Never two without three – sustainable university campus management

Purpose: Universities are seen as forerunners in climate actions and sustainable development. A sustainable university campus contributes to economic, social and environmental goals. The purpose of this paper is to identify sustainable university campus management measurements and key figures in Finnish universities. The research question is: How university campus management balances between economic, environmental and social sustainability in Finland?
Theory: The Tripple bottom line framework (TBL) theorizes that as an alternative of one bottom line, there ought to be three: people, profit and the planet. This framework measures an organization's level of obligation to corporate social accountability and its impact on the environment in due course.
Methodology: The research is qualitative while the intention is to understand the sustainable campus management in selected country, Finland. The method used is a group interview method. Nine Finnish universities joined to the study.
Findings: According to the data, universities generally have measures for sustainability. However, the object of measures varies. All universities emphasize economical sustainability measures such as space costs of the overall costs. Environmental measures such as emissions per number of students and staff are mentioned in some universities. Only a few universities include social sustainability measures in their key performance indicators.
Novelty: The paper provides insights into sustainable real estate and campus management. It explains how the sustainability aspects are measured in practice in university campus management. The study presents results which are interest also for the whole university communities, university administrators, urban planners and policy makers in promoting campus sustainability. The framework of the integrated approach for sustainable university campus provides research results which can be both compared and applied in the context of sustainable campus management.