SAMINT-MILI 20059
Master’s Thesis 30 credits September 2019
Challenges to sustainability
education in Swedish construction programmes
Using sustainability evaluation of university programmes and interviews with programme directors in Swedish universities.
Pranav Garud
Master’s Programme in Industrial Management and Innovation
Masterprogram i industriell ledning och innovation
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Abstract
Challenges to sustainability education in Swedish construction programmes
Pranav Garud
Construction is an investment intensive industry which has been notoriously known to be cost and time ineffective. Further, the construction industry is known to be the world’s largest resource utilizer and the largest polluter.
Hence sustainability in construction is necessary.
Since Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) are one of the most important stakeholders in construction, this research aims to determine the sustainability aspects taught in Swedish construction programmes. On comparing the aims and outcomes of all construction courses to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this research found that Swedish construction education programmes lack political and social sustainability in their construction curricula. Further, this research investigates the challenges to imparting sustainability education due to present research and pedagogical/teaching methods. Data to investigate the results was collected through interviews with programme directors from various Swedish Universities.
The findings of this research show a connection between practical application, research and traditional education. Further, the factors affecting research and pedagogy are also inter-related and convoluted. A large cause and effect network arising due to the interplay of the factors is addressed in the discussions section. This thesis finds that sustainable development in construction requires development of sustainability evaluation methods as well as combined efforts from various stakeholders and professions.
Keywords: Sustainability, sustainability education. higher education institutes, HEI, sustainability evaluation, construction education, educating sustainability.
Subject reader: Åse Linne Examiner: David Sköld Supervisor: David Sköld SAMINT- MILI 20059
Printed by: Uppsala Universitet
Faculty of Science and Technology
Visiting address:
Ångströmlaboratoriet Lägerhyddsvägen 1 House 4, Level 0
Postal address:
Box 536 751 21 Uppsala
Telephone:
+46 (0)18 – 471 30 03
Telefax:
+46 (0)18 – 471 30 00
Web page:
http://www.teknik.uu.se/student-en/
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POPULAR SCIENCE SUMMARYSustainability is defined as consumption to satisfy the needs of today but not compromise on those of tomorrow. Sustainability is an ever evolving and changing concept. It is has changed from being focused on the environment to encompassing wider aspects like social, technological, and political. To provide a direction to sustainability efforts, the United Nations has provided a list of sustainability goals to be achieved by the member nations.
Construction is one of the world’s largest polluting and resource utilizing sector. Construction sector includes infrastructure and building construction. even though it is one of the most unsustainable sectors, construction sector falls behind all other industrial sectors when adopting sustainability in practice. Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) are one of the major stakeholders in construction sector.
Most of all the decision makers working in the construction sector hold degrees or diplomas from the HEIs. Hence, it is necessary for HEIs to include sustainability in their education curriculum. Addition of sustainability to technical education curriculum has many requirements. Further, education on sustainability or sustainability education faces many challenges. To evaluate an organization’s or an activity’s contribution to sustainability and to understand their challenges, a new area in research called sustainability evaluation has become popular. Sustainability evaluation reports have also shown to be very important in developing stakeholder image and improve an organization’s financial position.
The sustainability evaluation process requires a standard or a guide. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become one of the most widely used standard in sustainability evaluation, and other areas of research. Further, the SDGs are also used as guides when developing new policies. Sustainability evaluations are used as a problem detection tool. Sections that are the least addressed in sustainability often have many challenges associated with them. This research uses the same approach.
This research aims to identify the various sustainability aspects that are covered in Swedish construction education programmes and further addresses some of the challenges related to sustainability research for education and the teaching methods used to teach sustainability. The findings of the research point out some of the factors affecting sustainability education and also shows an interconnected nature of all the factors. Many concerns have been raised in the discussions and analysis section of this research which could guide future work. This research gathers data from Swedish HEI websites and through interviews with programme directors in various Swedish universities.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The degree project is the final part of the two-year master's program Industrial Management and Innovation at Uppsala University. The degree project has been conducted between March 2018 and September 2019.
The researcher acknowledges that he worked on all chapters in the degree project. All chapters in the degree project were discussed and collaboratively compiled with the help of subject reader to understand the research findings.
A special thanks to Uppsala University, and my subject reader Åse Linne who put great amount of effort and time to guide the author throughout the process of the degree project. Åse Linne, along with guidance you have also inspired and provided invaluable knowledge. I thank my examiner David Sköld who provided us with continuous support and various insights to compile the final thesis. I also thank my friends and family for their support and insights. I also would like to thank all the interviewees- Mikaelsson Lars-Åke, Buser Martine, Leppänen Joosef and Interviewee X for their valuable contribution.
