targets, as set for them by HEFCE, and to gain a perspective on whether or not these tar- gets are practical and achievable. I have chosen to analyse the data for carbon emmissions reduc- tions because carbon dioxide is the main man-made source of climate change (refe! rence needed), it is also a source that the UK Government has set national reduction targets for (DECC, 2008), as well as HEFCE having set sector wide targets (HEFCE, 2010). Also, as all insti- tutions have to provide their carbon emmissions statistics, this allows for easy comparison. ! ! ! Figure: B. Title: Percentage carbon emmission reductions of 5 Universities over a period 4 years! ! This table shows the percentage emission of carbon emmission reductions for 5 different uni- versities over a period of 4 years, from 2011 to 2015. The perecentages that have been calculated for these universities are published on the People and Planet website, and are based on data from the Estates Management Record (EMR), specifically the Green Stats data which is made publicly available online by HESA. ! ! People and Planet (2014) state that the carbon reduction that HEIs should have achieved by 2012 based on Universities UK, GuildHE and HEFCE sector targets has been calculated at 20.7%. The table demonstrates that none of the universities analysed here reduced in line to the 2012 target. In fact 4 out of 5 of the universities still haven’t reduced to the 2012 target, even by 2015. However, University A, made a swiftly reduced from 10.75% in 2012 to 31.01% in 2013 and then continued on a significantly reducing to the latest result of 38.73% in 2015. This positive example demon- Percentage carbon emission reduction (%) University 2011 2012 2013 2015 University A 6.99 13.29 17.36 15.8 University B 6.76 17.09 17.94 17.54 University C 0.31 10.75 31.01 38.73 University D 4.53 -0.67 7.81 -2.9 University E -10.21 -13.81 -4.36 -2.6
strates the possibilty for universities to reduce their carbon emmissions in line with national and sector wide targets. However, the fact that only 1 out of the 5 universities analysed here managed to achieve this target could demonstrate that the targets are out of reach for the majority. Two of the universities analysed here, Universities D and E, increased their carbon emissions rather than reduced them.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Chapter 5 - Interview Results! ! ! ! The interview process was successful, with participants giving longer answers than antici- pated, without needing prompts to elaborate and express themselves. I was happy with the diversi- ty in responses, because although I am aware that my research is limited due to the small number of participants, I collected a range of different perespectives, feelings and experiences.! ! ! During my interviews a number of themes emerged, that I feel are important in contributing towards a discussion on the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the en- vironment, these were: ! ! • Successes in increasing the sustainability of the University! • Barriers to promoting sustainability within the University! • Institution’s contributions towards national targets! • Government support! • Attitudes towards community pressure groups! • Sustainability and competivity! • The future of sustainability within the Higher Education sector! ! Successes in Increasing the Sustainability of the University ! ! I feel that an important theme to begin with is the aspects the Sustainability Leaders feel have been their most successful in promoting the sustainability of their insitutions. One of the things that was mentioned by participants were their ties with the local commuinity:! ! I think, not necessarily easy but one of the biggests impacts we have is we actually have a very high purchasing spend so a lot of that goes towards the local community and local economy so thats an immediate benefit, in terms of local economics as we support a lot of small businesses locally. ! (Interview, 1)! ! The Sustainable Development Commission (2010) states that integrated area-based sustainability programmes not only help to reduce the effects of climate change, but also hold a range of eco- nomic and social co-benefits, at minimal extra cost. Latouche (2009) promotes the idea that relo- calization is a pivotal part of moving towards a sustainable future, mentioning the slogan ‘Think
globally, act locally’ (p.44) and Dovers (2005) agrees that sustainability should be integrative in or- der to reflect both global and local concerns. Participant 2 also mentioned local community:! ! We’re in a great city to be in, and we’ve got really good links with other organizations, with the coun- cil, and with the hospital and the other university in this city, so we’re fortunate there… (interview, 2)! ! She also mentioned the benefit of good infrastructure for sustainable transport:! ! We’ve got a really good cycle commuinity, so we’ve worked really well with that and we have some very committed people (Interview, 2)! ! Other aspects of success mentioned were tangible aspects that can be easily measured:! ! Energy efficiency, without a shadow of a doubt is the easiest thing. Anything which is standard tech- nology […] you can build the business case and put the finances in place very easily. Water efficiency is pretty easy as well. So anything physical is quite easy. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 1 seems to agree with participant 3’s perspective that physical aspects of sustainability are easier to successfully manage in promoting institutional sustainability. Their perspectives sup- port Reynolds (2012) statement that targets for easily measurable indicators are easier to success- fully achieve:! ! Waste and recylcing: we’ve been recycling about 95% of our waste for the last 3 years now and that was just pretty easy, just basically re-negotiating our waste contracts. Biodiversity has been again fair- ly easy because people like it, i think it makes people feel good, it’s very tangible whereas a lot of a sustainability stuff isn’t, so thats been a fairly quick win. So, its often the reasonably hard measures that you can see and measure that have been easier. (Interview, 1)! !
Also, in terms of aspects that have a financial payback, Participant 1 went on to mention carbon management as one of his university’s successes, he said:! ! Carbon management is really difficult because our university is increasing in size, we are increasing our research intensity all the time, so trying to balance carbon reduction against that can be difficult but it does have a finanical payback. So although our absolute emissions may be going down slowly, we know we get a saving when we do that so thats quite an easy win. (Interview, 1) ! ! ! Barriers to Promoting Sustainability within the University! ! ! When asked what the barriers of promoting the University’s sustainability were, time constraints was the first response of two of the participants, which seemed to be interlinked with the fact that members from different departments of the university have different and often conflicting priorities and objectives. Participant 1 states:! ! I think the biggest barrier we have is really the conflict with peoples time. (Interview 1) ! Participant 2 echoes this sentiment: ! it’s very much about the drivers and the deliverables that people have in their day to day. So we are a research university, we have our strategy and our goals and we have a number of targets. So you’ve got researchers focusing on their research, students coming here to learn and get a good degree and the teachers teaching, and then professional support services that are supporting. (Interview, 2) ! Participant 1 goes on to elaborate about the issue between conflicting priorities, and the different standpoints and perspectives amongst members of staff in the university. In particular the differ- ence in viewpoint between members of the Sustainability Team and Researchers within the uni- versity: ! Conflicting priorities can be difficult, for example if you’re looking at something such as high perfor- mance computing which is highly energy intensive, it can be quite difficult to have a discussion with a
researcher that has a finite period to spend their grant, about energy efficiency when all they care about is getting processing power. So some people have very different objectives to the objectives that we might have… (Interview, 1)! ! Another barrier to increasing the sustainability of the university was finances. This is an example of how Neumayer (2003) views the current global economy as being dominated by weak sustainabili- ty policies and practices, as sometimes sustainability and environmental quality are traded against economic profit and this also supports Campbell’s (2006) perspective that CSR is paradoxical be- cause social values are at odds with a business’s desire to maintain profit.! ! Finances can be tricky sometimes, not all sustainability has a financial payback. Sometimes its more value driven, so the business cases become more complicated. I think we’re fortunate because we don’t just address operational sustainability we also address research and teaching so we can often make a case that there is a benefit to research and teaching by pursuing a particular avenue which we wouldn’t be able to do if it was a purely operational business case, so that makes it easier. (Interview, 1) ! Participant 1 makes a valid point in that sustainability can be in some cases easier to address for HEIs than in other types of business because links with research and teaching mean finances can be opened up for sustainability issues, unlike in operational business cases. Participant 3 also mentions difficulties with finances: ! The main barriers have been tight capital budgets, so sometimes getting that investment is difficult. (Interview, 3) ! He goes on to talk about how he has managed to turn one such barrier into an achievement he can be proud of through Whole Life Costing, a process by which ‘value for money’ is not gauged on solely the economic value, but also takes into acount the environmental and social benefits (Constructing Excellence, 2006) , which perhaps Neumayer (2003) would consider to be an exam-
ple of a strong sustainability policy, as environment has been placed at equal importance of eco- nomic profit and no trade-off has been made between the two:! ! My biggest success that used to be my biggest barrier was getting the design team to do investment appraisals for pieces of kit that would save us energy or save us water, on the basis of Whole Life Costing. And so then, for them to do an investment appraisal rather than a cost cutting exercise. (Interview, 3) ! ! One of the things I noticed from talking to my participants was their ability to talk about aspects which had previously been barriers, and demonstrate the way they resolved the problem. For ex- ample, Participant 2 mentions a previous barrier of sustainability as traditionally associated nega- tive language, and how currently within her university they use positive language in order to en- gage and encourage other members of staff or students:! ! That has not always been helped by the way sustainability has been promoted and sold in the past, and I do say those words because you get people saying it’s all negative language and ‘Stop doing this’ […] There’s also been a mix of scientific opinion, so sometimes its very muddy and murky, and then you’re going in with a message and asking them to look at what theyre doing, so it is very much about the language you use. So we do use much more positive language and much more encourga- ment […] we try and change the way that we look at and talk about sustainability. (Interview, 2) ! Kane (2009) agrees that the words and the language used when communicating sustainability is- sues should be carefulled selected, not only to avoid the use of demotivating and demoralizing negative language, but also in order to interact with all levels of understanding as well as different cultural attitudes towards environmental issues. Particpant 4 mentioned issues with a lack of clari- ty in understanding sustainability and in relation to the role that Sustainability Leaders play:
Lack of understanding, I think part of it is that people tend to just think our role is about the environ- ment and although there is a specific focus around the environment, part of the job we’ve got to do is to factor in financial and social considerations within that. (Interview, 4)! ! Participant 3 currently feels that a barrier to sustainability within his institution is ensuring the food is sustainable and ethically sourced. He mentions a barrier to achieving this is the negative percep- tion that there isn’t a demand for it, as Kane (2011) explains that a behavioural foundation needs to be in place for such strategies to work, as sustainable production must be matched by sustainable consumption. Participant 3 says: ! ! There is a big concern around the end users’ purchasing habits so there is an attittude that students will really just want to buy Coca-Cola, and there is an attitude that students don’t really care about FairTrade products, and this is one of the barriers that i’m finding is that there is a real conflict be- tween what’s considered to be commercially viable and what’s not considered to be commercially vi- able. Despite the fact that theres no evidence of that… (Interview, 3) ! However, in spite of the concern that the behavioural foundation for sustainable food is not present, he disagrees and he goes on to talk about how he intends to tackle this issue: ! through the procurement of contracts, we will over probably a year to 2 years, start to improve this, and all of our contracts that are going out are asking people to work to the Catering Mark, which is a standard by the Soil association. So I’m hoping in 2 years, or sooner, that we’ll be able to get the Bronze award for Catering, which I think would be a huge improvement. (Interview, 3) ! When asked which area her University needed to improve on in order to further reduce its negative impact on the environment, Participant 2 states:! ! The area I feel that we do need to look at is carbon reduction, because even though we are reducing, some of our research can be quite energy intensive, we still need to look at that… (Interview, 2) !
