When campus housing programs are asked if they prioritize sustainability initiatives, many would say that they do consider the environmental impact of their facilities. Recent survey results, though, show that many of the steps taken are direct, but relatively small in making a difference, certainly in comparison to infrastructure updates or a comprehensive sustainability master plan.
In 2019, ACUHO-I and Sodexo conducted their second survey related to the outsourcing of facilities management to learn more about how it relates to service strategies, technology integration, sustainability goals, and outsourcing. Of the 192 campuses that responded, 58.8% said there was a sustainability master plan at the institutional level, 31.7% said sustainability plans were developed by each department, and 9.4% said there was no set plan. For benchmarks, the most commonly used were Stars (29.6%), LEED (23.7%), and AACSHE (20.8%).
When it came time to list specific initiatives, high-impact programs added this year lagged behind more straightforward approaches. For example, reporting campuses rated lighting retrofits a mean score of 8 (out of 10) in importance, while clean energy incubation rated a mean score of only 4.6. In the report, the authors posit the importance of gathering more data “regarding respondents’ perceptions of cost and return-on-investment†as well as sharing such data in order to develop priorities. They write, “Would campus [facilities management] leaders prioritize energy initiatives in the same manner as their counterparts in housing?â€
For more details, see Sustainable Futures: Building Foundations of Outsourcing Expertise (2020).
—James A. Baumann