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ABBREVIATIONS
PM Project Management
APM Agile Project Management
LPM Lean Project Management
LPDS Lean Project Delivery System SDG Sustainable Development Goals LPDS Lean Project Delivery System
LC Lean Construction
LPS Last Planner System
HEI Higher Education Institue
CPM Construction Project Management
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
POPULAR SCIENCE SUMMARY ... 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... 4
ABBREVIATIONS ... 5
LIST OF FIGURES ... 8
LIST OF TABLES ... 8
1. INTRODUCTION ... 9
1.1. CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND ITS IMPORTANCE ... 9
1.2. PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ... 11
1.3. LIMITATIONS ... 12
1.4. OUTLINE ... 12
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 14
2.1. WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY ... 14
2.2. SUSTAINABILITY IN CONSTRUCTION ... 16
2.3. SUSTAINABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION ... 18
2.4. SUMMARY OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 23
3. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK ... 25
3.1. OVERIEW ... 25
3.1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 25
3.2. RESEARCH APPROACH ... 26
3.3. DATA COLLECTION ... 26
3.3.1. Sustainability Evaluation Of Syllabi ... 26
3.3.2. Interviews With Programme Directors ... 30
3.4. ANALYSIS... 31
3.4.1. Analysis Of Course Data ... 31
3.4.2. Analysis Of Interview Data... 34
3.5. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ... 34
3.6. ISSUES OF TRUSTWORTHINESS ... 35
3.7. RESEARCH BIAS ... 36
4. FINDINGS ... 38
4.1. STATISTICAL FINDINGS OF SUSTAINABILITY EVALUATIONS ... 38
4.2. FINDINGS FROM INTERVIEWS... 39
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4.1.1. Understanding Sustainability ... 40
4.1.2. Effect Of Sustainability Research On Sustainability Education ... 41
4.1.3. Challenges To And Due To Teaching Methods ... 43
5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ... 47
5.1. ANALYSIS... 47
5.1.1. Identified Sustainability Aspects In Education ... 47
5.1.2. Hurdles To Teaching Sustainability ... 49
5.1.3. Results From The Analysis ... 55
5.2. DISCUSSION ... 56
6. CONCLUSION ... 60
6.1. FUTURE WORK ... 61
6.2. SOCIETAL AND ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS ... 61
7. REFERENCES... 63
8. APPENDIX ... 67
Appendix 1 ... 67
Appendix 2- Interview Questionnaire ... 69
Appendix 3- INTERVIEW RESPONSE CODING ... 70
Appendix 5 ... 81
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LIST OF FIGURES
1 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 15
2 Distribution of faculty at Yale University 22
3 Example of coding sheet 28
4 Example of JASP outputs as graphs 33
5 Interplay of factors 57
LIST OF TABLES
1 Categories of programmes 29
List of Interviewees 31
2 Example of Jasp analysis 32
3 Example of statistical outcomes from JASP 33
4 Statistical findings 38
5 SDG statistics in course aims and outcomes 47
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1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, the author introduces the subject along with the overview and background of construction industry which helps to understand the problem area. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the knowledge of sustainability education. Literature suggests a few problems associated with sustainability education. This research focuses on a few of those problems and the research questions are thus formulated to address the problems through analysis and discussions.
1.1. CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND ITS IMPORTANCE
Construction is a key industrial activity for infrastructure and industrial development for a country (Loganathan, Srinath, Kumaraswamy, Kalidindi, and Varghese, 2017). According to the market analysis conducted by MarketLine Industry Profile (2017), Swedish industrial growth is supported majorly by residential construction activities with total revenues of USD 38,7 billion in 2016 corresponding to a 10,1% annual growth rate between 2012 and 2016; the residential segment formed 61,6% of the total revenues in Sweden.
However, it has been found through research that the construction industry has a heavy toll on the environment. Construction activities around the world contribute to approximately 60% of all the raw material extraction activities, 25% logging activities, 49% Sulphur dioxide emissions, 39% of carbon dioxide emissions, 25% of nitrous oxide emissions, and 10% of particulate matter emissions (Lim, Xia, Skitmore, Gray, and Bridge, 2015). Polat and Ballard (2004) suggest that 10-30% (by weight) of the purchased materials end up as waste and 1-10% of this waste ends up as dry waste. Further, process time is a value adding activity, but, not all of it is value adding as time is wasted in rework, over- production, etc. (Polat and Ballard, 2004). The resources used in over-production and rework also add up to the aforementioned wastes.
These environmental and economic impacts can, however, be greatly reduced by means of sustainable construction practices as suggested by Lim et al., (2015). Lim et al., (2015) define sustainable construction practice as efficient use of resources for better built quality and healthier environment while reducing environmental effects. Stating the importance of sustainable construction practices, advocates of new project management methods suggest that these new PM methods are more sustainable than conventional project management practices in construction. These new methods include lean management and lean construction (Polat and Ballard, 2004), agile methods (Sid, 2013), last planner system (LPS) (Babalola, Ibem, and Ezema, 2018; Salem, Solomon, Genaidy, and Minkarah, 2006) and lean project delivery system (LPDS) (Ballard and Howell, 2003; Mossman, Ballard, and Pasquire, 2010), etc. All the above stated methods are essentially management techniques and do not require
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additional infrastructure or materials. For instance, Eriksson (2010) shows the application of lean construction in Sweden by improving the workflow, optimizing space utilization and reducing inventory and logistics costs. He suggests that such practices do not require additional equipment.Rather, it is necessary to change the behavior and practice by construction professionals (Eriksson, 2010). Further, methods like LPDS and LPS also do not require additional investment on infrastructure and technology; rather, they require construction professionals to change their attitudes in construction practices (Mossman et al., 2010; Salem et al., 2006). However, sustainable construction (SC) refers to construction techniques employing both, sustainable materials and sustainable construction practices (Bueren and Priemus, 2002). Using all/any of the above stated methods, construction processes can be made sustainable.
Despite existence of research and empirical evidence concerning the advantages of the above stated methods, they do not find mainstream application in today’s construction practices (Babalola et al., 2018; Eriksson, 2010; Osmani and Gordon, 2012). Osmani and Gordon (2012) states that there exist many barriers to sustainability in construction. These barriers can be categorized into four main groups:
political, economic, technological, and legal. However, Babalola et al. (2018) and Djokoto, Dadzie, and Ohemeng-Ababio (2014) suggest that economic and technological barriers have a very low impact on adoption of sustainable practices and materials. They suggest that sustainable technology is widely available at affordable costs today. Application of sustainable practices depends on the customer’s demand. Eriksson (2010) showed the application of lean practices in construction with a pilot project.
In his research, Eriksson (2010) employed lean construction practices based on client’s request. He found that even small firms can benefit by employing lean principles in construction. Based on the evidence by Eriksson (2010), it can be seen that sustainable practices are possible based on customer’s will. Further, since no additional equipment or heavy financial investment was found to be necessary in the pilot project, Eriksson (2010) shows that technological and financial barriers might not pose as barriers for many sustainable practices. Thus, Eriksson (2010) corroborates with Babalola et al. (2018) and Djokoto et al. (2014). To avoid dependency on customer’s demands, it is necessary to motivate construction professionals to adopt sustainable practices. One of the ways to motivate sustainable practices is through sustainability education or through education on sustainable construction practices.