! Participant 1 mentioned community impact as an aspect for his University to improve on:! ! I’d say some of our biggest areas are probably around our relationships and oppurtunities within the wider community. I think tradtionally the university has tended to be usually quite closed really, it kind of exists and does what it wants and the community can kind of join in with that, or it can’t…. it’s quite a stubborn attitude. Whereas I suppose in the last 5-10 years it has started to open up and become a bit more progressive, but there’s still lots of oppurtunity and work that can happen in that area. (Interview, 1) ! This supports Stiglitz’s (2007) view that the corporate agenda is evolving in order to take into ac- count the impact that it has on groups outside of its own shareholders and a widening of Elkring- ton’s (1994) ‘spheres of influnce’. He goes on to say: ! We very much acknwoledge that we’re at the start of a journey here , we’re doing some good things, but there’s a massive amount of progress oppurtunity out there. (Interview, 1) ! ! Contribution to National Targets! ! ! When the participants were asked how much they felt that their University’s progress contributed towards national targets, two of the participants had positive responses: ! ! Participant 1….! ! ! Well for example, if we’re talking waste, absolutely, because we’re already way above national targets and in terms of supporting re-use and all that type of stuff that I think we’re ahead of the game there really. In terms of construction our building regulations for energy are 25% better than the regulations, so again we’re pretty good in that area. In terms of wider environmental stuff we will always try and follow best practice rather than just meeting legislation, we’ll try and go above and beyond. (Interview, 1) ! !
Participant 3….! ! Yeah, a lot. The national targets are very focused on carbon, and we’ve done very well on the carbon front, and we’ve saved over 4,000 tonnes of C02 since we started on our carbon management pro- gramme. Our baseline figure is 2005, so sorry, we’ve saved 4000 tonnes since 2005, and that’s no mean feat. That’s quite a big deal, so I’m quite pleased with that. (Interview, 3) ! Participant 3’s response demonstrated that she was aware of the University’s limitations, and al- though she admitted that the University’s current contributions towards national targets may be small, the particular strength of her institution is that it is a research university and that research may help to improve future aspects of sustainability. HEFCE acknowleges that research is a fun- damental activity undertaken by HEIs in their role as knowledge generators, and therefore re- search related to sustainable development makes its own disctinctive contribiton to this field. Par- ticipant 2 says: ! We are a research university and that is what we are here for, we would hope that some of that re- search would then help to contribute towards helping to tackle some of the environmental issues, so- cial and economic stuff. So, how are we contributing? Small, because we have reduced and I’m not saying we will reduce to the target that we’ve got at the moment but it is a target and we are setting plans to meet the target. (Interview, 2) ! ! Government Support! ! ! I felt that it was important to ask the participants if they felt that their universities recieved a good level of support from HEFCE. Two of the participants answered in a way which implied they did not feel that HEFCE currently provides a good level of support to Universities in regards to sustainabili- ty, but that it had done in the past. For example, Participant 1 said: ! ! The problem is that its lost most of its funding. So previously the Higher Education sectors’ carbon targets were driven by HEFCE and it had a massive impact on the sector and the reason that it was able to do that is that it controlled a lot of funding that the sector got. […] So thats a really big motiva-
tor to start doing something about your emissions.. […] now its more difficult for them to push the sector to achieve things. (Interview, 1)! ! Participant 2 agrees with Participant 1, stating:! ! Not currently, no. During 2008-9 they were really raising the agenda for carbon and they were working with the Carbon Trust and a selection of universities, of which we were one, and then a much wider number of universities. And that’s just like People and Planet, when they started off they did some re- ally good stuff, but not anymore, it seems sustainability has slipped off their agenda and there’s no real focus and leadership. (Interview, 2)! ! Kane (2011) agrees that leadership is important in order to promote sustainability, stating that ‘giv- en the scale of the changes required to deliver a sustainable business, without leadership, strate- gies will ultimately fail’ (p. 181). Participant 4 offers his insight into the reasoning behind HEFCE’s current loss of leadership in sustainability:! ! I think part of that is that I don’t think they see this as a priority area for universities. (Interview, 4)! ! He also goes on to talk about how he feels in some ways HEFCE’s interventions in sustainability were not thought out with enough of a long-term vision in the first place: ! ! Also, some of the things they’ve done, I’m not sure if i’m honest that they’ve really thought it through. The best example is Carbon Management Plans, they required all universities to have these Carbon Management Plans and in 2010 we all put them in place as part of the Capital Investment Framework, but there was little thought on ‘how do we enforce this? how do we keep universities to the targets and promises they’ve set?’. And almost as a result of that there is a number of us, myself included, who are saying that the targets we’ve set weren’t really analysed propperly so we’re going to have to go back and review those. (Interview, 4) ! !
Reynolds (2012) states that in order for an organization to truly improve its sustainabiity it is imper- ative to set goals which are both clear and measurable for each stage of the journey, and clearly Participant 4 feels let down by HEFCE in that respect. However, Participant 3 holds a contrastingly positive perspective on the support provided by HEFCE, instead responding to my question with:! ! Yeah, I do, I think that the Revolving Green Fund is a great fund, it’s working really well, and I think they’re working with a company called Salix Finance to do the Salix Energy Efficiency loan scheme, which is available year round, there’s no set time to bid for it and between the two of those I think it’s great support. (Interview, 3)! ! When asked later in the interview if HEFCE’s targets are manageable and practical, Participant 1 also mentions Salix Finance, which is an independent, publicly funded company, established by the Carbon Trust, to accelerate public sector investment in energy saving technologies through in- vest to save schemes. The Revolving Green Fund is a partnership between HEFCE and Salix Fi- nance, providing recoverabe grants for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Participant 1 says:! ! something that HEFCE has been really good at is freeing up Salix money, so theyre freeing up green funds which is quite effective and I think if it continues rolling out programmes like that then that’s real- ly helpful. (Interview, 1)! ! ! Attitutes towards Community Pressure Groups! ! ! ! In order to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environ- ment I think it is important to talk about community pressure groups as Scott and Stahel (2013) view sustainability as a behavioural issue that depends upon teamwork, cooperation and motiva- tion and I think community pressure groups provide important motivation for universities to reflect and improve on their sustainability as well as requiring their cooperation. People and Planet is an important pressure group in relation to universities because it publishes an annual Green League
Table that ranks universities in order of their level of sustainability (People and Planet, 2015). This is an example of the way in which Ewje (2011) states that corporations are being called upon to become more sustainable due to the pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders.! ! Interestingly, each of the participants began with talking about the negative aspects of People and Planet and their Green League table as a tool, but they also mentioned the positive aspects and intentions behind this group. Despite some of their negative experiences with the league table, all the universities interviewed still chose to submit. Kane (2011) argues that this kind of engagement with voluntary standards demonstrates the participants are on the ‘right side of the argument’ and that taking part is an important and proactive measure (p104). ! ! Participant 1, when asked how he feels about the way his university’s achievements and progress have been reflected in the Green League Table answered: ! ! Kind of mixed really. The green league is a bit of a clunky tool for measuring performance and I think theyre aware of that and theyve tried adapting it. (Interview, 1) ! ! Participant 2 shares the same perspective on the limitations of the tool: ! ! So for the Green League by People and Planet, my personal opinion is that I don’t think it’s credible and not robust and you can’t really compare like for like, so the metrics I think are questionable. ! (Interview, 2)! ! She goes on to explain that it can be quite demoralizing for herself as well as other members of staff in the University, who are making changes in order to reduce their negative environmental im- pact, to then see their sustainability reflected in a negative way to the public:! ! It’s not nice to see any negative results or negative publicity because we work really hard to engage our staff positively, so you might have some staff that read the results and say ‘why are we only here when we’re doing all this?’ so we have to spend quite a bit of time then saying ‘we’re doing these good things’ . So how do I feel? Well, personally I don’t give it much respect anyway, so as a universi- ty, it’s a shame that it doesn’t reward the really good stuff that we doing which is quite unique in the
sector and there’s a few initiatives that no one else is doing yet and we know will make a big impact, so thats a shame to see. (Interview, 2)! ! Participant 4 offers some insight into the at times problematic nature of People and Planet’s Green League:! ! We also appreciate that as a league table, it is based on People and Planet’s campaign issues as much as it is on environmental performance, so there are elements within that where we would say that the weighting is slightly skewed against perhaps our bigger impacts […] A lot of this is a cam- paign tool by a student-led body (Interview, 4) ! ! Participant 3 also explains that it is the strict and perhaps uncomprehensive nature of the criteria that leads to disheartening results for universities: ! ! The criteria for the Green League doesn’t necessarily reflect what a University has done in terms of its work, and the criteria now has become very strict, and what it fails to recognize is, for example on your environmental policy it says ‘Do you talk about all these factors?’ and if you miss one of those factors out you get zero. What they don’t appreciate is that one factor might not be one of your signif- icant environmental impacts. (Interview, 3)! ! He goes on though to mention the positive aspect of the work of People and Planet:! ! However, the flipside is, is they are there to apply pressure, and they are there to drive change, and you don’t apply pressure or drive change by giving everybody credit. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 2 also reflects on it’s positive purpose and the initial drive it provided to the HE sector, but points out that improvements need to be made in order for the tool to mature and stay relevant:! !
It did have a really good purpose and it did raise the agenda and a lot of my colleagues in the sector said that it gave a business case for their position and their team and at first it helped with strategy, it helped raise awareness so it did have a place but it’s not evolved with the sector. (Interview, 2) ! ! Despite the fact that participants felt that the Green League table in some ways negatively reflect their sustainability, I think it is a positive sign that they all commit to submitting annually, and this reflects Segran’s (2008) view that transparency related to sustainability is extremely important and is becoming increasingly more popular for big businesses, which Golob and Podnar (2011) agree helps to promote trust and open communication with the public. ! ! ! Sustainability and Competetivity! ! ! I think it was important to ask whether the universities felt that their achievements in sustainability gave them a competitive edge over other universities because I wanted to gauge if the universities felt they got a payback from promoting their sustainability. However, Participant 2 was very frank in her response: ! ! To be honest, no. You come to this University because you want to be at this University and because you want to study a particular kind of topic. I know other universities it might, but not for us. (Interview, 2) ! ! This corresponds with Manescu’s (2010) theory that corporations stand to recieve little personal gain from engaging in CSR activities. However, she was the only participant who felt as though it did not help at all. Participant 1 felt that his university’s level of sustainability did help them com- pete.! ! In research we’ve got a concept called Living Laboratory so if we have an operational need we try and link that with a research teaching need and that helps with promoting the university if you can say that your university is willing to open up avenues for research that can be good for attracting academics, students, etcetera. (Interview, 1) !
! He also went on to mention student’s attitudes towards sustainability:! ! Theres also been research carried out by the NUS that said that students increasingly see sustainabili- ty, not as a main reason to go to a university but it’s part of their decision making process (Interview, 1) ! ! This supports the view that CSR can have a positive impact on the reputation of an organization (Garberg and Fombrum 2002; Groenland 2002; Whetton and Mackey 2002). Participant 3 has a perspective that stands perhaps in the middle of the other two:! ! No. I think it helps if students are looking at two universities, and all things are equal…. But I don’t think it’s the main thing that students look at when they come here, so I’d say no. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 4 acknowledges this his instituion’s current achievements are not in aspects that would attract a higher number of students, but that this might change if the university focuses on promot- ing sustainability in other aspects:! ! I think the reality for us at the moment is that our achievements in sustainability are largely around process, around reducing building associated impacts. I think the real competitive edge will come once we start to put sustainability into the education, the research and teaching. (Interview, 4)! ! ! The Future of Sustainability within the Higher Education Sector! ! ! In terms of the future of sustainability within the HE sector, I was interested to know whether the Sustainability Leaders of these instiutions felt that the HEFCE sector target of a 34% reduction by 2020 (HEFCE, 2010) is manageable and practical. ! ! In response to this Participant 3 answered: ! !
