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Strategic Options for Campus Sustainability: Cluster Analysis on Higher Education Institutions in Japan

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  • Maki Ikegami

    (Sustainable Campus Management Office, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0808, Japan)

  • Bart Neuts

    (Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium)

Abstract

This study evaluates campus sustainability initiatives in Japanese higher education institutions over the 10-year period since a related important political declaration was made. Our findings show that implementation of sustainability actions was still largely lacking. This is one of the first extensive empirical studies on Japanese higher education institutions to examine data related to institutions that conform with the Assessment System for Sustainable Campus (ASSC). Our study aimed to identify key factors that promote robust campus sustainability among Japanese institutions. Our research question was “What are the strategic options of institutions that conform with ASSC?” We aimed to determine which fields best prompt Japanese higher education institutions to initiate campus sustainability initiatives. We applied cluster analysis to 42 cases collected by ASSC toward identifying groups of institutions with different strategic options. The analysis identified four groups: “lagging-behind”, “asset-driven”, “top-of-the-class”, and “networkers” clusters. An important finding of this study was that the asset-driven and networkers clusters showed significant positive scores with respect to asset management and networking. Our survey about institution size revealed two major findings: (1) despite the general dependency of campus sustainability on resources, both large and small institutions were capable of attaining the top-of-the-class cluster by adopting a holistic strategy; (2) small institutions are able to implement campus sustainability initiatives by focusing on asset management or networking.

Suggested Citation

  • Maki Ikegami & Bart Neuts, 2020. "Strategic Options for Campus Sustainability: Cluster Analysis on Higher Education Institutions in Japan," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:6:p:2527-:d:336103
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rocsana Bucea-Manea-Țoniş & Viktor Prokop & Dragan Ilic & Elena Gurgu & Radu Bucea-Manea-Țoniş & Cezar Braicu & Alina Moanță, 2021. "The Relationship between Eco-Innovation and Smart Working as Support for Sustainable Management," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-16, January.
    2. Esneider Gutierrez-Rivera & Manuela Escobar-Sierra & Jorge-Andrés Polanco, 2023. "Characterizing Organizational Sustainability in Catholic Schools: A Cross-National Study Applying Text Mining," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, October.

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