However, Lim et al. (2015) found that construction education itself forms a barrier to sustainability.
They found that construction professionals are not taught any of the lean, agile or other sustainable methods and hence, these methods do not find application in commercial construction practices.
Current research on sustainable construction practices is found to be single-disciplinary and organization-centric (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015; Wals, 2014). In other words, these research works are challenging to apply in different organizational settings. Using these research works in teaching does not allow for effective sustainability education since the lecturers might face difficulty to include the essence of sustainable practices their teaching. Such a difficulty poses as capability and pedagogical
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barrier (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). This research provides an overview of sustainability inclusion in construction courses. This is done by examining contribution of various courses towards SDGs as well as few sustainable methods. Further, this research examines the reasons for low inclusion of certain SDGs in course aims and outcomes.
1.2. PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The purpose of this research is to add to the knowledge of sustainability education in construction.
Specifically, this research contributes to the knowledge of challenges associated with educating sustainability in HEIs. There has been considerable research across many countries regarding sustainability issues in construction. However, there is no certain consensus regarding a particular barrier that hinders sustainable practices or sustainability education.
Goodall and Moore (2019) and Lim et al. (2015) found that construction courses do not include much sustainability. However, Babalola et al. (2018) and Djokoto et al. (2014) suggested that construction personnel are well aware of sustainable methods and materials through their education. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an initiative by the United Nations to promote sustainable development across all areas of the society. The UN SDGs also function as a checklist to guide sustainability efforts (Forsythe, Jupp, and Sawhney, 2013; Torres, Sriraman, and Ortiz, 2019; U.N., 2015).This research considers that use of UNSDGs can help improve the sustainability research and practices in the construction industry. This research investigates construction courses for sustainability education as well as contributions of the courses to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) programme. This is performed by comparing course aims and outcomes to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). These seventeen SDGs were developed for an all-round sustainable development of all economies and industries. These goals cover different aspects like infrastructure development, innovation, responsible production and consumption, action against climate change and others to mention a few. By comparing the aims and outcomes of the courses to the SDGs, this research determines the addressed and missed aspects of sustainability in construction education.
This research investigates the challenges HEIs face to include all the aspects of sustainability in construction programmes. This research focusses on the challenges related to capability and pedagogy in teaching sustainability. Thus, the research questions can be defined as follows-
RQ1. What are the various sustainability aspects covered (or not covered) in Swedish sustainability education?
RQ2. What are the factors that make sustainability education challenging in Swedish construction programmes?
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To evaluate sustainability inclusion in construction courses, their aims and outcomes are compared to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The outcome of such an evaluation is called sustainability evaluation. This method of judging a programme’s sustainability inclusion is based on Goodall and Moore (2019). Through the course evaluations, this research found that certain aspects of sustainability are barely addressed in traditional construction education while the others appear well distributed throughout the programmes. This research aims at investigating the challenges to include all the aspects of sustainability in construction curricula. This requires additional data to determine the challenges faced by educators when teaching sustainability. Hence, data is further collected through interviews with programme directors in different universities to answer the above research questions.1.3. LIMITATIONS
Due to short time constraint and a wide scope of this research, organizational and personal barriers to educating sustainability cannot be addressed. To address such a limitation, a larger sample size is needed to gather data from a variety of higher education institutions, various professions within the teaching community like teachers, researchers, etc., and include respondents from a range of backgrounds and experiences. Hence, this research provides a general overview of the challenges that all the educating institutions and educators face. This research addresses challenges to sustainability education due to lack in sustainability research and challenges due to currently used teaching methods.
The data collected from the interviews provides the views of the educators. However, perspectives of other stakeholder like construction companies, raw material suppliers, etc. are not covered in this research.
The challenges to sustainability education and their factors which are discussed in this research form a major portion of gathered data. However, there may exist more barriers to sustainability education which could not be addressed due to time constraint.
This research considers United Nations SDG program as a possible way to evaluate sustainability inclusion in construction education. To standardize the process of data collection, descriptions of the courses as well as the course contents were ignored. The data gathered for sustainability evaluation of courses considers only the course aims and outcomes described on the university websites.
1.4. OUTLINE
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The first chapter introduces the subject and provides some background information. Further, the purpose and the research questions are stated in this chapter. The limitations and scope of this research are also stated here.The second chapter explains the theoretical framework and provides a base to reviewed literature linked to the research.
The third chapter includes the methodological framework that describes the research process. Process of data collection through course evaluations and interviews are stated here.
The fourth chapter presents the data collected through course evaluations and interviews.
In the fifth chapter, the research questions are answered through analysis and previous research.
The sixth chapter presents the discussions and final conclusions along with the future work.
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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter gives the detailed knowledge of the concepts related to the research and makes the reader accustomed to the previous work necessary to analyze and discuss the findings. Through description of various construction and PM methods, this section shows how each method provides sustainability benefits in relation to the SDGs. Further, sustainability education is described along with challenges to educating sustainability based on previous research.
2.1. WHAT IS SUSTAINABILITY
Leppelt (2014) defines sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Leppelt, 2014, p.1). Further he suggests that companies should not base their decisions solely on the economic considerations but also focus on the social and environmental impacts. This aligns with the 20-year old research saying perception of sustainability or sustainable development needs to change from niche environmentalist nature to one encompassing all the wider aspects (Macnaghten and Jacobs, 1997).
The success of any society is driven by efforts and these efforts have a great impact on the environment which create disturbances (Orr, 2019). Even with the improvement of economic growth and human progress, the production and consumption of commodities and services has led to degradation of the sociocultural and biophysical foundations of mankind (Glasser and Devereaux, 2019). The economic growth has led to the degradation of social and environmental conditions (Macnaghten and Jacobs, 1997). Reversing these effects demands determination and efforts (Orr, 2019) towards sustainable economic growth by overcoming the political and societal barriers (Macnaghten and Jacobs, 1997).
