University of Montana
EN-6: Assessing Sustainability Culture
| Status | Score | Responsible Party |
|---|---|---|
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0.50 / 1.00 |
Tayli
Hillyard Sustainability Engagement Coordinator Office of Sustainability |
Does the institution conduct an assessment of sustainability culture?:
Which of the following best describes the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered to::
Which of the following best describes the structure of the cultural assessment? The assessment is administered::
A brief description of how and when the cultural assessment(s) were developed and/or adopted:
In 2023, an Environmental Studies student, in partnership with the Office of Sustainability, developed a survey with questions meant to assess student and employee sustainability values to measure attitudes related to sustainability across campus as well as gauge support for future initiatives. The student researched similar surveys through AASHE and used examples from the University of Vermont and Arizona State University. We also communicated with the data office to identify and use survey methodology "best practices." For both students and employees, this included the Data Office providing a representative sample of randomly selected employee and student emails. Sample included students from all years of completion (freshmen through senior) and both full- and part-time employees.
A copy or sample of the questions related to sustainability culture:
A sample of the questions related to sustainability culture or the website URL where the assessment tool is available:
See the attached document for survey questions.
A brief description of how representative samples were reached (if applicable) and how the cultural assessment is administered:
The survey contained 22 questions related to sustainability on the UM campus. The intended target for the survey was the students and employees of the UM Mountain and Missoula College campuses. The survey was built in Qualtrics and distributed by use of an anonymous link in an email message, distributed by the Office of Sustainability. Multiple email reminders were sent straight from qualtrics to student and employee emails. We also shared social media posts/campus slides to remind students to take the survey if they saw it in their inbox.
178 completed responses were received.
A brief summary of results from the cultural assessment:
The questions related to environmental knowledge indicated that 90.3% of respondents believe that climate change is happening, 89.7% believe that human action causes climate change, 60.7% believe that their own actions have an impact on reducing the effects climate change, and 38.7% felt that they didn’t know enough to answer these questions. Since 46.9% of respondents have not taken any classes at UM that address sustainability topics, this specific climate change knowledge and beliefs (amongst students) is not conclusively correlated to the sustainability education that is gained at UM. However, it can be a helpful statistic to consider when marketing sustainability or climate change information to try and reach the largest possible number of students. Regarding marketing and student engagement, resources such as information on UM’s sustainability practices and resources/tips on how to reduce one’s personal environmental footprint gained the most interest. 70% of respondents were interested in staying in the loop about sustainability at UM and email communication, social media, signage, and courses were indicated as being the most beneficial routes for learning more about on-campus sustainability-related initiatives. Only 32.7% of respondents indicated that they are always aware of what’s going on with UM Sustainability or that they know how to learn more if they want to. Accordingly, lack of knowledge and lack of convenience were indicated as the highest factors contributing to any resistance or lack of concern for sustainability issues at UM. Considering this, UM Sustainability might want to work on breaking down these barriers by focusing on widespread education platforms through the most requested channels of communication and making sustainability involvement more accessible to the general student population.
In the section asking about attitudes toward environmental sustainability, an average of 93% of respondents agree that it is important to protect the environment, that environmental sustainability must be prioritized now and in the future, that it is important to conserve natural resources, and that regulatory environmental standards are needed to reduce negative impacts on the environment, with an average of 79% of the answers strongly agreeing with all these questions. Specifically, out of the 8 options given, water conservation and/or quality, renewable energy, and wildlife and species diversity protection, respectively, were selected as the general global sustainability issues that are most important. Additionally, 57% have a strong interest in sustainability, 22.4% have a passion for sustainability, 8.3% are neither interested nor disinterested, 10.3% have a moderate interest, and only 1.9% indicated no interest in sustainability. For their professional endeavors, 25.7% of students would like to focus on a sustainability field after they graduate and 68% believe that sustainability won’t be the main focus of their work but will be helpful to understand, while only 6.3% of students do not think that sustainability will be a factor at all in their future work. While only 43.2% of students said that university-wide environmental polices and practices were moderately to extremely important when choosing to attend the University of Montana, an average of 88% either “somewhat” or “strongly” agree that UM has a responsibility to reduce its environmental impact through energy, water, and waste conservation initiatives; that it is important that UM focus on sustainability goals; and that UM should provide opportunities for students to live sustainably while on campus.
The top three sustainability initiatives that respondents believe would be most important for the university to support and fund were: reducing net material waste through more widespread and efficient source reduction, composting, and recycling; pursuing renewable sources of energy to power the university; and prioritizing retrofitting and redevelopment of buildings over new construction. These results indicate that a significant number of respondents are interested in sustainability and have strong opinions about environmental issues and what they would like UM Sustainability to focus on. Therefore, campus administration should consider and prioritize these opinions when making future decisions that impact the university’s sustainability in a way that is reflective and representative of the campus community.
Optional Fields
Additional documentation to support the submission:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.