34% by 2020 will be incredibly difficult, but it’s similar to the People and Planet side of things, if you aim for a certain level and you don’t reach that certain level, if that certain level is not unrealistically high then you’re not going to achieve what you need to achieve. So I think there’s a certain amount of thinking that says, well, if we set it at 34% and people are coming in at 25%, thats a 25% saving, but if we set it at 25% and they come in at 20%, that’s bad, because we could have done more. So I think it’s incredibly difficult to achieve, but it is a worthwhile aspiration and in the university sector everybody is gunning for it, so I think it’s fine. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 1 expressed that more assistance from the government would be required to meet the target.! ! I think its difficult, I think partially the government needs to do something as well because there is a limit to what you can do if the carbon intensity of the grid doesnt change […] If the carbon intensity of the grid remains the same then I think it’s a challenging target. (Interview, 1) ! ! Particpant 4 mentions that while the target may be manageable and practical for some, it is more difficult for larger universities such as the Russell Group, which represent a group of 24 Universi- ties within the UK that pride themselves in being leaders in research, teaching and learning experi- ences (Russell Group, 2014).! ! I know that some universities are doing really well, the bigger universities aren’t. I think growth has been a massive thing for the Russell Group universities, we’re all growing significantly to not just com- pete in the UK, but compete internationally and so that has had a massive impact on us. (Interview, 4) ! ! Growth is agreed to be an obstacle to achieving sustanability by many (Latouche, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Belpomme, 2007). However Jackson (2009) argues that it is a difficult obstacle to avoid be- cause growth provides economic stability in terms of finanicial prosperity. Latouche (2010) refers to this as the fatal cycle of growth.!
! Debate around Scope 3! ! For me, its all about knowing what you’re doing, so if youre looking at your carbon you should look at the carbon footprint. So to not include something because it might mean that you’ll have a struggle in maintaining a reduction is not the right approach. You need to know what you’ve got and measure what you’ve got in order to set plans for what interventions you can do, when and where, if necessary. (Interview, 2) ! Particpant 4 has a corresponding view: ! ! I think we’ve got to look at our total contribution, so I don’t think we should pick and choose which elements of carbon we want to measure, and therefore challenge. Admittedly, what’s in our control is much easier to address than what is sort of indirectly in our control, […] so those elements of Scope 3 are a lot more challenging but I think we need to look at the total picture when it comes to emmis- sions. (Interview, 4) ! ! Participant 3 takes a very different stance on the matter, from the perspective that the University should not have to reduce its Scope 3 emmissions, as these indirect costs and impacts are someobody elses’s Scope 1, therefore somone elses direct costs and impacts:! ! Well, HEFCE themselves are having a debate about Scope 3 emmissions, which is that everybodys Scope 3 emmissions are somebodys Scope 1 emmissions, so the emmissions from an airplane are Scope 1 emmissions for the airline industry, so why does the university need to reduce Scope 3 em- missions when its actually the airline industry that needs to reduce their emmissions as a result of fly- ing? (Interview, 3) ! ! I agree with the view of Spitzeck (2009) in that corporations will not act in a responsible manner unless CSR issues are embedded in their decision-making and governant structures, therefore I
would hope in HEFCE’s debate around Scope 3 emmissions, that they would take more of a hollis- tic and socially responsible approach in order to look at the total picture in terms of carbon emmis- sions, as articulated by Particpants 2 and 4, in order to drive further responsible actions within the HE sector in relation to their carbon footprint.! ! ! ! Concluding Remarks from the interview process! ! The aim of this section of my research was to collect the thoughts, perspectives and attitudes of the Sustainability Leaders of Higher Education institutions in the UK, in order to gain an insight into the practicality for universities of reducing their negative impacts on the environment. ! From my interviews I can conclude that the attitudes were mostly positive towards both their achievements, the barriers they faced and their abilities to overcome these barriers and meet sec- tor targets.! ! After analysing my research and reflecting on my completed project I can conclude that a way to improve the project would be to interview a larger sample size, from more diverse areas of the UK, in order to observe a larger variety of responses and compare the differences and the similarities between them. Despite a small sample size I was pleased with the range of responses to the inter- view questions, as it allowed me to look at several different and contrasting experiences and per- spectives.! ! In terms of the successes of reducing their negative impact on the environment, all the participants in some way mentioned their local community in order to bring immediate benefit to their surround- ing area. There was also agreement between participants that physical aspects of sustainability were the easiest to successfully manage.! ! Some common barriers were time and resource constraints, interlinked with the conflicting priori- ties of members from different faculties within the universities. Financial constraints were a com- mon barrier, as some areas of sustainability which require investment do not have an immediate financial payback.! ! All participants feel they contribute to national targets, although they are aware of their limitations.!
Some participants felt that HEFCE does not provide enough support and guidance for the HE sec- tor in helping them to reduce their negative impact on the environment, and that guidance given is mostly carbon-focused. However, some participants feell HEFCE provides good support mention- ing Salix and the Revolving Green Fund.! ! There was agreement between all participants the the Green League Table is not a true reflection of their sustainability. They agreed that there were positive aspects, such as raising the agenda for sustainability and putting the right amount of pressure on the sector, but the criteria had not evolved to accurately reflect the institutions sustainability, and one participant mentioned the nega- tive impact on team morale. ! ! In terms of whether or not sustainability gave their university a competitive edge, the views of the participants were mixed, with some concluding it did help and others saying it was not a contribut- ing factor. ! ! There was disagreement about Scope 3 emmissions and if they should be mandated. There was agreement between the participants that, even if challenging, the current carbon emmissions tar- gets are viewed positively. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Conclusion! ! ! The main aim of my research was to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environment. I utilised Universities as a proxy for business, as many agree that this type of institution is the most qualified, knowledge generators and innovative leaders, as well as being strongly motivated to promote a sustainable future for the minds that they educate (Rappaport and Creighton, 2007; Filho, 2002). ! ! ! ! In the literature review I demonstrated that some of the issues in the practicality for busi- nesses of promoting sustainability and reducing their negative impact on the environment are the difficulty in defining the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’, as well as critiques that sustainable development is a contradiction in terms (Dresner, 2009) or that corporate social responsibility is a paradoxical term as social values are completely opposed to a business’s desire to maintain or maximize profit. However I agree, whether for selfless reasons, or in order to safe- guard their reputations, with Ewje’s (2011) perspective that corporations are being called to be- come more socially responsible due to pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders.! ! ! In reviewing the sustainability policies of Universities within the UK I demonstrated a barrier in the practicality of businesses promoting their sustainability is their lack of clear quantifiable goals for relevant sustainability indicators, and I agree with Kane (2011) that stricter legislation would place businesses in a proactive position to engage with stakeholders and with Lawrence (1997) that measurable goals provides businesses with true reflections of progress. ! ! ! In terms of goals for carbon emmissions reduction, upon analysing the data sample in Chapter 4, it was evident the majority of the Universities analyzed struggled to meet the target. However, in qualitative interviews with Sustainability Leaders I found they felt a high target was a motivator for the sector to achieve their full potential in carbon reduction, and I feel that this sup- ports HEFCE’s (DATE) perspective that ‘Institutions should be encouraged and incentivised to adopt as high a target as possible’ (p. 27). Although, it is true that the participants felt that HEFCE had lost leadership in this area, which is imperative for the sector’s success, so I feel that it is im- portant for HEFCE to reassert its influence over the sector in leading them to achieve true sustain- ability.! ! ! From my interviews with Sustainability Leaders of UK universities I found that some com- mon barriers for the practicality of promoting sustainability were constraints on time, resources and finances, as well as conflicting priorities. These aspects support Neumayer’s (2003) theory that ‘weak sustainability’ is the dominant form of sustainability in today’s society, in which environmental
issues are compromised on for the sake of maintaining or maximizing profit, which is why business can often be seen to be at odds with sustainability. However, in my interview I also saw examples of what McWilliams, Siegel & Wright (2006) would define as true CSR, in which the Universities tried to go above and beyond complicance. This is also supported by the fact that in my interviews the Universities overwhelmingly felt promoting sustainability did not give them a competitive edge, therefore they are not directly benefiting from CSR activities they engage in.! ! ! One of the barriers I found to be demoralizing for Universities was the way in which they felt their sustainability was poorly and unfairly reflected in the Green League Table, by pressure group People and Planet. I feel that businesses should be encouraged to promote their sustainability rather than discouraged, rather than demoralzied, however they continual committment to submit- ting to this voluntary standard is a good example of Segran’s (2008) theory that transaprency is important in promoting stakeholder trust. ! ! ! Despite of the barriers in promoting sustainability, I feel that HEIs recognize their important role and the participants in my project all felt that they contributed towards national targets and maintained positive attitudes about improving their level of sustainability in the future. I feel that the only barrier that would differentiate the level of practicality between Universities and other busi- nesses is that in some cases it is easier for Universities to direct finances towards sustainability issues because they can link these to research and teaching needs, which then make them a big- ger priority. However, I feel that this project demonstrates that it is not easy, but still practical, for businesses to gradually improve their sustainability, with continual committment, high targets and stakeholder engagement. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
! ! ! ! ! !

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disspendraft

  • 1. ! Assessing the Practicality! for Businesses in Reducing their Negative Impact on the! Environment! ! ! ! ! ! Hannah Slaski! ! Submitted as part of the Independent Module project for: BA (Hons) Spanish and International Relations ! ! Student ID: 33241615 ! ! ! !
  • 2. Introduction! ! !   ! Global concerns have escalated regarding climate change, making it one of the most seri- ous challenges of the 21st century (Xue, 2012), with the The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change insisting that climate change is due to human activities (IPCC, 1993). Rifkin (2011) argues a need for us to take account of the externalities by extending modern day economics beyond the theoretical paradigm of Adam Smith to include social issues such as the environment, pushing topics such as sustainability, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility into the public eye and onto the corporate agenda. However, some critiques such as Campbell (2006) claim that corporate social responsibility is a paradoxical term, due to the fact that social values are at odds with a business’s desire to maximize profits. This paper attempts to intro- duce the principles and critiques of sustainability and corporate social responsibility to the reader and explore in more depth if business and sustainability are fundamentally opposed. ! ! In this research project, I have chosen to use universities as a proxy for businesses in assessing the practicality for them of reducing their negative impact on the environment because as Rappa- port and Creighton (2007) acknowlegde, the Higher Education Sector is where minds are trained and developed. Universities are supposed to push the boundaries, in terms of development of re- search, education and the development of the minds of future generations. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) feels that it is crucial that the Higher Education sector con- tributes strongly to sustainable development (HEFCE, 2008), and therefore I feel that if any busi- ness can practically achieve true sustainability, universities would be the most likely type of busi- ness to succeed. Therefore, the aim and objectives of my project are as follows:! ! Aim: Assessing the pracitcality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environ- ment in order to promote a sustainable future, looking at universities as a proxy for business. ! ! Objectives: ! ! 1. To critically review the contested meanings of sustainable development in relation to the impact and role of business and to compare and contrast this with the role of universities in promoting sustainability.! 2. To review the stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK and critically examine the methods by which the effectiveness of these policies can be judged!
