Sustainable Development Efforts in Malaysian Education Institute: A Key Stakeholder View

Realising the importance of environmental conservation, higher education institutionsHigher education institutions (HEIs) around the globe are moving towards adopting Environmental Management PracticesEnvironmental management practices (EMPs). In order to enhance the success of these practices, a clear standard to evaluate the environmental management performance of HEIs is needed. Unfortunately, limited literature is currently available on this topic. This situation necessitates a study to explore students’Student perceptionsPerception about the EMPs implementation in the HEIs. As a key stakeholderStakeholder, the universityUniversities students’Student insights are valuable in evaluating the effectiveness of the environmental management system. In the current study, interviewsInterviews involving 21 studentsStudent were conducted and thematic analysis was employed to analyse the interviewInterviews data based on Gioia qualitativeQualitative data analysis framework. It was discovered that although majority of the respondents were aware of environmental issues and participated in environmental-related programmes, their understandingUnderstanding of the definition and implementation of EMPs was unclear. This is largely due to their perceptionsPerception about the sustainabilitySustainability efforts being undertaken by the universityUniversities. Hence, the management of HEIs should focus on clarifying sustainabilitySustainability messages to achieve a shared understandingUnderstanding among organisational members. These findings call for future research aimed at exploring whether addressing student’sStudent opinion as an important university’sUniversities stakeholderStakeholder can increase the effectiveness of EMP implementation and thereby enhance the adoption of sustainabilitySustainability practices in HEIs.