SUSTAINABLE VISIONS FOR THE CAMPUS OF THE FUTURE

misbe2011 Tracking Number 80

Since 2008 new long-term agreements on energy-efficiency have become effective in the Netherlands. Participating organisations of forty-six sectors have agreed with the Dutch government to make efforts to realise energy-efficiency of 30 percent in the period 2005-2020 and 50 percent - as a guideline - before 2030. Higher education is represented among these sectors. To achieve the energy-efficiency objectives many sectors and associations of organisations have developed sustainable visions and road maps to implement these visions. This paper will elaborate on the sustainable vision for the sector ‘higher education’, summarizing the results of a research project, which included an analysis of the higher education sector, scenario studies and strategic choices for the sustainable campus. In the process of developing sustainable campuses energy efficiency is not the only goal, setting a good example for visitors, employees and a new generation of students is another. Consequently, this research aimed at two targets: (1) supporting (strategies for) energy reduction and CO2 reduction in line with the energy-efficiency goals for 2030 and (2) a mindset change for the users of the campus, both students and employees. The research project consisted of three parts: (part I) the future of the campus, describing the higher education sector, (part II) collecting tools and measures for sustainable development and (part III) combining the components of part I and part II in future models for the sustainable campus. For each part a range of sources was used. Part I and II started with literature review and document analysis, exploring the future of higher education and (strategies for) the Dutch campus for part I and the existing sustainability tools and measures for part II. For part I a scenario study of Agentschap NL was available – developed to support the sustainable visions of many sectors - which comprehensively describes four futures for 2030 in terms of demography, economy, technology, culture, political choices and sociological developments. These scenarios were translated into in four futures for higher education and combined with three campus strategies based on campus management research. Combining the four scenarios with the three strategies resulted in twelve future models for the university and campus: the results of part I. To validate the results of part I and to generate more data for part II, a series of workshops was organised in the last months of 2009 among campus managers, students and other experts and user groups of the campus. Examples are workshops with about forty campus managers and energy coordinators, online questionnaires among students and employees in higher education, replied by about seventy respondents, through network “Sustainable Higher Education” (DHO) and workshops among students specialised in sustainability. The results of these workshops can be found throughout this paper. Part II results in a range of sustainable tools and measures. Part III combines the results of part I and part II, also supported by a web-based tool to deal with the complexity of combining twelve future models (results part I) with more than a hundred sustainable measures (results part II). The web-based tool is developed to generate management information for the decision-making process towards a sustainable campus. Decision-makers in higher education can either browse through the whole database of measures or select a campus strategy and possible scenario, to generate the most suitable or feasible measures for their sustainable campus vision. The paper will contain data and conclusions from all three parts and illustrate the process of developing sustainable visions for the university and campus of the future.