  • 3. 3. To determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain carbon re- duction targets by reviewing the emissions reduction data for 5 Universities over a 4 year peri- od. ! 4. To explore the qualitative aspects of sustainability through interviews with the Sustainability Leaders of 4 Universities and understand the challenges and successes to promoting sustain- ability within their institutions.! ! ! This dissertation is divided into four parts in line with my four objectives. In the first part I focused on the theoretical and conceptual aspects of the dissertation by looking at sustainability, sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. After gaining more of an understand- ing of the main themes and critiques of these areas and how businesses interact with the environ- ment, I reviewed the literature relating to what role universities can play in this debate, and what differentiates them from other businesses and corporations in terms of their ability to achieve sus- tainability and reduce their negative impact on the environment. ! ! In the second part of my dissertation I reviewed stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK, as well as the theory behind effective policy making, in order to critcally examine the ef- fectiveness by which these policies can be judged. This helped me to determine whether or not sustainability is firmly on the corporate agenda of Higher Education institutions and if the correct framework is in place for universities to promote true sustainability.! ! After explaining my methodology in Chapter 3, the last two parts of my dissertation will be focused on my empirical study. First, I analysed the carbon emmissions reduction data for 5 uni- versities over a 4 year period in order to determine whether or not universities are successfully achieving the targets that have been set for them by HEFCE. This also gave me an idea of whether or not these targets are practical and manageable. The next and main part of my empirical study will focus on my interviews with the Sustainability Leaders of 4 Universities. The questions posed allowed the participants to express their thoughts and attitudes towards their successes and challenges in promoting sustainability within their institution. This allowed me to gain a better un- derstanding of the qualitative issues involved in sustainability, the barriers that stand in the way of achieving sustainability as well as the practifcality of promoting sustainability within their respective insitutions. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 4. Chapter 1- Literature Review! ! ! ! ! In this chapter, I am going to examine the main principles, arguments and theoretical framework behind sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Once I have gained more of an understanding of the main themes and critiques of these areas and how businesses interact with the environment, I will then review the literature relating to what role universities can play in this debate, and what differentiates them from other businesses and corporations in terms of their abili- ty to achieve sustainability and reduce their negative impact on the environment. ! ! Sustainability! ! ! The 1970s club of Rome report introduced the idea that the business-as-usual scenario was extremely flawed and presented the global need to focus more closely on environmental is- sues (Meadows, et al, 1974). The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change makes it clear that climate change is due to human activities (IPCC, 1993). In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, Xue (2012) argues that the inherent development model of modern so- ciety which revolves around large energy consumption, high carbon emmissions and large scale environmental devastation, aswell as our lifestyles of uncontrolled mass consumption, needs to be fundamentally changed.! ! ! As stated by Rogers (2008), the law of diminishing marginal returns can be applied to the environment with the use of common property resources such as air, water and forests being overused by many individuals acting in their own self-interest and the services that these natural resources provide, such as air filtration, beginning to diminish as the population fill the air with con- taminants and pollutants. Hawken (et al 2008) refers to these resources as natural capital, and Blewitt (2008) adds to the term, using the words ‘critical natural capital’ referring to aspects of the global ecosystem upon which our lives depend. ! ! ! Clark and Woodrow (2013) argue that the barrier to mitigating climate change lies within the boundaries of economics and problems associated with our Smithian model of Western capitalism, implemented through neoclassical economic theories relating to an “invisible hand” balancing the forces between supply and demand in the market. Unfortunately, phenomenons such as climate change have demonstrated that market forces are no longer in balance and the free market fails to account for the social cost of climate change. Rifkin (2011) argues a need for us to take account of the externalities by extending modern day economics beyond the theoretical paradigm of Adam Smith to include social issues such as the environment. Although capital accumulation and labour
  • 5. input have been traditionally stressed as important factors in the developmental model, a new goal of development is represented by a utopia in which developmental standards are measured through environmental and social progress, and not principally the GDP and economic growth of a country.! ! ! In response to the degradation of the environment and the depletion of the world’s natural resources, the terms sustainability and sustainable development came into prominence in 1987 when the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (UNWCED) pub- lished its report, Our common future, with the Brundtland report as the central reccomendation (United Nations, 1987). At the UNWCED sustainable development was defined as: ! ! ! “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” (WCED, 1987, p43.)! ! ! The idea of sustainable development moved further into the mainstream at United Nations Conference on Environment and Devlopment in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Dresner, 2009). Simpson and Weiner (2009) define sustainable development as forms of human economic activity that do not cause the degradation of the environment and avoid long-term depletion of natural resources. Rogers (2007) explains that sustainable development has three dimensions: the economic, the en- vironmental and the social which are often known as the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), and can be used to monitor and assess the success of development programs or projects, emphasising that in order for the outcome of the specific project to be truly sustainable, each component requires equal attention. Robertson (2014), who describes sustainability as our adaptibility to changing situ- ations, puts these dimensions, or pillars, in different terminology, referring to them as: people, profit and planet. ! ! ! Some environmentalists have claimed that sustainable development is a contradiction in terms, and the term can be used as disguise for behaviour that continues to deplete the natural capital and systems of the earth (Dresner, 2009). The idea of sustainable development, which La- touche (2010) defines as self-sustaining growth, has admittedly become somewhat of a fashion- able phrase. Latouche (2010) describes the word development as toxic and deems the term sus- tainable development as allowing countries to maintain their levels of profit in a manner known as ‘Business As Usual’ without making a true change in habits. Brown (2009) finds the concept of ‘Business As Usual’ grossly inadequate and has developed Plan B, which he feels will lead to a truly sustainable future. Plan B’s four main objectives are: an 80% reduction in net carbon dioxide emmissions by 2020, stabilizing the population below 8 billion, eradicating poverty and a restora- tion of the earth’s natural systems such as soil.!
  • 6. ! One of the weaker aspects of sustainability is the difficulty in defining it. Schaller (1993) captures this difficulty by comparing the term ‘sustainability’ to terms such as ‘truth’ and ‘justice’, which are concepts that can’t be readily defined in a concise manner. Fortune and Hughes (1997) even go as far as to argue that sustainability is an empty and condescening concept which lacks susbstance. Bell and Morse (1999) agree that there is a frustration in the lack of consensus at- tached to the definition of this broad concept. ! ! ! Within the umbrella term of sustainability, there are also some disagreements about the va- lidity of different levels of sustainability, which have lead to the terms ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ sustain- ability. Daly (1997) differentiates the two by stating that strong sustainability rejects the premise of unlimited substitutibility of all natural resources. Neumayer (2003) explains this in terms of trade- offs, stating that weak sustainability allows environmental quality to be traded against economic profit whereas strong sustainability does not deem any such trade-off as acceptible. Neumayer (2003) also adds that the current global economy is dominated by weak sustainability policies and practices. ! ! Corporate Social Responsibility! ! ! Love and Kraatz (2009) state that corporate reputation can either become a liability or an asset, and as a consequence, corporations are aware of the value that their reputation holds and therefore take corporate social responsibility seriously. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development describes Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as: ! ! “continual commitment of a business to behave ethically and to contribute to sustainable economic development and to improving the quality of life for employees and their families as well as local commuinites and society as a whole”! ! ! ! ! Crane and Matten (2007) describe CSR as a mindset that factors in the economic, social and environmental responsbilities of a business. Elkington (1998) introduced a manner of under- standling CSR with the Triple Bottom Line model, as a philosophy in business that determines that a company’s performance should be measured in terms of its contribution to three key areas: eco- nomic prosperity, environmental quality and social capital. This differs from a traditional Business As Usual perspective because it highlights the role of the market in creating both social and finan- cial value (Hawkens, 2004).! !
  • 7. ! Castello and Lozano (2009) developed a three stage model for CSR in which the stages are 1. Risk Management, 2. Responsibility Management, and 3. Civil Management. This demon- strates that companies engaging in CSR will experience an evolution from a base stage at which CSR is primarily a tool to protect reputation value up to the mature stage of Civil Management in which the corporation is intergating social issues into their responsibilites and taking a leading citi- zenship role. ! ! ! Corporate social responsibility can be considered an contradiction in terms as, in a realist perspective of international relations, actors look for specific gains that correspond with their own self-interest. Campell (2006) describes CSR as a ‘paradox’ because social values are at odds with a business’s desire for profit-making. When it comes to business, Simpson and Taylor (2013) be- lieve that the economic survival of a firm will always be its primary interest corresponds, however, companies do not operate in isolation but they act, interact and react as part of the outside world.! ! ! In 1944 Karl Polyani predicted that when the externalities of capitalism have gone too far and resulted in massive costs, socially and environmentally, the people will attempt to re-embed the market economy back into society and use governments or social movements to create new rules and social “norms”, which can be defined as standards of behaviour for particular actors (Finnemore & Sikkink, 1999). ! ! ! Social constructivist perspectives, such as those of Berger and Luckman (1966) maintain that these standards of behaviour that make up reality and impact social conditions and relation- ships are constructed through commuinication. This can be seen to be evident in the way that Ewje (2011) describes how corporations are being called to become more sustainable and socially re- sponsible due to pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders. Gray, Owens and Adams (1996) define a stakeholder as any humany agency that can be influenced by, or can influence, the activities of an organization, including governments, supranational organizations, shareholders, communities and even customers. These stakeholders are also referred to by Elkington (1994) as the ‘spheres of influence’. Stiglitz (2007) views the widening of the spheres in recent years in order to take into account the impact a firm’s decisions have on groups other than their own sharehold- ers as a positive thing that demonstrates an evolution within the corporate agenda to engage in more equitable and sustainable practices.! ! ! However, conflict of interest can exist between the stakeholders, and the shareholders - those that recieve profit from the firm. CSR according to the Triple Bottom Line Model and accord- ing to Stakeholder theory, should mean that the business should strive to coordinate stakeholder interests rather than maximising profits for its shareholders (Elkrington, 1994). The social construc-
  • 8. tivist theory asserted by scholars such as Bourdieu (1991) and Foucault (1972) that language is an essential tool for social mediation and supported by Golob and Podnar’s (2011) view that dialouge can maximise stakeholder engagement and through strategies of transparency to foster trust and legitamcy, effective decision making can be achieved. For this reason, Ihlen, Barlett & May (2011) define CSR as an attempt at negotiation between the firm, their stakeholders and the public in general. With regards to language being an essential tool for social mediation, Benz (2000) asserts that rather being a positive tool, the ‘greening’ of the language associated with CSR activities can instead have a negative effect, with environmentalists feeling that the true message is being dimin- shed.! ! ! Corporate reputation has been found to have a positive impact on the profits of that organi- zation (Garberg and Fombrum 2002; Groenland 2002; Whetton and Mackey 2002). Grayson and Hodges (2004) found that such reputation was influenced greatly by the level of commitment shown by the company to CSR although Manescu (2010) argues that companies may have little personal gain from involving themselves in CSR as he disagrees that the level of profit generated by CSR activities is significant. Godfrey (et al., 2009) summizes that because CSR activities are voluntary in nature they can be seen as gifts to stakeholders. However, as Ilhen (2008) states, the cost for corporations of not keeping up with the changes in ethical standards can be costly, demonstrating that even if there is an insignificant amount of profit to be made for the company by indulging in CSR, it is still an important issue that needs to be incorporated into their corporate agenda, for the sake of their reputation if nothing else. Wettstein (2010) adds to this by stating that companies can no longer make do with solely reducing their negative impacts, they are now in- creasingly expected to engage in proactively creating positive impacts.! ! ! Although there are positive examples of the use of CSR, in the majority of cases compa- nies are not obliged to disclose their CSR information and therefore it can be difficult to get com- panies to release this material, as they can be unsure of the benefits of doing so (Simpson and Taylor, 2013). According to Arrevelo and Fallon (2008) the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) represents a global framework to demonstrate the implications of CSR within the business com- muinity, with the intention of bringing environmental and social issues more into the mainstream with the hope that businesses will take it upon themselves to incorporate some of the UN’s goals into their objectives.! ! ! According to Sun, Stewart & Pollard (2010) CSR has been widley regarded as a a failed practice. One of the reasons for this is that CSR has in some cases been criticized as a PR cam- paign or ‘greenwashing’ activities (Tench, Sun, & Jones, 2012). Society can often be skeptical about the reality of a firm’s environmental and societal commitments (ChrisitanAid, 2004) and this
