Suchergebnisse

Purpose
Smart campuses can be seen as the future of higher education efforts, especially for their contributions to sustainability and to encourage innovation. This paper aims to present the benefits of smart practices in a Higher Education Institutions and highlights its connections to the sustainable development goals (SDGs).


Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is divided into three steps: first, an international search and assessment of smart practices at universities; second, the identification of smart practices in a university campus in southern Brazil; and third, the presentation of the benefits of smart practices and their relationship with the SDGs.


Findings
The results showed that globally, the area most covered by smart practices in universities is the environment and, specifically, focused on waste reduction. in the context of this case study, the benefits of implementing smart practices mainly reach SDGs 4 and SDG 9, especially due to aspects of teaching technologies for the new classroom models and the optimization of campus infrastructure management.


Practical implications
The study encourages other universities to implement smart practices in their campuses, to becoming smart campuses while they also collaborate in achieving the SDGs while raising the discussion on the importance of committed actions taken on a university campus with the UN SDGs, to leverage synergies on campus operations at universities.


Originality/value
This paper presents a set of smart practices that universities are applying both globally and locally (in southern Brazil). In addition, it contributes to sustainability research by showing how smart practices have the potential to promote SDGs in universities, especially through campus operations.

Purpose
This paper aims to highlight the contribution of ecological fairs to the promotion of sustainability in university campuses, based on a case study carried out at the University of Passo Fundo, located in Southern Brazil.


Design/methodology/approach
Producers and consumers of the ecological fairs were interviewed to analyse how the social, economic and environmental spheres of sustainable development are impacted by these fairs. In total, 24 interviews were conducted.


Findings
The results showed how fairs positively impact the academic and local community while bringing sustainability into university campuses.


Research limitations/implications
The main limitations of this study were the number of interviews and the short period during when the study was conducted.


Practical implications
This case study demonstrated how the promotion of ecological fairs on a university campus plays an important role in the implementation and practice of sustainability and can serve as an example for other institutions that intend to work on similar projects.


Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by providing a discussion on how ecological fairs represent a good addition in the process of universities to become more sustainable and which aspects of each sustainability sphere are involved.

Purpose
Higher education institutions are widely known both for their promotion to education for sustainable development (ESD) and for their contribution as living labs to urban management strategies. As for strategies, smart and learning campuses have recently gained significant attention. This paper aims to report an air quality monitoring experience with focus on the smart and learning campus and discuss its implications for the university context with regard to ESD and sustainable development goal (SDG) integration.


Design/methodology/approach
The air quality monitoring was held at the main campus of University of Passo Fundo and focused on three pollutants directly related to vehicle emissions. The air quality index (AQI) was presented on a website, along with information regarding health problems caused by air pollution, main sources of emissions and strategies to reduce it.


Findings
The results showed how the decrease in air quality is related to the traffic emissions and the fact that exposing students to a smart and learning environment could teach them about sustainability education.


Practical implications
This case study demonstrated how monitoring air quality in a smart environment could highlight and communicate the impact of urban mobility on air quality and alerted to the need for more sustainable choices, including transports.


Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature by showing the potential of a smart-learning campus integration and its contribution towards the ESD and the UN SDGs.