University of Texas at Austin
EN-6: Assessing Sustainability Culture

The Office of Sustainability partnered with Institutional Reporting, Research, & Information Systems (IRRIS) to administer the Student Attitudes Scale (SAS) as published by Dr. Adam Zwickle at Michigan State University in the Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research (https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_25). This assessment was chosen because there is published documentation of its efficacy at measuring sustainability attitudes across ecological, economic, and social domains using a small number of questions. The cultural assessment questions and the sustainability knowledge questions were combined into a single survey along with additional campus-specific questions.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_25

The assessment was administered by Institutional Reporting, Research, & Information Systems (IRRIS). On October 26, 2021, the Sustainability Survey was emailed to a sample of 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students stratified by classification (e.g. Freshman, Sophomore, etc.) and college/school/unit (CSU). The survey remained open for about 3 weeks. Respondents who completed the survey were entered into a drawing to win one of twenty $40 Bevo Pay gift cards. 724 students completed 77% or more of entire survey and were included in the analysis and reporting of the results. This equates to a 14.5% response rate, and provides us with sufficient information to generalize the data to the population - based on a 95% confidence interval, 5% margin of error. The survey will be administered annually.

o The survey included ten items developed by researchers at Michigan State University, referred to as the Sustainability Attitudes Survey (SAS). These items were all rated on a six-point Likert scale from ‘Strongly Disagree’ to ‘Strongly Agree,’ and all items are written in a manner that suggest strong agreement equates to a positive attitude towards sustainability. For the summary below, the focus is centered on those who selected ‘Strongly Agree.’
o ‘Strongly Agree’ ratings ranged in percentage from 31.4% to 76.7%.
o The items respondents were most likely to strongly agree with were:
 Equal rights for all people strengthen a community (76.7% strongly agree).
 Clean air is an important part of a good life (74.1% strongly agree).
 Our present consumption of natural resources will result in serious environmental challenges for future generations (73.4% strongly agree).
o Less than half of respondents strongly agreed with the following items, two of which concern economics:
 Generally speaking, consumerism, or the theory that individuals who consume goods and services in large quantities will be better off, is not sustainable (31.4% strongly agree).
 The well-being of others affects me (41.9% strongly agree).
 An unsustainable economy values personal wealth at the cost of others (42.4% strongly agree).
 I am willing to put forth a bit more effort in my daily life to reduce my environmental impact (44.3% strongly agree).
o Although strong agreement varied a lot by item, it was much more common for respondents to agree versus disagree with all of the SAS items, suggesting an overall positive attitude toward sustainability. In fact, on most items 3% or fewer of the respondents reported disagreement. The two items with the highest percentage of disagreement concern the intersection between economics and sustainability and are presented below:
 Generally speaking, consumerism, or the theory that individuals who consume goods and services in large quantities will be better off, is not sustainable (13.5% slightly disagree to strongly disagree).
 An unsustainable economy values personal wealth at the cost of others (8.5% slightly disagree to slightly agree).