  • 9. is in some instances caused and made worse by the existence of a phenomenon known as gre- enwashing, defined by Greenpeace as the misleading of the public by businesses regarding their own environental policies and practices. According to TerraChoice (2008) it is an overwhelming percentage of businesses that are misleading consumers to believe their products and behavious are more sustainable than they really are, through green marketing. ! ! ! The claim to be taking responsibility beyond that of profit seeking is recognized as a major corporate strategy to maintain legitamacy. For this reason, Mcwilliams, Siegel & Wright (2006) claim that CSR is more appropriately defined as what the corporation is doing that goes beyond basic compliance of what is required of them by law and benefits society in ways that don’t corres- pond directly with the interests of the firm. ! ! Universities Role in Sustainable Development! ! ! If any kind of business or corporation is capable of engaging in true sustainability or CSR actions, Rappaport and Creighton (2007) argue that academic institutions are the most inclined, as their primary focus is the education of future generations, and so their concern for the future should outweigh the desire to carry out Business As Usual policies in the face of climate change. ! ! “The higher education system is where these minds are trained and developed. Therefore, it is crucial that the sector contributes highly to sustainable development.” (Stern, 2008)! ! ! Filho (2000) describes the Higher Education sector as being well-suited to leadership of sustainability and greening movements. As well as having the tools and being in a position that makes universities well-suited to lead, it can also be argued that they have a great responsibility to propogate an environmentally sustainable future, due to the fact that graduates educated at these institutions of higher education go on to manage many of society’s important institutions (Report and Declaration of The Presidents Conference,1990)! ! ! Given these ideas, it is not surprising that HEFCE (2008) announced in their report: Sus- tainability: statement and strategic action plan that the Higher Education sector should become a leader in driving sustainability forward to a high level. In their report: Carbon reduction strategy for higher education in England HEFCE (2010) also demonstrated that they hold ambitious targets for universities around the UK, with an aim to reduce their carbon emmissions by 34% from a 1990 basline by 2020. ! ! ! The process of ‘greening’ of universities, and institutions of higher education is not restric- ted to reducing carbon emissions alone, and is defined by Creighton (1999) as a process involving
  • 10. the reduction of on-site and off-site environmental impacts that result from decisions made by the campus and campus activies, alongside an initiative to raise environmental awareness within the commuinities of the university. ! ! ! The best way for universities to tackle their responsibilities as leaders and as role models to future generations is for them to: “promote a whole institution approach to environmental practice” (Howard, et al. , 2000, p. 84). Orr (1994) also supports this statement on the importance of taking a hollistic approach to sustainable development within the university, arguing that the en- tire environment within which students are educated needs to fulfill sustainability criteria. This vis- ion is consistent with Daly’s (1992) idea of strong sustainability. ! ! ! In terms of raising environmental awareness within the commuinities of academic institu- tions, it is not only business policies that need to be ‘greened’ but also the curriculum. At the UN conference for Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 reccomended that the issues of environment and development are integrated into edu- cation at all levels (UNCED, 1992). According into research aimed at investigating students atti- tudes towards sustainable development conducted by the Higher Education Academy (HEA, 2012) noted that 80% of students believe that sustainable development should be actively promoted by their universities and over two thirds of the students would like to have sustainable development included in the curriculum and taught as part of their degree courses. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 11. Chapter 2 - Sustainability Policies! ! ! ! In this chapter I am going to review the stated sustainability policies of Universities in the UK and critically examine the methods by which the effectiveness of these policies can be judged. Rappaport and Creighton (2007) suggest there is an importance in setting concrete targets, as quantifiable goals can be regularly assessed and this commitment can be used to influence pur- chasing decisions within that university.! ! ! “Goal statements are powerful motivators that provide direction to planners and implementers. They send signals to individuals inside and outside the organization that an issue is important.”! (Rappaport and Creighton, 2007, p. 220)!   ! These goals and targets are set in relation to specific indicators that relate to the environ- mental impact of the institution. As explained by the United Nations (2007) in Indicators of Sustain- able Development: Guidelines and Methodologies, indicators are important tools which help to clarify information to policy makers and to measure progress towards goals. As Lawrence (1997) states, the central idea of using indicators is to determine whether situations are improving, or get- ting worse. ! ! ! In order to review stated sustainability policies of UK Universities it is important so under- stand the indicators relevant to the HE sector:! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 12. Figure: A. Title: Criteria weighting for the 2014 People & Planet Green League Methodology. Source: People and Planet (2014) ! The above graphic displays the indicators that community pressure group, People and Planet, use as metrics in order to rate Universities on their achievements in sustainability, published annually in their Green League table (People and Planet, 2014). ! Carbon Reduction ! With the 2008 Climate Change Act (CCA) the UK Government commited to a carbon reduction tar- get of 80% by 2050 against 1990 levels, and the reduction target for 2020 is currently set at 34%. HEFCE based their reccomendations for carbon management to HEIs to follow national targets. This target currently encompasses Scope 1 and 2 emmissions but does not include Scope 3. (HEFCE, 2011) ! As this is a concrete and specific target which has been set by HEFCE, and HEFCE encouraged all HEIs to implement their own Carbon Management Strategies, as stated in their publication: Carbon reduction tagret and strategy for higher education in England (HEFCE, 2010), it is easy to see this reflected in institunional strategies, for example: ! “The 2010 Carbon Management Strategy set targets in line with a HEFCE recommendation of a 34% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 based on a 2005 baseline.” (Leeds Beckett Universi- ty, 2012: p 6) !
  • 13. Some universities are determined to go ‘above and beyond’ the targets set by HEFCE, for example Manchester Metropolitan University (2015) have pledged to reduce their emmissions from their buildings and vehicles by 35% by 2016 from a 2005 baseline, and then by 50% by 2021. The am- bition to set themselves a target that is 16% higher than the target committed to by the UK gov- ernment is impressive. It perhaps correlates with Wettison’s (2010) idea that it is no longer good enough for a business to simply reduce their negative impacts to comply with legislation, but in- stead they are expected to proactively seek a more positive impact. ! HEFCE admits that mosts of its funding has been directed towards carbon reduction, upon gov- ernment requests, however they state that they recognize to need to address wider environmental issues (HEFCE, 2014). Aside from carbon reduction, the lack of guidance can mean that institu- tions can have a lack of direction in creating policies around other sustainability indicators. This lack of legislation can be seen as a disadvantage as Kane (2011) states that the advantages of stricter legislation is that it puts the company in a proactive position for stakeholder engagement and if the legislation is implemented it rewards the companies that achieve true sustainability in order to create further competitive advantage over their less green rivals. ! One issue with University sustainability policies is that many of them lack clarity by not setting quantifiable targets which can be measured and evaluated on a regular basis to effectively deter- mine the progress made. Heinen (1994) deems that sustainability needs to have relevent scales and appropriate measurement methods designed for a long-term prospect and Reynolds (2012) concurs that a business cannot say whether or not it has achieved a goal if it is not possible to measure that achievement. However, Kane (2009) points out that it would be wrong to focus ec- slusively on numbers as there are also qualitative, less tangible aspects to sustainability such as public perceptions of business, aesthethic qualities of your facilities and staff attitudes. ! In reviewing the stated policies of Universities within the UK it was evident that sustainability is not always explicitly stated. For example, in The University of Manchester’s Strategic Plan for 2020 (University of Manchester, 2014) Environmental Sustainability is mentioned as their 8th enabling strategy to achieve their third core goal of Social Responsibility. However, no Key Performance In- dicators are set for this particular enabling strategy that would provide quantiative measurements for these goals. This appears to be standard practice amongst university strategic plans (University College London, 2014;) , to not explicitly mention sustainability or set out quantifable targets and Key Performance Indicators, but to embed sustainability into their strategic plans in more vague and subtle ways.! ! There appears to be an issue surrounding the vagueness, and lack of clarity in the aims of univer- sities within the UK in their sustainability policies, which in the long term may make progress diffi- cult to measure and may not lead to a promotion of true sustainability within the institutions. How-
  • 14. ever, to assess the effectiveness of carbon reduction policies, I will quantitatively analyse carbon emmissions data in Chapter 4, and in Chapter 5 I intend to interview Sustainability Leaders from institutions within the UK in order to gain a better understanding of the qualitative aspects of sus- tainability.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 15. Chapter 3 - Methodology! ! ! As I said in Part 1, the aim of this study is to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environment. By developing my aims and objectives at the beginning of the project, I have a clear understanding of the purpose of my research and which methods will help me to generate meaningful findings. ! ! When designing the research, I had to decide if I wanted to employ quantitative or qualitative mea- sures. Holliday (2002) suggests that quantitative and qualitative paradigms reflect different per- spectives of the world, taking into account that sustainability is a multifaceted topic, I felt that purely looking at numbers would lead me to a superficial conclusion. I therefore decided my research should consist of quantitative and qualitative measures.! ! It was important for me to include quantitative measures in order to determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain sustainability targets. Therefore I chose 5 uni- versities in the West Yorkshire region and analysed their data for carbon emmissions reductions over a period of 4 years.! ! However, I decided the main focus of my project would be the qualitative side of my research, in order to gain a more detailed outlook on the thoughts, experiences and attitudes of the participants in relation to the practicality for universities in reducing their negative impact on the environment. The participants I interviewed were Sustainability Leaders of Higher Education Instiutions within the UK, as they have the expert knowledge and practical experience required for me to gather meaningful results. After careful consideration, I decided to use interviews rather than surveys, questionnaires or focus groups. I felt this would be the best way to get answers to my questions and my research would be enriched by the fact that a semi-structured interview style would allow a greater detailed discussion to take place, and the freedom for the participants to fully elaborate and articulate their ideas.! ! Despite the advantages of using this type of interview method there are also disadvantages, for example, Breakwell (1990) states ‘The interview approach relies heavily upon respondents being able and willing to give accurate information’. Before conducting my interviews I was aware that there was a chance that the Sustainability Leaders I had chosen as participants might not be hap- py disclosing their thoughts and perspectives with an undergraduate student, especially if they feared that I would publish data which cast them or their university in a negative light. In order to get around this obstacle, I garunteed that I would keep the findings of my data completely confi-
  • 16. dential, by ensuring the anonymity of both the Sustainability Leaders and their institutions when publishing the data. I also decided that for the quantitative part of my analysis and the qualitative part of my analysis I would look at different universities, so that I wouldn’t compromise the confi- dentiality of the interview participants by allowing someone to determine their identities based on their carbon emmissions reductions figures from Chapter 4 of my project. ! ! Sampling! ! In order to help me understand the complex issues surrounding the practicality for universities of reducing their negative impact on the environment, it was essential that my participants had wide knowledge and experience in this area, therefore my sample was 4 Sustainability Leaders of uni- versities within the UK. As Sustainability Leaders are extremely busy professionals, 4 was the highest sample size I was able to obtain at this time. ! ! There is no doubt that if my sample size was larger, or carried out at a different time, or within a different area of the UK, the findings may be different. However, I feel this sample size still allowed for a variety of responses, perspectives and experiences and there were some agreements be- tween participants on certain topics, as well as some disagreements. I feel as though the richness of my findings represents the complexity and mutlifaceted nature of the project aim.! ! In order to maintain the anonymity of my participants, I will list them as I referred to them in my In- terview Results section, along with their job titles at their respective universities:! ! Interview 1- Participant 1: Sustainability Manager! Interview 2- Participant 2: Head of Environmental Sustainability! Interview 3- Participant 3: Sustainability Manager! Interview 4- Participant 4: Director of Sustainability! ! ! Research process and ethics! ! Prior to the interviews I contacted all the participants via email and sent them a Participant Infor- mation Sheet (see Appendix A), a Consent Form (see Appendix B) and also a copy of the interview questions (see Appendix C) in order for them to be fully aware of the nature of my research. I made sure that they understood the purpose of the interview, that their identity would remain anonymous knew that they could withdraw at any time. ! !