Awareness in the market about climate change, energy depletion and rising energy costs is needed along with government initiatives to make the issue more prominent (Partkinson and Cooke, 2012).
Most decision makers on economic growth consider environmental and social problems out of their sphere of influence (Grodach, 2011), while the public get uninterested in these policies as they believe that they don’t have a voice (Macnaghten and Jacobs, 1997). With lower interest in sustainable products, manufacturers find it uneconomical to produce sustainable products with high investment and higher risks (Hoffman and Henn, 2008). With time passing and technology developing, the barriers to sustainability or sustainable development are much less oriented on the technology, but majorly psychological, social and political (Bueren and Priemus, 2002; Grodach, 2011; Hoffman and Henn, 2008).
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Providing sustainable solutions requires knowledge among the professionals about multiple aspects of sustainability (Lim et al., 2015). Even with the expertise and knowledge, awareness and promotion of sustainable solutions is needed (Djokoto et al., 2014). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) initiative by the U.N. provides a guide to direct the sustainability efforts across all aspects.In 2015, the United Nations defined a sustainability agenda to be achieved by the year 2030. The agenda comprises of 17 sustainable development goals with 169 targets aimed at different sections and activities of the society in economic, social, technological, political, environmental, and legal aspects.
Figure 1. Sustainability Development Goals (U.N., 2015, p.15)
The goals and the targets, spanned over multiple decades, seek to stimulate the actions in areas critical to mankind and nature. This includes the people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership (U.N., 2015).
The SDGs focus on multiple aspects like good quality technical and vocational education for sustainable development (SDG 4), technological upgradation and innovation for better resource utilization and low environmental impact (SDG 8), infrastructure development and upgradation of industrial processes to be economically, environmentally sustainable (SDG 9), sustainable urbanization and urban planning with low cost housing development using local materials and protection of cultural and natural heritage (SDG 11), waste reduction and sustainable use of resources through resource utilization efficiency, reuse, recycle and scientific development for the same (SDG 12), improvement in awareness and education, increased capacity in planning and management of actions to combat climate change (SDG 13), conservation of waterbodies and terrestrial ecosystems for better sharing of resources (SDG 14, 15), encouraging laws and policy development and research for sustainable development (SDG 16), sharing of knowledge and technology through collaborated efforts to achieve sustainability (SDG 17) and many more (U.N., 2015).
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To achieve sustainability in construction, it is essential to reduce resource utilization as well as time and cost overruns along with lowering the environmental impact. Hence, many new methods were developed (Eriksson, 2010; Jamil and Fathi, 2016; Lim et al., 2015; Polat and Ballard, 2004). Even with the development of these methods, they find low application due to hurdles or barriers to sustainability (Osmani and Gordon, 2012).2.2. SUSTAINABILITY IN CONSTRUCTION
In most cases, energy used in construction processes as well as energy used in the buildings throughout their lifespan comes through the use of finite hydrocarbon sources which has a detrimental effect on the environment (Partkinson and Cooke, 2012). With this concern, the UK government called for houses to be free of carbon footprint by 2016 (Osmani and Gordon, 2012). Many government and non- governmental organizations propose sustainable use of energy via incorporating labelling methods for valuation of commercial property (Partkinson and Cooke, 2012). It is suggested that the sustainability in construction is driven by corporate image and the regulations. Also, investors believe in higher than average returns with sustainable buildings (Partkinson and Cooke, 2012). This is contradictory to the fact that the architects do not consider sustainability as a factor for designs in the face of recession; for many, zero carbon is not an agenda for design as is making profit (Osmani and Gordon, 2012).
Osmani and Gordon (2012) have suggested four categories of barriers to sustainable housing construction. 1. Legislative- The confusion of the definition of sustainable housing provides the highest order of legislative barrier as the companies try but are unsuccessful to achieve such an unrealistic goal.
2. Financial- The costs associated with materials and technologies to achieve zero carbon emissions.
Hence, there are efforts to reduce carbon footprint but not significant enough to reach the goal of zero carbon. 3. Technological- Other than the costs, the technological advances needed are far behind. Yet, current knowledge and technologies can be used to achieve the goals if used right. Also, the pace of promoting this practice relies on use of unrealistic and unscalable technologies and that more time is needed for research and development. 4. Social- The low awareness of climate change and environment degradation makes the stakeholders not deem zero carbon aim necessary. Hence, the demand for sustainable or zero carbon projects remains low.
Contradicting Osmani and Gordon (2012), Hoffman and Henn (2008) suggest that the materials and technologies needed for sustainable and environmentally friendly construction activities are mainstream nowadays and should not be considered as a barrier. They further state that the costs of these materials and unavailability of expertise should not pose as a threat to sustainable construction practice as well.
These findings are corroborated by Djokoto et al., (2014) where they suggest that the cost is the ninth
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most severe barrier. Both Djokoto et al. (2014) and Hoffman and Henn (2008) agree that customers’perception and awareness and low government support are the leading barriers to sustainability efforts.
Djokoto et al. (2014) suggest that low demand in the market is a barrier to employ sustainable solutions.
Hoffman and Henn (2008) suggest that government support in the form of incentives is essential to promote sustainability in construction activities. Without demand for sustainable projects or incentives for the same, construction companies are not motivated to employ sustainable practices in construction projects. Since research does not conform towards a single barrier among knowledge, technology or finance, there could exist a different barrier that causes low implementation of sustainable solutions (Djokoto et al., 2014; Hoffman and Henn, 2008).
As previously stated, sustainable construction techniques require specialised equipment, and materials and this adds up to the costs. The lean principles promote cost reduction through material and time saving by using methods that promote discipline and ease of work to employees along with reduction in waiting time, overproduction, movement and defective products; lean is a method of sustainable or green production which does not require additional investments in material and technology (Eriksson, 2010; Fliedner, 2008). The lean principles are aimed at cost reduction, quality assurance and respect for humanity to achieve a sustainable growth (Salem et al., 2006). The application of lean is associated with ‘green activity’ due to optimized resource utilization and reduction in waste and pollution (Hartini and Ciptomulyono, 2015). The application of lean principles in the production sector have majorly benefitted through 30% increase in production and 50% reduced delivery times along with 10% quality improvement mainly due to just-in-time, zero stock, zero defects and reduced set-up times (Riis, 1993).
