University of Virginia
EN-6: Assessing Sustainability Culture

--UVA Office for Sustainability (OFS) developed and distributed survey in partnership with Institutional Research & Analytics (IRA)
--UVA Sustainability stakeholders (relevant faculty, Committee on Sustainability, etc.) helped set objectives and zero in on what we wanted to learn about UVA undergraduates
--OFS reviewed other higher ed institutions’ sustainability surveys, pulled some questions directly, adjusted many, wrote some new, then sought feedback/edits from stakeholders
--Final survey was 35 questions (15 required literacy questions, 15 optional values questions, and 5 optional demographics questions)
--OFS is resurveying every three years, catching a small number of students in both their first year and their fourth year to be able to analyze individuals’ changes over time
--OFS also created an adapted version of the survey that has been distributed to employees. The adapted survey is 10 values questions and 5 optional demographics questions.

See file attached above.

FOR 2022 STUDENT SURVEY:
--Office of Institutional Research & Analytics (IRA) pulled a random sample of 5,000 undergraduate emails
--The Office for Sustainability (OFS) sent each student a unique link to their Qualtrics survey in mid-October 2022
--Students had two weeks to complete the survey & received periodic reminders
--Respondents were entered to win $25 bookstore gift card, of which there were 20 available (incentives were intended to combat the likelihood of pro-sustainability bias in respondents)
--Responses totaled 396 – about an 8% response rate from our sample of 5,000
--Some populations ended up being slightly overrepresented in the respondents (including women, asian/asian american students, white/caucasian students, and students already interested or involved in sustainability), but the initial sample was a true unbiased random sample.

FOR 2023 EMPLOYEE SURVEY:
--A volunteer group from UVA's Cornerstone Program helped adapt the sustainability values survey to the employee audience (faculty and staf) and promoted participation over a 3 week period.
--Respondants were offered the chance to win one of ten $20 Bodo's Bagel gift cards.
--The survey was advertised primarily through LCD screens across employee-facing academic and hospital spaces and through departmental listservs and newsletters. The UVA HR department also sent out the survey link in it's newsletter to all employees.
--Responses totalled 576 faculty and staff members.

For each values question, sliding scale responses were assigned a percentage (ex. “not at all” 0%, “slightly” 33%, “somewhat” 66%, “very” 100%) then values score was generated by grouping questions into seven equally weighted thematic “buckets” within which, the individual question scores were averaged. Average total values score was 65%. Below are the values score for each of the seven values question "buckets," in descending order in the 2022 student survey:
--UVA importance (89%)
--Voting choices (81%)
--Interest (79%)
--Concern (76%)
--Everyday actions (49%)
--Familiarity (42%)
--Jobs/internships (41%)

These results were similar in 2019, with a few notable differences. People have become more aware of the Office for Sustainability, but satisfaction with UVA's sustainability efforts to date fell slightly.

For the 2023 employee survey, some notable results include:
--61% indicated they were "very interested" in sustainability and the environment
--Over 60% indicated that each of UVA's sustainability focus areas was "very important"
--44% indicated they were "somewhat satisfied" with UVA's sustainability efforts to date
--Respondants were about 90% staff, 5% faculty, and 5% "other"