  • 17. The digitally recorded interviews took place in April 2015. Interviews varied in length from 15 to 20 minutes. All respondents were interviewed in a quiet room in their workplace, and signed consent froms prior to recording. ! ! During my interview I had designed a framework of questions from various topics I wanted to ask about but I ensured that discussion was encouraged in order for the respondent to lead the ques- tion in the direction they wanted or elaborate further, which allowed for a variety of different re- sponses from the participants. ! ! I transcribed the interviews myself, to ensure that they were kept confidential and kept the files in a password protected file on my laptop, along with the audio recorded interview files. During the transcription of my interviews, I listened to them very carefully in order to convey the information in accurate detail. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 18. Chapter 4 - Carbon Emmissions Analysis! ! ! In this chapter I am going to determine the extent to which Universities have been able to successfully attain sustainability targets by reviewing the data for the carbon emissions reductions of 5 universities in the UK and analysing the progress made by these institutions. This analysis will allow me to determine whether or not universities are reducing their carbon emissions in line with current targets, as set for them by HEFCE, and to gain a perspective on whether or not these tar- gets are practical and achievable. I have chosen to analyse the data for carbon emmissions reduc- tions because carbon dioxide is the main man-made source of climate change (refe! rence needed), it is also a source that the UK Government has set national reduction targets for (DECC, 2008), as well as HEFCE having set sector wide targets (HEFCE, 2010). Also, as all insti- tutions have to provide their carbon emmissions statistics, this allows for easy comparison. ! ! ! Figure: B. Title: Percentage carbon emmission reductions of 5 Universities over a period 4 years! ! This table shows the percentage emission of carbon emmission reductions for 5 different uni- versities over a period of 4 years, from 2011 to 2015. The perecentages that have been calculated for these universities are published on the People and Planet website, and are based on data from the Estates Management Record (EMR), specifically the Green Stats data which is made publicly available online by HESA. ! ! People and Planet (2014) state that the carbon reduction that HEIs should have achieved by 2012 based on Universities UK, GuildHE and HEFCE sector targets has been calculated at 20.7%. The table demonstrates that none of the universities analysed here reduced in line to the 2012 target. In fact 4 out of 5 of the universities still haven’t reduced to the 2012 target, even by 2015. However, University A, made a swiftly reduced from 10.75% in 2012 to 31.01% in 2013 and then continued on a significantly reducing to the latest result of 38.73% in 2015. This positive example demon- Percentage carbon emission reduction (%) University 2011 2012 2013 2015 University A 6.99 13.29 17.36 15.8 University B 6.76 17.09 17.94 17.54 University C 0.31 10.75 31.01 38.73 University D 4.53 -0.67 7.81 -2.9 University E -10.21 -13.81 -4.36 -2.6
  • 19. strates the possibilty for universities to reduce their carbon emmissions in line with national and sector wide targets. However, the fact that only 1 out of the 5 universities analysed here managed to achieve this target could demonstrate that the targets are out of reach for the majority. Two of the universities analysed here, Universities D and E, increased their carbon emissions rather than reduced them.! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 20. Chapter 5 - Interview Results! ! ! ! The interview process was successful, with participants giving longer answers than antici- pated, without needing prompts to elaborate and express themselves. I was happy with the diversi- ty in responses, because although I am aware that my research is limited due to the small number of participants, I collected a range of different perespectives, feelings and experiences.! ! ! During my interviews a number of themes emerged, that I feel are important in contributing towards a discussion on the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the en- vironment, these were: ! ! • Successes in increasing the sustainability of the University! • Barriers to promoting sustainability within the University! • Institution’s contributions towards national targets! • Government support! • Attitudes towards community pressure groups! • Sustainability and competivity! • The future of sustainability within the Higher Education sector! ! Successes in Increasing the Sustainability of the University ! ! I feel that an important theme to begin with is the aspects the Sustainability Leaders feel have been their most successful in promoting the sustainability of their insitutions. One of the things that was mentioned by participants were their ties with the local commuinity:! ! I think, not necessarily easy but one of the biggests impacts we have is we actually have a very high purchasing spend so a lot of that goes towards the local community and local economy so thats an immediate benefit, in terms of local economics as we support a lot of small businesses locally. ! (Interview, 1)! ! The Sustainable Development Commission (2010) states that integrated area-based sustainability programmes not only help to reduce the effects of climate change, but also hold a range of eco- nomic and social co-benefits, at minimal extra cost. Latouche (2009) promotes the idea that relo- calization is a pivotal part of moving towards a sustainable future, mentioning the slogan ‘Think
  • 21. globally, act locally’ (p.44) and Dovers (2005) agrees that sustainability should be integrative in or- der to reflect both global and local concerns. Participant 2 also mentioned local community:! ! We’re in a great city to be in, and we’ve got really good links with other organizations, with the coun- cil, and with the hospital and the other university in this city, so we’re fortunate there… (interview, 2)! ! She also mentioned the benefit of good infrastructure for sustainable transport:! ! We’ve got a really good cycle commuinity, so we’ve worked really well with that and we have some very committed people (Interview, 2)! ! Other aspects of success mentioned were tangible aspects that can be easily measured:! ! Energy efficiency, without a shadow of a doubt is the easiest thing. Anything which is standard tech- nology […] you can build the business case and put the finances in place very easily. Water efficiency is pretty easy as well. So anything physical is quite easy. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 1 seems to agree with participant 3’s perspective that physical aspects of sustainability are easier to successfully manage in promoting institutional sustainability. Their perspectives sup- port Reynolds (2012) statement that targets for easily measurable indicators are easier to success- fully achieve:! ! Waste and recylcing: we’ve been recycling about 95% of our waste for the last 3 years now and that was just pretty easy, just basically re-negotiating our waste contracts. Biodiversity has been again fair- ly easy because people like it, i think it makes people feel good, it’s very tangible whereas a lot of a sustainability stuff isn’t, so thats been a fairly quick win. So, its often the reasonably hard measures that you can see and measure that have been easier. (Interview, 1)! !
  • 22. Also, in terms of aspects that have a financial payback, Participant 1 went on to mention carbon management as one of his university’s successes, he said:! ! Carbon management is really difficult because our university is increasing in size, we are increasing our research intensity all the time, so trying to balance carbon reduction against that can be difficult but it does have a finanical payback. So although our absolute emissions may be going down slowly, we know we get a saving when we do that so thats quite an easy win. (Interview, 1) ! ! ! Barriers to Promoting Sustainability within the University! ! ! When asked what the barriers of promoting the University’s sustainability were, time constraints was the first response of two of the participants, which seemed to be interlinked with the fact that members from different departments of the university have different and often conflicting priorities and objectives. Participant 1 states:! ! I think the biggest barrier we have is really the conflict with peoples time. (Interview 1) ! Participant 2 echoes this sentiment: ! it’s very much about the drivers and the deliverables that people have in their day to day. So we are a research university, we have our strategy and our goals and we have a number of targets. So you’ve got researchers focusing on their research, students coming here to learn and get a good degree and the teachers teaching, and then professional support services that are supporting. (Interview, 2) ! Participant 1 goes on to elaborate about the issue between conflicting priorities, and the different standpoints and perspectives amongst members of staff in the university. In particular the differ- ence in viewpoint between members of the Sustainability Team and Researchers within the uni- versity: ! Conflicting priorities can be difficult, for example if you’re looking at something such as high perfor- mance computing which is highly energy intensive, it can be quite difficult to have a discussion with a
  • 23. researcher that has a finite period to spend their grant, about energy efficiency when all they care about is getting processing power. So some people have very different objectives to the objectives that we might have… (Interview, 1)! ! Another barrier to increasing the sustainability of the university was finances. This is an example of how Neumayer (2003) views the current global economy as being dominated by weak sustainabili- ty policies and practices, as sometimes sustainability and environmental quality are traded against economic profit and this also supports Campbell’s (2006) perspective that CSR is paradoxical be- cause social values are at odds with a business’s desire to maintain profit.! ! Finances can be tricky sometimes, not all sustainability has a financial payback. Sometimes its more value driven, so the business cases become more complicated. I think we’re fortunate because we don’t just address operational sustainability we also address research and teaching so we can often make a case that there is a benefit to research and teaching by pursuing a particular avenue which we wouldn’t be able to do if it was a purely operational business case, so that makes it easier. (Interview, 1) ! Participant 1 makes a valid point in that sustainability can be in some cases easier to address for HEIs than in other types of business because links with research and teaching mean finances can be opened up for sustainability issues, unlike in operational business cases. Participant 3 also mentions difficulties with finances: ! The main barriers have been tight capital budgets, so sometimes getting that investment is difficult. (Interview, 3) ! He goes on to talk about how he has managed to turn one such barrier into an achievement he can be proud of through Whole Life Costing, a process by which ‘value for money’ is not gauged on solely the economic value, but also takes into acount the environmental and social benefits (Constructing Excellence, 2006) , which perhaps Neumayer (2003) would consider to be an exam-
  • 24. ple of a strong sustainability policy, as environment has been placed at equal importance of eco- nomic profit and no trade-off has been made between the two:! ! My biggest success that used to be my biggest barrier was getting the design team to do investment appraisals for pieces of kit that would save us energy or save us water, on the basis of Whole Life Costing. And so then, for them to do an investment appraisal rather than a cost cutting exercise. (Interview, 3) ! ! One of the things I noticed from talking to my participants was their ability to talk about aspects which had previously been barriers, and demonstrate the way they resolved the problem. For ex- ample, Participant 2 mentions a previous barrier of sustainability as traditionally associated nega- tive language, and how currently within her university they use positive language in order to en- gage and encourage other members of staff or students:! ! That has not always been helped by the way sustainability has been promoted and sold in the past, and I do say those words because you get people saying it’s all negative language and ‘Stop doing this’ […] There’s also been a mix of scientific opinion, so sometimes its very muddy and murky, and then you’re going in with a message and asking them to look at what theyre doing, so it is very much about the language you use. So we do use much more positive language and much more encourga- ment […] we try and change the way that we look at and talk about sustainability. (Interview, 2) ! Kane (2009) agrees that the words and the language used when communicating sustainability is- sues should be carefulled selected, not only to avoid the use of demotivating and demoralizing negative language, but also in order to interact with all levels of understanding as well as different cultural attitudes towards environmental issues. Particpant 4 mentioned issues with a lack of clari- ty in understanding sustainability and in relation to the role that Sustainability Leaders play:
  • 25. Lack of understanding, I think part of it is that people tend to just think our role is about the environ- ment and although there is a specific focus around the environment, part of the job we’ve got to do is to factor in financial and social considerations within that. (Interview, 4)! ! Participant 3 currently feels that a barrier to sustainability within his institution is ensuring the food is sustainable and ethically sourced. He mentions a barrier to achieving this is the negative percep- tion that there isn’t a demand for it, as Kane (2011) explains that a behavioural foundation needs to be in place for such strategies to work, as sustainable production must be matched by sustainable consumption. Participant 3 says: ! ! There is a big concern around the end users’ purchasing habits so there is an attittude that students will really just want to buy Coca-Cola, and there is an attitude that students don’t really care about FairTrade products, and this is one of the barriers that i’m finding is that there is a real conflict be- tween what’s considered to be commercially viable and what’s not considered to be commercially vi- able. Despite the fact that theres no evidence of that… (Interview, 3) ! However, in spite of the concern that the behavioural foundation for sustainable food is not present, he disagrees and he goes on to talk about how he intends to tackle this issue: ! through the procurement of contracts, we will over probably a year to 2 years, start to improve this, and all of our contracts that are going out are asking people to work to the Catering Mark, which is a standard by the Soil association. So I’m hoping in 2 years, or sooner, that we’ll be able to get the Bronze award for Catering, which I think would be a huge improvement. (Interview, 3) ! When asked which area her University needed to improve on in order to further reduce its negative impact on the environment, Participant 2 states:! ! The area I feel that we do need to look at is carbon reduction, because even though we are reducing, some of our research can be quite energy intensive, we still need to look at that… (Interview, 2) !