Further, in the absence of consistent economic growth, companies shifted to lean way of production which focuses on responsiveness toward the customer, waste and pollution reduction and use of appropriate materials; the lean way is linked to sustainability and its popularity is continually rising (Hartini and Ciptomulyono, 2015). Sustainability in the context of lean practices is mainly associated with niche environmental problems and economic benefits through cost reduction (Hartini and Ciptomulyono, 2015). However, efforts to reduce environmental damage enable competitive differentiation among construction companies. Hartini and Ciptomulyono (2015) state that the competitive differentiation helps to attract new customers which leads to multi-faceted sustainable development. They further state that trade-offs between various methods are inevitable as lean methods do not mean all-sided sustainability. Thus, due to the benefits, offered by lean principles and methods, including them in construction education is essential to achieve sustainability.
To improve lean application in construction processes, many methods such as lean construction, Lean Project Delivery System (LPDS), Last Planner System (LPS) were developed (Fliedner, 2008; J.
Sarhan, Xia, Fawzia, Karim, and Olanipekun, 2018). LPDS offers benefits such as waste reduction (Polat and Ballard, 2004), increased cooperation among stakeholders (Mossman et al., 2010; Sid, 2013),
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structured process, customer satisfaction (Ballard, Koskela, Howell, and Zabelle, 2001; Mossman et al., 2010; Sid, 2013), improved quality, workflow, and lower lead time (Ballard and Howell, 2003; Sid, 2013). Hence, LPDS is one of the new popular and successful methods (Sid, 2013). Further, Lean Construction (LC) improves workflow, reduces defects, enables fail-safe installations. It also aids to remove unused resources and drives transparent operations while allowing for continuous improvement (Eriksson, 2010; Salem et al., 2006). Last Planner System (LPS) provides a smooth workflow along with decentralization of planning process and improves relations, resources and plans (Fernandez-Solis et al., 2012; Gao and Low, 2014; Mossman, 2015). These benefits of the LPS have led to widespread use of this technique globally (Gao and Low, 2014).Thus, as a result of applying these methods, there is an improved resource utilization and waste reduction (lower material usage). Thus, the emissions and pollution can be reduced through application of these methods. Improved resource utilization and low wastage lead to economic and environmental sustainability through cost savings and lower pollution. Comparing to the UN SDG programme, these sustainability benefits relate to SDGs 8, 9, 11, 12, as well as 14, 15.
According to research, influencing higher authorities at construction companies regarding sustainability is essential to develop company policies and practices around sustainability (Lidgren, Rodhe, and Huisingh, 2006). Since most of these personnel graduate from higher education institutions, educating them about sustainability during their formal education can result in an increased application of sustainable methods. Hence, it can be seen that educating students regarding the above said methods can result in an increased sustainability adoption in construction.
2.3. SUSTAINABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION
The society is shaped by the highly educated category of people (Lidgren, Rodhe, and Huisingh, 2006).
Since they have a better know-how of the world, they influence many key decisions from administrative or managerial positions. Most of these decision-makers graduate from universities or Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Hence, educating them about sustainability can lead to the development of sustainable policies in the future (Lidgren et al., 2006). Lidgren et al. (2006) consider that today’s students are tomorrow’s decision makers. However, Lim et al. (2015) suggests that universities and HEIs fall short when including sustainability in courses. As stated before, disadvantages of traditional construction approaches include low resource utilization and increased waste generation. As shown earlier, modern techniques like lean, agile, etc. overcome these disadvantages and are sustainable in many aspects. Lim et al. (2015) says that construction courses fail to include such modern and sustainable techniques leading to lower use in construction processes by professionals. Thus, by
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increasing sustainability education related to construction at HEIs, the overall sustainability implementation can increase.However, research suggests that education in general is very techer dependent. Professors and lecturers at univerities can design and teach courses as per their will ( Lidgren et al., 2006). Hence, there exist many forms of teaching (Wals, 2014). Further, the course structure depends on the teacher’s skillset (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). There exist many more factors that hinder sustainability education. These factors/ challenges can be categorized into 4 categories. These challenges in teaching sustainability can be due to the university’s priorities (organizational factor), lecturer’s personal motives (intent factor), teaching methods or skills (pedagogical) and low existing research (capability factor).These make it challenging to include sustainability in education for many reasons (Lidgren et al., 2006; Sibbel, 2009).
Other than the above stated factors, teaching techniques used also influence sustainability learning.
Research indicates that the use of collaborative and integrative approaches in construction education is necessary for sustainability education (Forsythe et al., 2013). The education of sustainable techniques and other aspects of sustainability needs new and innovative approaches due to the unique characteristics of the construction industry (Grau, Back, Mejia-Aguilar, and Morris, 2012). Further, there is a lack of structure in construction sustainability education. Many construction programmes imbibe end-of-course projects that encompass all the learning which allow students to prove their proficiency. These type of methods are known as prescriptive methods (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015).
Other examples of this method include end of term examinations, assignments, etc. Citing inefficacy of such methods, authors suggest the use of problem-based learning (PBL) where the projects are worked on all along the course (Torres et al., 2019). Such methods are known as descriptive methods (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). 38 out of 63 articles reviewed by Figueiró and Raufflet (2015) promote descriptive teaching practices for better learning and implementation of sustainability. These methods also include case studies, community projects, etc. According to Figueiró and Raufflet (2015), use of descriptive methods provides a better application of gathered knowledge. However, they recommend using a combination of prescriptive and descriptive approaches when teaching certain methods and concepts to provide the necessary learning. Construction teachers and professors are experts at teaching traditional construction concepts (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). As stated before, construction sustainability syllabus is very unstructured (Grau et al., 2012). Since construction sustainability curriculum is not as structured as traditional construction topics, teachers often lack training to teach such unstructured topics (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015; Grau et al., 2012). Hence, teachers are unable to teach the essence of sustainability and the benefits of either prescriptive or descriptive techniques are not realized (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). As a result, students do not possess expertise when employing any sustainable methods or concepts (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015).
