Green buildings in Chilean public higher education: a trend or a must-have in university strategic guidelines?

ABSTRACT

Green buildings have gained increasing relevance and market share in recent decades. Also, higher education institutions are progressively incorporating the conceptualisation of sustainable development by greening campuses. Thus, given the construction sector relevance in climate change mitigation and the role universities have to play as models for society, the purpose of the present paper is twofold. First, the authors develop a baseline study to determine the extent to which green buildings’ features and certifications are being incorporated in public Chilean higher education institutions, as a first of its kind effort in the higher education sector in Chile. Second, the authors explore the opportunities that can support the advancement of campus greening through green buildings deployment on university campuses in Chile. This study follows a qualitative strategy approach in the form of a survey design based on the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking that was administered through an online questionnaire to representatives who hold the position of Sustainability or Infrastructure Heads in public universities, which are united in the Chilean State Universities Consortium. The main findings suggest a general maturation process of green building features´ incorporation on campuses at Chilean public higher education institutions in early or transitional stages. The leading indicators relate to open space, pedestrian paths, and efficient appliances, whereas the reported performance is lower with respect to sustainability budget, zero emission vehicles, and greenhouse gas emission reduction programmes. The opportunities identified for promoting the implementation of green buildings relate to three entrenched dimensions: research, promotion, and public policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• higher education
• green building
• university
• built environment
• climate change

Acknowledgments

The present paper was developed under the CUECH Research Network’s thematic task force on sustainability. Thanks are given to Iván González for his useful comments and support provided on the intermediate versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approvals

This research has obtained formal approval from the Comité de Ética Científico de la Universidad de Magallanes, which is the ethics committee of the University of Magallanes. It has been categorised as follows: 015/SH/2020. All the study participants received and signed an informed consent.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.