  • 26. ! Participant 1 mentioned community impact as an aspect for his University to improve on:! ! I’d say some of our biggest areas are probably around our relationships and oppurtunities within the wider community. I think tradtionally the university has tended to be usually quite closed really, it kind of exists and does what it wants and the community can kind of join in with that, or it can’t…. it’s quite a stubborn attitude. Whereas I suppose in the last 5-10 years it has started to open up and become a bit more progressive, but there’s still lots of oppurtunity and work that can happen in that area. (Interview, 1) ! This supports Stiglitz’s (2007) view that the corporate agenda is evolving in order to take into ac- count the impact that it has on groups outside of its own shareholders and a widening of Elkring- ton’s (1994) ‘spheres of influnce’. He goes on to say: ! We very much acknwoledge that we’re at the start of a journey here , we’re doing some good things, but there’s a massive amount of progress oppurtunity out there. (Interview, 1) ! ! Contribution to National Targets! ! ! When the participants were asked how much they felt that their University’s progress contributed towards national targets, two of the participants had positive responses: ! ! Participant 1….! ! ! Well for example, if we’re talking waste, absolutely, because we’re already way above national targets and in terms of supporting re-use and all that type of stuff that I think we’re ahead of the game there really. In terms of construction our building regulations for energy are 25% better than the regulations, so again we’re pretty good in that area. In terms of wider environmental stuff we will always try and follow best practice rather than just meeting legislation, we’ll try and go above and beyond. (Interview, 1) ! !
  • 27. Participant 3….! ! Yeah, a lot. The national targets are very focused on carbon, and we’ve done very well on the carbon front, and we’ve saved over 4,000 tonnes of C02 since we started on our carbon management pro- gramme. Our baseline figure is 2005, so sorry, we’ve saved 4000 tonnes since 2005, and that’s no mean feat. That’s quite a big deal, so I’m quite pleased with that. (Interview, 3) ! Participant 3’s response demonstrated that she was aware of the University’s limitations, and al- though she admitted that the University’s current contributions towards national targets may be small, the particular strength of her institution is that it is a research university and that research may help to improve future aspects of sustainability. HEFCE acknowleges that research is a fun- damental activity undertaken by HEIs in their role as knowledge generators, and therefore re- search related to sustainable development makes its own disctinctive contribiton to this field. Par- ticipant 2 says: ! We are a research university and that is what we are here for, we would hope that some of that re- search would then help to contribute towards helping to tackle some of the environmental issues, so- cial and economic stuff. So, how are we contributing? Small, because we have reduced and I’m not saying we will reduce to the target that we’ve got at the moment but it is a target and we are setting plans to meet the target. (Interview, 2) ! ! Government Support! ! ! I felt that it was important to ask the participants if they felt that their universities recieved a good level of support from HEFCE. Two of the participants answered in a way which implied they did not feel that HEFCE currently provides a good level of support to Universities in regards to sustainabili- ty, but that it had done in the past. For example, Participant 1 said: ! ! The problem is that its lost most of its funding. So previously the Higher Education sectors’ carbon targets were driven by HEFCE and it had a massive impact on the sector and the reason that it was able to do that is that it controlled a lot of funding that the sector got. […] So thats a really big motiva-
  • 28. tor to start doing something about your emissions.. […] now its more difficult for them to push the sector to achieve things. (Interview, 1)! ! Participant 2 agrees with Participant 1, stating:! ! Not currently, no. During 2008-9 they were really raising the agenda for carbon and they were working with the Carbon Trust and a selection of universities, of which we were one, and then a much wider number of universities. And that’s just like People and Planet, when they started off they did some re- ally good stuff, but not anymore, it seems sustainability has slipped off their agenda and there’s no real focus and leadership. (Interview, 2)! ! Kane (2011) agrees that leadership is important in order to promote sustainability, stating that ‘giv- en the scale of the changes required to deliver a sustainable business, without leadership, strate- gies will ultimately fail’ (p. 181). Participant 4 offers his insight into the reasoning behind HEFCE’s current loss of leadership in sustainability:! ! I think part of that is that I don’t think they see this as a priority area for universities. (Interview, 4)! ! He also goes on to talk about how he feels in some ways HEFCE’s interventions in sustainability were not thought out with enough of a long-term vision in the first place: ! ! Also, some of the things they’ve done, I’m not sure if i’m honest that they’ve really thought it through. The best example is Carbon Management Plans, they required all universities to have these Carbon Management Plans and in 2010 we all put them in place as part of the Capital Investment Framework, but there was little thought on ‘how do we enforce this? how do we keep universities to the targets and promises they’ve set?’. And almost as a result of that there is a number of us, myself included, who are saying that the targets we’ve set weren’t really analysed propperly so we’re going to have to go back and review those. (Interview, 4) ! !
  • 29. Reynolds (2012) states that in order for an organization to truly improve its sustainabiity it is imper- ative to set goals which are both clear and measurable for each stage of the journey, and clearly Participant 4 feels let down by HEFCE in that respect. However, Participant 3 holds a contrastingly positive perspective on the support provided by HEFCE, instead responding to my question with:! ! Yeah, I do, I think that the Revolving Green Fund is a great fund, it’s working really well, and I think they’re working with a company called Salix Finance to do the Salix Energy Efficiency loan scheme, which is available year round, there’s no set time to bid for it and between the two of those I think it’s great support. (Interview, 3)! ! When asked later in the interview if HEFCE’s targets are manageable and practical, Participant 1 also mentions Salix Finance, which is an independent, publicly funded company, established by the Carbon Trust, to accelerate public sector investment in energy saving technologies through in- vest to save schemes. The Revolving Green Fund is a partnership between HEFCE and Salix Fi- nance, providing recoverabe grants for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Participant 1 says:! ! something that HEFCE has been really good at is freeing up Salix money, so theyre freeing up green funds which is quite effective and I think if it continues rolling out programmes like that then that’s real- ly helpful. (Interview, 1)! ! ! Attitutes towards Community Pressure Groups! ! ! ! In order to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environ- ment I think it is important to talk about community pressure groups as Scott and Stahel (2013) view sustainability as a behavioural issue that depends upon teamwork, cooperation and motiva- tion and I think community pressure groups provide important motivation for universities to reflect and improve on their sustainability as well as requiring their cooperation. People and Planet is an important pressure group in relation to universities because it publishes an annual Green League
  • 30. Table that ranks universities in order of their level of sustainability (People and Planet, 2015). This is an example of the way in which Ewje (2011) states that corporations are being called upon to become more sustainable due to the pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders.! ! Interestingly, each of the participants began with talking about the negative aspects of People and Planet and their Green League table as a tool, but they also mentioned the positive aspects and intentions behind this group. Despite some of their negative experiences with the league table, all the universities interviewed still chose to submit. Kane (2011) argues that this kind of engagement with voluntary standards demonstrates the participants are on the ‘right side of the argument’ and that taking part is an important and proactive measure (p104). ! ! Participant 1, when asked how he feels about the way his university’s achievements and progress have been reflected in the Green League Table answered: ! ! Kind of mixed really. The green league is a bit of a clunky tool for measuring performance and I think theyre aware of that and theyve tried adapting it. (Interview, 1) ! ! Participant 2 shares the same perspective on the limitations of the tool: ! ! So for the Green League by People and Planet, my personal opinion is that I don’t think it’s credible and not robust and you can’t really compare like for like, so the metrics I think are questionable. ! (Interview, 2)! ! She goes on to explain that it can be quite demoralizing for herself as well as other members of staff in the University, who are making changes in order to reduce their negative environmental im- pact, to then see their sustainability reflected in a negative way to the public:! ! It’s not nice to see any negative results or negative publicity because we work really hard to engage our staff positively, so you might have some staff that read the results and say ‘why are we only here when we’re doing all this?’ so we have to spend quite a bit of time then saying ‘we’re doing these good things’ . So how do I feel? Well, personally I don’t give it much respect anyway, so as a universi- ty, it’s a shame that it doesn’t reward the really good stuff that we doing which is quite unique in the
  • 31. sector and there’s a few initiatives that no one else is doing yet and we know will make a big impact, so thats a shame to see. (Interview, 2)! ! Participant 4 offers some insight into the at times problematic nature of People and Planet’s Green League:! ! We also appreciate that as a league table, it is based on People and Planet’s campaign issues as much as it is on environmental performance, so there are elements within that where we would say that the weighting is slightly skewed against perhaps our bigger impacts […] A lot of this is a cam- paign tool by a student-led body (Interview, 4) ! ! Participant 3 also explains that it is the strict and perhaps uncomprehensive nature of the criteria that leads to disheartening results for universities: ! ! The criteria for the Green League doesn’t necessarily reflect what a University has done in terms of its work, and the criteria now has become very strict, and what it fails to recognize is, for example on your environmental policy it says ‘Do you talk about all these factors?’ and if you miss one of those factors out you get zero. What they don’t appreciate is that one factor might not be one of your signif- icant environmental impacts. (Interview, 3)! ! He goes on though to mention the positive aspect of the work of People and Planet:! ! However, the flipside is, is they are there to apply pressure, and they are there to drive change, and you don’t apply pressure or drive change by giving everybody credit. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 2 also reflects on it’s positive purpose and the initial drive it provided to the HE sector, but points out that improvements need to be made in order for the tool to mature and stay relevant:! !