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Further discussing the barriers to sustainability, Lidgren et al. (2006) and Figueiró and Raufflet (2015) find similar barriers. However, they define the barriers in different ways. Lidgren et al. (2006) lists barriers to sustainability education as lack of motivation, lack of direction and lack of abilities. Based on their explanations, these barriers essentially comprise of organizational challenges, challenges of capability, and pedagogy as stated by Figueiró and Raufflet (2015). Lack of incentives and financial resources leads to low motivation from an organizational perspective (Sibbel, 2009). Teachers are often reluctant to change an existing course just to add sustainability in the absence of incentives or personal interest (Lidgren et al., 2006). Further, mixed views about sustainability benefits from new methods (Torres et al., 2019) demotes research in these fields (Forsythe et al., 2013). In such cases, professors do not possess enough expertise to teach their students. Professors often learn sustainability themselves and then teach it to their class, often doing both at the same time (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). This represents a lack in capabilities. Further, educating sustainability needs an innovative approach as well as a change from teacher-centered approach to a student-centered approach (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). These student-centered approaches can be related to the aforementioned descriptive approaches.Pedagogical challenges represent such problems. Finally, necessity to add sustainability arises from a demand. This demand can be linked to prospective employers, requirement by the administration to include sustainability and demand from the students or teachers. According to Damanpour and Gopalakrishnan (1998) and Kratochwill (2005), administrative and technical departments in technical organizations play a crucial role in adoption of change and promoting innovation. Similarly, the teaching and administrative sections and their inter-relation influence the adoption of change pertaining to education of new methods and promoting innovations in an HEI.
Even though there exist many challenges to educating sustainability, Sweden was one of the pioneers in sustainability. The Stockholm Declaration of 1972 promoted sustainability education. But, existing sustainability research over-emphasizes environmental issues and neglects social and economic aspects (Lim et al., 2015). Hence, it is necessary to include political, and economic aspects when discussing sustainability (Grodach, 2011). Wals (2014) suggests that changing the syllabi or the course orientation is necessary to include all the aspects of sustainability in education curriculum. However, he further states that the framework upon which the courses are designed needs to be changed before changing the curriculum. In other words, it is essential to change the attitude towards educating sustainability.
Rather than just adding sustainability, courses need to be designed with a focus on sustainability considerations. The first steps can be formulation of sustainable development goals which associate well with the education. In this way, sustainability priorities can be set prior to course design. Such a method can allow for political, social, technological and environmental aspects of sustainability to be included in the studies (Wals, 2014). Higher education institutions are prominent stakeholders in the development of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which were adopted in 2015 with a 30 year agenda with seventeen goals and 169 targets on global social, economic and
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environmental priorities (Goodall and Moore, 2019). While national governments have been actively involved in sustainability, the corporate and education sectors have begun contributing to sustainability efforts recently (Goodall and Moore, 2019). Key competencies to achieve these goals, including strategic and subject-specific competencies and action skills, are developed through case and project- based learning as they simulate the real work problems (Heiskanen, Thidell, and Rodhe, 2016).The complexity in attaining sustainability arises due to elusive nature of problems and absence of definitive solutions (Heiskanen et al., 2016). Solutions and actions towards sustainability include a range of complexities ranging from avoiding single use plastic to adoption of new ideologies and philosophies (Jankowska, 2014). The awareness and application of such ‘sustainability’ can be ambiguous and opposing statements by Babalola et al. (2018), Djokoto et al. (2014) and Lim et al.
(2015) show further complications. While Lim et al. (2015) states that HEIs fall short at including sustainability in general, Babalola et al., (2018) and Djokoto et al. (2014) suggest that the competence in sustainable construction practices is well developed among the professionals. Further, sustainability education mainly focuses on the economic and environmental aspects in sustainability (Fliedner, 2008).
Due to the narrow understanding and application of sustainability, current sustainability education does not factor-in all the aspects of sustainability and hence, it does not provide solutions to real world problems (Lim et al., 2015). To improve sustainability inculcation in students, education programmes need to include background knowledge, policies and regulations, environmental issues, social issues, economic issues as well as technology and innovation along with cost, quality and time issues (Lim et al., 2015). Students can dive deep into these aspects with new management and educational methods, but the implementation of such methods depends on the aims and objectives of the university and the programme (Forsythe et al., 2013; Torres et al., 2019). On being educated on the above aspects, the students can help innovate, implement and adopt sustainable changes on a global scale by focusing on local demands and possible actions (Heiskanen et al., 2016). Such education is hindered as the research on aspects focusing on construction management (CM) and its relation to sustainability is low (Grau et al., 2012). Another factor, the work environment, plays a significant role in the application of new methods (Grau et al., 2012). New methods increases the participation on an organizational level, leading to more marketable returns through better understanding of the subjects and the domain (Torres et al., 2019). In spite of these favorable conditions, there exists little change in syllabi when sustainability topics are concerned (Lim et al., 2015).
