Factors influencing the presence of sustainability initiatives in the strategic planning of Spanish universities

Abstract

Sustainability issues in higher educational institutions have attracted increasing levels of attention from both the public and policy-makers in recent decades. Many studies have called for a more integration of sustainability into mainstream university operations and curricula. Nevertheless, the interest in sustainability issues has been more recent in the specific case of Spain. On this basis, the aim of this paper is to examine the main factors (size of universities, chairs related to sustainability, political orientation and sustainability disclosure) that might explain the presence of sustainability initiatives in Spanish universities. To accomplish this task, data were collected using a systematic content analysis of the published strategic plans of Spanish universities during the last decade. Two main findings were identified: first, the four variables chosen were not related to the presence or absence of sustainability initiatives in the strategic plans of Spanish universities, excepting the partial influence exerted by the size and political orientation. Second, there was a scarce presence of sustainability initiatives in the strategic plans of Spanish universities analysed.

Keywords:

• strategic planning
• sustainability
• Spanish universities
• non-parametric statistics
• explanatory factors

Notes

1. The present paper is part of a broader research project related to the influence exerted by various factors with respect to the presence of sustainability initiatives in the strategic plans of Spanish universities. Other variables include university rankings or university specialisation. However, in prior work, we found these factors did not significantly contribute to the presence of sustainability initiatives in the strategic plans of Spanish universities. On this basis, we excluded them from this paper. Moreover, we also note these variables are less frequently referenced and analysed in previous research.

2. We only included chairs or research institutes related to sustainability, and not green, cooperation, volunteer or student offices or activities, because the latter do not explicitly contribute to the scientific or research leadership of universities.

3. Source: Ministry of Education (accessed August 2012).

4. On this issue, we found that 8 of the 32 universities not included in the study had a strategic plan but they were not available on their institutional websites. Regarding the other 24 universities, we cannot determine whether they have a strategic plan, based on our research design; but this could be corrected by contacting the institutions directly.

5. Lozano (2011); Fonseca et al. (2011).

6. Excluding the environmental dimension items in this study would flip the weighted global index to higher than the overall global index.