  • 32. It did have a really good purpose and it did raise the agenda and a lot of my colleagues in the sector said that it gave a business case for their position and their team and at first it helped with strategy, it helped raise awareness so it did have a place but it’s not evolved with the sector. (Interview, 2) ! ! Despite the fact that participants felt that the Green League table in some ways negatively reflect their sustainability, I think it is a positive sign that they all commit to submitting annually, and this reflects Segran’s (2008) view that transparency related to sustainability is extremely important and is becoming increasingly more popular for big businesses, which Golob and Podnar (2011) agree helps to promote trust and open communication with the public. ! ! ! Sustainability and Competetivity! ! ! I think it was important to ask whether the universities felt that their achievements in sustainability gave them a competitive edge over other universities because I wanted to gauge if the universities felt they got a payback from promoting their sustainability. However, Participant 2 was very frank in her response: ! ! To be honest, no. You come to this University because you want to be at this University and because you want to study a particular kind of topic. I know other universities it might, but not for us. (Interview, 2) ! ! This corresponds with Manescu’s (2010) theory that corporations stand to recieve little personal gain from engaging in CSR activities. However, she was the only participant who felt as though it did not help at all. Participant 1 felt that his university’s level of sustainability did help them com- pete.! ! In research we’ve got a concept called Living Laboratory so if we have an operational need we try and link that with a research teaching need and that helps with promoting the university if you can say that your university is willing to open up avenues for research that can be good for attracting academics, students, etcetera. (Interview, 1) !
  • 33. ! He also went on to mention student’s attitudes towards sustainability:! ! Theres also been research carried out by the NUS that said that students increasingly see sustainabili- ty, not as a main reason to go to a university but it’s part of their decision making process (Interview, 1) ! ! This supports the view that CSR can have a positive impact on the reputation of an organization (Garberg and Fombrum 2002; Groenland 2002; Whetton and Mackey 2002). Participant 3 has a perspective that stands perhaps in the middle of the other two:! ! No. I think it helps if students are looking at two universities, and all things are equal…. But I don’t think it’s the main thing that students look at when they come here, so I’d say no. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 4 acknowledges this his instituion’s current achievements are not in aspects that would attract a higher number of students, but that this might change if the university focuses on promot- ing sustainability in other aspects:! ! I think the reality for us at the moment is that our achievements in sustainability are largely around process, around reducing building associated impacts. I think the real competitive edge will come once we start to put sustainability into the education, the research and teaching. (Interview, 4)! ! ! The Future of Sustainability within the Higher Education Sector! ! ! In terms of the future of sustainability within the HE sector, I was interested to know whether the Sustainability Leaders of these instiutions felt that the HEFCE sector target of a 34% reduction by 2020 (HEFCE, 2010) is manageable and practical. ! ! In response to this Participant 3 answered: ! !
  • 34. 34% by 2020 will be incredibly difficult, but it’s similar to the People and Planet side of things, if you aim for a certain level and you don’t reach that certain level, if that certain level is not unrealistically high then you’re not going to achieve what you need to achieve. So I think there’s a certain amount of thinking that says, well, if we set it at 34% and people are coming in at 25%, thats a 25% saving, but if we set it at 25% and they come in at 20%, that’s bad, because we could have done more. So I think it’s incredibly difficult to achieve, but it is a worthwhile aspiration and in the university sector everybody is gunning for it, so I think it’s fine. (Interview, 3)! ! Participant 1 expressed that more assistance from the government would be required to meet the target.! ! I think its difficult, I think partially the government needs to do something as well because there is a limit to what you can do if the carbon intensity of the grid doesnt change […] If the carbon intensity of the grid remains the same then I think it’s a challenging target. (Interview, 1) ! ! Particpant 4 mentions that while the target may be manageable and practical for some, it is more difficult for larger universities such as the Russell Group, which represent a group of 24 Universi- ties within the UK that pride themselves in being leaders in research, teaching and learning experi- ences (Russell Group, 2014).! ! I know that some universities are doing really well, the bigger universities aren’t. I think growth has been a massive thing for the Russell Group universities, we’re all growing significantly to not just com- pete in the UK, but compete internationally and so that has had a massive impact on us. (Interview, 4) ! ! Growth is agreed to be an obstacle to achieving sustanability by many (Latouche, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Belpomme, 2007). However Jackson (2009) argues that it is a difficult obstacle to avoid be- cause growth provides economic stability in terms of finanicial prosperity. Latouche (2010) refers to this as the fatal cycle of growth.!
  • 35. ! Debate around Scope 3! ! For me, its all about knowing what you’re doing, so if youre looking at your carbon you should look at the carbon footprint. So to not include something because it might mean that you’ll have a struggle in maintaining a reduction is not the right approach. You need to know what you’ve got and measure what you’ve got in order to set plans for what interventions you can do, when and where, if necessary. (Interview, 2) ! Particpant 4 has a corresponding view: ! ! I think we’ve got to look at our total contribution, so I don’t think we should pick and choose which elements of carbon we want to measure, and therefore challenge. Admittedly, what’s in our control is much easier to address than what is sort of indirectly in our control, […] so those elements of Scope 3 are a lot more challenging but I think we need to look at the total picture when it comes to emmis- sions. (Interview, 4) ! ! Participant 3 takes a very different stance on the matter, from the perspective that the University should not have to reduce its Scope 3 emmissions, as these indirect costs and impacts are someobody elses’s Scope 1, therefore somone elses direct costs and impacts:! ! Well, HEFCE themselves are having a debate about Scope 3 emmissions, which is that everybodys Scope 3 emmissions are somebodys Scope 1 emmissions, so the emmissions from an airplane are Scope 1 emmissions for the airline industry, so why does the university need to reduce Scope 3 em- missions when its actually the airline industry that needs to reduce their emmissions as a result of fly- ing? (Interview, 3) ! ! I agree with the view of Spitzeck (2009) in that corporations will not act in a responsible manner unless CSR issues are embedded in their decision-making and governant structures, therefore I
  • 36. would hope in HEFCE’s debate around Scope 3 emmissions, that they would take more of a hollis- tic and socially responsible approach in order to look at the total picture in terms of carbon emmis- sions, as articulated by Particpants 2 and 4, in order to drive further responsible actions within the HE sector in relation to their carbon footprint.! ! ! ! Concluding Remarks from the interview process! ! The aim of this section of my research was to collect the thoughts, perspectives and attitudes of the Sustainability Leaders of Higher Education institutions in the UK, in order to gain an insight into the practicality for universities of reducing their negative impacts on the environment. ! From my interviews I can conclude that the attitudes were mostly positive towards both their achievements, the barriers they faced and their abilities to overcome these barriers and meet sec- tor targets.! ! After analysing my research and reflecting on my completed project I can conclude that a way to improve the project would be to interview a larger sample size, from more diverse areas of the UK, in order to observe a larger variety of responses and compare the differences and the similarities between them. Despite a small sample size I was pleased with the range of responses to the inter- view questions, as it allowed me to look at several different and contrasting experiences and per- spectives.! ! In terms of the successes of reducing their negative impact on the environment, all the participants in some way mentioned their local community in order to bring immediate benefit to their surround- ing area. There was also agreement between participants that physical aspects of sustainability were the easiest to successfully manage.! ! Some common barriers were time and resource constraints, interlinked with the conflicting priori- ties of members from different faculties within the universities. Financial constraints were a com- mon barrier, as some areas of sustainability which require investment do not have an immediate financial payback.! ! All participants feel they contribute to national targets, although they are aware of their limitations.!
  • 37. Some participants felt that HEFCE does not provide enough support and guidance for the HE sec- tor in helping them to reduce their negative impact on the environment, and that guidance given is mostly carbon-focused. However, some participants feell HEFCE provides good support mention- ing Salix and the Revolving Green Fund.! ! There was agreement between all participants the the Green League Table is not a true reflection of their sustainability. They agreed that there were positive aspects, such as raising the agenda for sustainability and putting the right amount of pressure on the sector, but the criteria had not evolved to accurately reflect the institutions sustainability, and one participant mentioned the nega- tive impact on team morale. ! ! In terms of whether or not sustainability gave their university a competitive edge, the views of the participants were mixed, with some concluding it did help and others saying it was not a contribut- ing factor. ! ! There was disagreement about Scope 3 emmissions and if they should be mandated. There was agreement between the participants that, even if challenging, the current carbon emmissions tar- gets are viewed positively. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
  • 38. Conclusion! ! ! The main aim of my research was to assess the practicality for businesses of reducing their negative impact on the environment. I utilised Universities as a proxy for business, as many agree that this type of institution is the most qualified, knowledge generators and innovative leaders, as well as being strongly motivated to promote a sustainable future for the minds that they educate (Rappaport and Creighton, 2007; Filho, 2002). ! ! ! ! In the literature review I demonstrated that some of the issues in the practicality for busi- nesses of promoting sustainability and reducing their negative impact on the environment are the difficulty in defining the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’, as well as critiques that sustainable development is a contradiction in terms (Dresner, 2009) or that corporate social responsibility is a paradoxical term as social values are completely opposed to a business’s desire to maintain or maximize profit. However I agree, whether for selfless reasons, or in order to safe- guard their reputations, with Ewje’s (2011) perspective that corporations are being called to be- come more socially responsible due to pressure exerted upon them by their stakeholders.! ! ! In reviewing the sustainability policies of Universities within the UK I demonstrated a barrier in the practicality of businesses promoting their sustainability is their lack of clear quantifiable goals for relevant sustainability indicators, and I agree with Kane (2011) that stricter legislation would place businesses in a proactive position to engage with stakeholders and with Lawrence (1997) that measurable goals provides businesses with true reflections of progress. ! ! ! In terms of goals for carbon emmissions reduction, upon analysing the data sample in Chapter 4, it was evident the majority of the Universities analyzed struggled to meet the target. However, in qualitative interviews with Sustainability Leaders I found they felt a high target was a motivator for the sector to achieve their full potential in carbon reduction, and I feel that this sup- ports HEFCE’s (DATE) perspective that ‘Institutions should be encouraged and incentivised to adopt as high a target as possible’ (p. 27). Although, it is true that the participants felt that HEFCE had lost leadership in this area, which is imperative for the sector’s success, so I feel that it is im- portant for HEFCE to reassert its influence over the sector in leading them to achieve true sustain- ability.! ! ! From my interviews with Sustainability Leaders of UK universities I found that some com- mon barriers for the practicality of promoting sustainability were constraints on time, resources and finances, as well as conflicting priorities. These aspects support Neumayer’s (2003) theory that ‘weak sustainability’ is the dominant form of sustainability in today’s society, in which environmental
  • 39. issues are compromised on for the sake of maintaining or maximizing profit, which is why business can often be seen to be at odds with sustainability. However, in my interview I also saw examples of what McWilliams, Siegel & Wright (2006) would define as true CSR, in which the Universities tried to go above and beyond complicance. This is also supported by the fact that in my interviews the Universities overwhelmingly felt promoting sustainability did not give them a competitive edge, therefore they are not directly benefiting from CSR activities they engage in.! ! ! One of the barriers I found to be demoralizing for Universities was the way in which they felt their sustainability was poorly and unfairly reflected in the Green League Table, by pressure group People and Planet. I feel that businesses should be encouraged to promote their sustainability rather than discouraged, rather than demoralzied, however they continual committment to submit- ting to this voluntary standard is a good example of Segran’s (2008) theory that transaprency is important in promoting stakeholder trust. ! ! ! Despite of the barriers in promoting sustainability, I feel that HEIs recognize their important role and the participants in my project all felt that they contributed towards national targets and maintained positive attitudes about improving their level of sustainability in the future. I feel that the only barrier that would differentiate the level of practicality between Universities and other busi- nesses is that in some cases it is easier for Universities to direct finances towards sustainability issues because they can link these to research and teaching needs, which then make them a big- ger priority. However, I feel that this project demonstrates that it is not easy, but still practical, for businesses to gradually improve their sustainability, with continual committment, high targets and stakeholder engagement. ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !