Abstract
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are increasingly addressing their environmental impact and to do this need to improve access to environmental information in order to improve decision making and sustainability efforts. Educational institutions have a different focus to other more industrial organisations and therefore frameworks for these organisations are not necessarily suited to educational environments. Whilst several environmental management information systems (EMIS) have been proposed there is a lack of understanding of the components which should be included in such a system due to the existing broad definitions. In addition there are not many best practice guidelines to support the design and development of these systems. This paper proposes a framework for EMISs in higher education. The framework is derived from several literature studies and includes guidelines which can assist with the design of an EMIS. These guidelines are classified according to the components of EMIS.
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Appendix: Guidelines for the Components of an EMIS
Appendix: Guidelines for the Components of an EMIS
Guideline | Authors |
|---|---|
Contribution services cluster | |
There is a need for centralised storage of environmental information in an HEI | Athanasiadis (2006), Bero et al. (2012), Muntean et al. (2010) |
HEIs need a computerised process for capturing environmental data (e.g. water and electricity meter readings) | Bero et al. (2012) |
HEIs need to automate environmental data collection processes where possible (e.g. sensor based collection; smart meters) | |
It is important that HEIs perform quality assurance (data validation and verification) on environmental data collected at the source | Athanasiadis (2006) |
Management services cluster | |
Environmental sustainability reporting should be stakeholder oriented and automated wherever possible | |
Data analytics and monitoring of environmental information should be provided | Al-Ta’ee et al. (2013), Bero et al. (2012), Muntean et al. (2010) |
Simplified aggregated data summaries of environmental information must be available | Bero et al. (2012) |
Data processing should be provided (ad-hoc querying, modelling of data and decision support) | Bero et al. (2012) |
There should be support for allocating resource usage to buildings and campus facilities such as sports grounds and departments (apportionment modifiers) | Bero et al. (2012) |
Distribution services cluster | |
There should be support for public awareness and outreach by allowing access to simplified aggregated data summaries of system data for access by HEI stakeholders (student, staff, board members, management, government bodies, etc.) | |
Third party applications should be granted access to environmental information where possible | |
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Scholtz, B., Calitz, A.P., Jonamu, B. (2016). A Framework for Environmental Management Information Systems in Higher Education. In: Marx Gómez, J., Scholtz, B. (eds) Information Technology in Environmental Engineering. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25153-0_3
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