Earning Capacity of Sustainable Education

There is a growing need to understand the economic returns of degrees as a function of a sustainable institution. The empirical data presented in this paper suggests that there is a difference between the economic perception of higher education stakeholders and reality. The data showed that the most important economic metric for a graduate is full-time employment. This metric, although important, is incomplete and does not address other important factors such as starting salaries and under-employment. This indicates a gap between reality and perception considering stakeholders expectation that education should not cost more than of 15% of future salaries and that the debt be repaid in less than ten years. Student’s focusing on full-time employment rather than the holistic economic realities of their educational choices may lead to an unsustainable future which is currently not captured in higher education sustainability assessments

Analysis of STARS as a Sustainability Assessment System Universally Usable in Higher Education

Sustainability assessment has become an important tool for measurement of higher education institutions. Although there are many potential tools for measuring an institutions level of sustainability, this paper explores the use of STARS as a system for higher education sustainability that could be used universally by all higher education institutions, as well as enables comparison between institutions. The results of this paper address the effectiveness of STARS to fulfill this need, as well as the further development needed in order to fully encompass sustainability and stakeholder needs

Sustainability in Higher Education

There is a noticeable increase in interest with regards to sustainability in higher education. As institutions investigate, implement and market sustainability efforts, there is a myriad of sustainability assessment methodologies currently available. Although these assessment systems were created with the intention of helping sustainability in higher education institutions, they have ultimately led to an assortment of standards being used by institutions which do not help students and faculty assess the level of sustainability uniformly between institutions. This paper combines relevant literature on sustainability assessment with empirical data to suggest an ideal assessment method to be used as the basis for a universal tool. It was found that the STARS system was the most suited system to be used as a basis for a future universal assessment tool

Higher Education

The progress of sustainability within higher education has steadily increased in focus over the last decade and has increasingly become a topic of academic research. With various scholars, journals and conferences exclusively dealing with the subject, a wealth of literature has been produced on best practices, suggestions, and assessments pertaining to sustainability within the higher education field. Higher education stakeholders, who for this paper are defined as being the potential/ current students, staff and management, continue to become more conscious of the principles of sustainability. This higher level of understanding promotes the needs to assess existing literature in relation to the actual needs of the stakeholders in order to identify existing features, trends and needs so that there is continual improvement in the field. This paper shows that sustainability is currently a socially desirable trait but other factors, such as becoming more competitive in the job market, supersede it in importance to stakeholders. It also shows that there is a general need for a standardized method for assessing institutions, with AASHE’s STARS system being the most used system

Unpacking density: Translating findings into urban design variables for carbon reduction strategies

The last chapter identified a range of factors that contribute, individually and in common, to increased GHG emissions per capita. These factors are typically associated with comparatively denser urban forms. This chapter moves beyond density to identify the more particular variables of urban form, and urban design, that can achieve the identified reductions. The chapter examines those factors and their translation into three key urban design variables

Indoor thermal comfort in courtyard buildings

Global warming and elevated temperatures in the Netherlands will increase the energy demand for cooling. Studying passive strategies to cope with the consequences of climate change is inevitable. This paper investigates the thermal performance of courtyard dwellings in the Netherlands. The effects of different orientations and elongations, cool roofs and pavements on indoor thermal comfort are studied through simulations and field measurements. The results show that North-South and East-West orientations provide the least and most comfortable indoor environments. Regarding materials, the use of green on roofs and as courtyard pavement is the most effective heat mitigation strategy. It was observed that the effects of wet cool roofs are much higher than of dry roofs. Cool roofs did not show a specific negative effect (heat loss) as compared to conventional asphalt roofs in winter. Some simulation results were validated through field measurement with a 0.91°C root mean square deviation

Is Higher Education Economically Unsustainable?

As students continue to review the sustainability of higher education institutions, there is a growing need to understand the economic returns of degrees as a function of a sustainable institution. This paper reviews a range of international research to summarize the economic drivers of higher education attainment. Although the cost inputs to higher education are fairly well understood, the economic return of a degree is not. Students misperception of economic returns coupled with a dynamic definition of employability create the framework for unsustainable debt loads for graduates. This paper proposes three metrics that can be used to assess the economic sustainability of students graduating higher education that can be used to supplement the broader definition of sustainability within higher education

Introduction into courtyard buildings in different climates

This chapter tries to clarify the environmental impacts of a traditional building form which was developed more than 5000 years ago, under the force of harsh hot climates: courtyard building. A courtyard is an outdoor space which is entirely surrounded by buildings or walls. The main purpose is to show if this building form can reduce the energy demand of low- rise residential buildings in order to reduce CO2 emission which generally considered is the main root of climate change. From a literature review on courtyard buildings several climatic aspects of this building form can be extracted. In this step, the paper focuses on the climatic impact(s) in the context of hot-arid, snow, temperate and tropical climates. Results for different configuration of courtyard building, natural elements used in it and situation of openings in different facades are the most important findings of this review paper. The research is limited to considering residential courtyard buildings in four climates; hot- arid, snow, temperate and tropical (based on Koppen-Geiger climate classification). Practical implications—The results of the paper are general climatic characteristics of courtyard buildings. These characteristics can be used for designing new courtyard dwellings. Although the background information of the chapter is based on literature, the innovation is the comprehensive consideration and comparison of environmental characteristics in different climates which has never been done before

Building microclimate and summer thermal comfort in free-running buildings with diverse spaces

In this paper, the authors first clarify the definition of building microclimate in free-running buildings and the relationship with summer thermal comfort. Next, field measurements were conducted to investigate the microclimate in a Chinese traditional vernacular house. Subsequently, the results of measurements were compared with a dynamic thermal and a CFD simulation in order to determine the building microclimate and thermal comfort of the present vernacular house over the period of an entire summer. The field measurements show the present Chinese vernacular house has its own independent building microclimate in summer, which is in accordance with the main character of microclimate in terms of different distributions of solar gain, air temperature and wind velocity in different spaces. The simulation results of the vernacular house could be matched well with the field measurements. According to the simulations, at night, a comfortable temperature could be obtained throughout most of the summer period whereas in the daytime the operative temperature was higher than the comfortable temperature for one-third of the summer period. Wind velocity in the semi-outdoor and outdoor spaces however, improves the thermal comfort significantly. The thermal comfort environment can thus not only change in time but also in space. This example of the vernacular building shows that it is possible to create comfortable conditions for the inhabitants when not only the indoor climate is taken into account but the whole building microclimate as defined in this paper. This paper also shows that the simulations can predict the building microclimate