The Mitigation of Climate Change in Higher Education Institutions Through the Adoption of Environmental System Management: A Literature Review-Based Study

Higher education institutions (HEIs) play a fundamental role in the construction of society, contributing to the production of knowledge, generating social, intellectual, and economic benefits on a global scale. In a global scenario, where climate change is increasingly noticeable, it is the duty of universities to rethink their environmental management policies through sustainable actions aimed at mitigating the negative effects on the environment. Therefore, this research aims to answer the question “What is the state of the art for Environmental Management Systems (EMS) in HEIs?”. With the aim of systematizing the knowledge in the literature on the concept of EMS in HEIs, a portfolio of articles from the literature was assembled through searches in the SpringerLink, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases using a time window from 2017 to 2022. After screening, this process resulted in a qualified corpus of research articles selected for the review which sought to determine the main environmental practices adopted by the HEI’s though the implementation of EMS. In doing so, the motivating aspects and barriers to the implementation of EMS in HEIs were highlighted.