With the plan to improve the teaching, learning and research to contribute to the global sustainability goals, the Yale University started the program to assess connection between scholarly activities at the university and the SDGs (Goodall and Moore, 2019). This project work at the Yale university comprises of two phases- firstly, internally assessing the relation between the education and research and the SDGs, and secondly, development of a program encompassing the broader role of HEIs taking the SDG leap forward (Goodall and Moore, 2019). From the first part, Goodall and Moore, (2019)
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compared the ongoing research at various facilities to evaluate their contribution towards attaining sustainable development. They found that SDG 3 had the highest contribution at 64%. Presence of a significantly large medical faculty caused a major part of all the research to contribute to SDG 3.Further, peace and justice and quality education placed second and third respectively (Goodall and Moore, 2019). Goodall and Moore (2019) state that such an outcome is not optimal since the other SDGs are not widely researched. Since many aspects of sustainability are not researched, there is less knowledge regarding sustainability (Goodall and Moore, 2019). Thus, without research there is no knowledge. Hence, lecturers and professors cannot have expertise regarding sustainability. This corresponds well with Figueiró and Raufflet (2015) as they state that professors often do not possess the expertise to teach sustainability. Further, universities have competing priorities and a typical university structure does not promote work towards SDGs (Goodall and Moore, 2019). A similar observation is stated by Lidgren et al. (2006) that universities are moving towards revenue generation and monetary independence from their governments. In short, much of the research contributing to sustainability is single-disciplinary. Since sustainability application and research is multi-disciplinary, research regarding sustainability in many activities or processes is low. This causes low knowledge regarding sustainability among educators making sustainability education challenging.
Fig. 2. Distribution of research with connections to SDG at Yale (Goodall and Moore, 2019, p.95) The professionals in the field of construction need to have deep knowledge of the concepts and processes that can lead the way to sustainability which can be gained via the means of sustainability education (Lim et al., 2015). However, HEIs are not dedicated to prepare future professionals to promote and develop sustainable practices (Goodall and Moore, 2019; Lim et al., 2015). The HEIs need to set examples of sustainable construction like green educational buildings and premises like ones by Mirvac School of Sustainable Development, Bond University along with advancing the curriculum to
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fit the sustainability goals (Lim et al., 2015). Universities like Montash University have included CSR- /sustainability-related subjects in disciplines like management even without the presence of particular faculty for the same (Stubbs and Schapper, 2011). Empirical studies like Babalola et al. (2018), Djokoto et al. (2014), Salem et al. (2006), S. Sarhan and Fox (2013), etc. show that problems faced by construction companies in managing the projects are common to many countries. Methods like building information modelling (BIM), agile project management (APM), can improve the overall learning (Forsythe et al., 2013) and also develop competence of management professionals to eradicate sustainability barriers and become sustainable (Grau et al., 2012). However, research in the field of sustainability and management is trailing far behind due to ignorance of researchers about problems faced in diverse organizational and geographical contexts (Heiskanen et al., 2016). Most authors and researchers teaching sustainability are often experts in their field with real life experience from previous organization(s) (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). In their review, Figueiró and Raufflet (2015) found that 37 out of 63 articles contain sustainability studies in a particular organizational context at a particular geographical location. Hence, they suggest that current sustainability research fails to provide solutions in broad organizational and geographical contexts. Further, only by having sustainability as the core aim of education, can critical aspects of sustainability like knowledge, skills and attitudes be inculcated in students (Stubbs and Schapper, 2011; Bowser, Gretzel, Davis, and Brown, 2014). Current research does not solve problems to sustainability in a broad context and as stated before, educators have very little knowledge regarding what to teach and how to teach. Due to an interplay of all these problems, the universities are slow to adopt changes and include sustainability in their construction curricula.Hence, more research is needed to transform the programmes and improve sustainability learning (Stubbs and Schapper, 2011).
2.4. SUMMARY OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The literature review shows the importance of sustainability in construction industry. There have been many efforts to address sustainability concerns covering a wide range of solutions. These solutions contribute to different aspects of sustainability (Jankowska, 2014; Lim et al., 2015). Further, reasons to achieve sustainability range from climate impact (Lim et al., 2015; Polat and Ballard, 2004) to cost and time overruns (Loganathan et al., 2017; Polat and Ballard, 2004). This shows that sustainability concerns are organization dependent and efforts towards sustainability depend on an organization’s interests. However, Eriksson (2010) suggests that current sustainability solutions lack practicality to be feasible for use in industrial applications. Another method to improve sustainability in practice is through educating the professionals regarding sustainability research (Lim et al., 2015).
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There has been a large shift in the need for sustainability in the construction industry and we need to focus on the barriers for the same (Osmani and Gordon, 2012; Partkinson and Cooke, 2012). These barriers can be can be removed by employing sustainable methods (Eriksson, 2010; Glasser and Devereaux, 2019). All authors confirm the need to adopt sustainable methods to add sustainability to construction practices. However, existing research does not converge on the feasibility of employing sustainable methods. Also, research does not converge on the barrier to employ sustainable methods.Most policymakers and high-ranking officials are highly educated and graduate from universities.
Given the low degree of awareness regarding sustainability among these professionals, the HEIs could pose as a barrier to sustainable construction practice (Lim et al., 2015). Hence, it is needed to educate the students at HEIs about applying the mentioned techniques as well as including sustainability in all parts of construction processes (Forsythe et al., 2013; Grau et al., 2012). This can be done in many ways like interdisciplinary learning, improving capability and pedagogy while teaching sustainability (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015). Such efforts can promote research on sustainability and sustainability education (Lidgren et al., 2006) providing more solutions to the elusive and complex problems regarding sustainability (Forsythe et al., 2013; Grau et al., 2012; Heiskanen et al., 2016; Lim et al., 2015).
Sustainability evaluation of construction education programmes show that construction curriculum lacks sustainability topics (Lim et al., 2015). This shows that education institutions are either reluctant to teach sustainability or find it challenging to teach sustainability along with core subjects. However, research indicates that there exist many challenges to sustainability education. These include organizational challenges, personal challenges, pedagogical challenges and challenges due to research (Figueiró and Raufflet, 2015; Lidgren et al., 2006). Of these, this research addresses only pedagogical challenges and challenges due to research. These challenges are affected by many other factors and a pattern regarding their interplay can be found in the studies. For example, lack of sustainability research leads to low knowledge regarding sustainability among teachers. Thus, a lack of research is a factor affecting pedagogical challenges.
Based on the above, this research was conducted using two sets of data. The first data set includes sustainability evaluation of all the construction programmes in Sweden and the second consists of structured interviews. The methodology followed in this research is discussed in the following section.
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3. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK
This chapter gives a detailed information on the process with which the research was conducted.
3.1. OVERVIEW
This research aims at evaluating sustainability education in Swedish construction education curricula.
Further, this research aims to analyze the reasons for the findings of the sustainability evaluations. The findings by Goodall and Moore (2019) and Lim et al. (2015) regarding sustainability education in construction give an insight into the sustainability topics covered in construction education. However, it is necessary to investigate which aspects of sustainability are addressed in Swedish construction education programmes. Hence, this research evaluates all courses in all construction programmes in Sweden based on a method followed by Goodall and Moore (2019). To evaluate the courses, the aims, and outcomes of all the courses were compared to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The findings of the course evaluation indicated major sustainability education on technological and environmental aspects along with a little focus on social sustainability. Research suggests that there exist many challenges to sustainability education. This research focuses on two of the challenges- pedagogical challenges and challenges to research. To investigate the factors affecting these challenges, four programme directors from three Swedish universities were interviewed. Thereafter, findings of both, sustainability evaluation and the interviews were then analyzed based on the reviewed literature.
The following section represents the methodology of this research in detail.
3.1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This thesis follows a blend of qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data for sustainability evaluation of courses is collected from HEI websites. Such data is qualitative in nature. Using content analysis, the data is converted to quantitative data through content analysis. Thereafter, the data is quantitatively analyzed. Such a method is ideal to analyze large amounts of qualitative data (Bryman and Bell, 2015).
The course evaluations are compared to sustainability findings by Goodall and Moore (2019) and Lim et al. (2015). The findings of the sustainability evaluation suggested low education on social and political sustainability. To investigate the challenges to educating social and political sustainability, data is collected through interviews. The interviews were completely structured due to the niche nature of the questions. However, clarifications were asked in case there were misunderstandings between the interviewer and the interviewee. Structured interviews are mainly used in quantitative research, but they
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can also be applied in qualitative research if appropriate (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Further, Bryman and Bell (2015) suggest that interviews form an important method for qualitative data analysis. In this research, the interviews allowed to gain a deeper understanding of factors affecting sustainability education and to show an interconnected web of effects of the factors. The interviews were related to pedagogical challenges and challenges due to lack of research when teaching sustainability. The interviewees were chosen from different backgrounds, experiences, and universities to promote diversity in data. The responses collected in the interviews are affected by the interviewee’s perspectives and hence, the responses can be biased. The author of this research collected data from four interviews.Details of the interviews and interviewees are discussed in the data collection section in this chapter.
3.2. RESEARCH APPROACH
This research follows a deductive approach. Reviewed research indicated that construction education does not include social and political sustainability. Sustainability evaluations of construction curricula to identify a pattern in sustainability leaning based on UN SDGs. This research further investigates few challenges in sustainability education and factors affecting these challenges. Literature suggests many challenges to sustainability education. Based on literature, this research considers that research and pedagogical methods used in all construction programmes are similar if not the same. Further, literature suggests that similar pedagogical challenges and challenges due to sustainability research can be found in many organizations. Interviews focused on investigating these challenges and the factors affecting these challenges. This research hypothesizes that all the universities or HEIs face the same challenges due to teaching methods and sustainability research when educating sustainability in construction programmes. The factors affecting the sustainability challenges shed light on the root cause of these challenges. Further, an interplay emerges from this research which is shown in chapter 5.
3.3. DATA COLLECTION
3.3.1. Sustainability Evaluation Of Syllabi
Lim et al. (2015) shows that course aims, and outcomes can be used in sustainability evaluations. They follow that course aims, and outcomes show all the learning of a student. This learning also includes sustainability learning. Further, Goodall and Moore (2019) show the use of UN SDGs when categorizing sustainability evaluations. They suggest that UN SDGs can be used as a guide to identify and analyze sustainability efforts. This research combines both Lim et al. (2015), and Goodall and Moore (2019). To evaluate sustainability education in construction programmes at HEIs in Sweden,
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this research collects data regarding aims and outcomes of courses in construction programmes. This data is collected from the websites of Swedish HEIs. Bryman and Bell (2015) suggest that websites are an accepted source of data and can be used to gather data for qualitative research. They also suggest examples of sustainability research and corporate social responsibility (CSR) research which use websites as sources of data. The data from courses is coded and recorded using content analysis which is described below.Content analysis is a method to analyze verbal, written or other forms of data and can be used inductively or deductively (Elo and Kyngäs, 2008). Since this method offers flexibility in research design and type of data (Elo and Kyngäs, 2008), it was found appropriate to code university data without affecting the research design.
Content analysis can be applied in 2 ways- summative and directed (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). The directed approach is used for descriptive clarification of a theory or research, whereas the summative approach allows for research involving exploration and understanding of contexts (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005). This section of data collection aims at investigating the aspects of sustainability in construction that are addressed in construction curricula in Sweden. Since investigation of sustainability is an example of exploratory research, summative approach to content analysis needs to be applied. However, Elo and Kyngäs (2008), and Hsieh and Shannon (2005) suggest the use of directed content analysis when a research is guided by existing literature. Since this research is guided by previous research, directed approach to content analysis is applied even though summative approach is recommended for exploratory research.
As per the directed (or inductive content analysis) approach the process begins with organizing phase.
This phase begins with open coding or coding without a certain structure (Elo and Kyngäs, 2008)e. But, the data categories were based on the research by Lim et al. (2015) and hence, the coding sheets and categories were prepared prior to data collection as shown by Lim et al. (2015). An example of the coding sheet is presented below in figure 3. This eliminated the need for open coding in this research.
In this way, qualitative data from university websites was converted to quantitative data through content analysis based on the directed approach as suggested by Elo and Kyngäs (2008).
However, this research amended the method by Elo and Kyngäs (2008) by skipping the open coding stage (see fig. 3) because the code categories were known and laid out prior to collection. As stated earlier, the coding categories were based on Lim et al. (2015). Having Lim et al. (2015) as a reference, the various SDGs were arranged in a coding sheet on MS-Excel. The outcome of this step was a table (or sheet) as shown in figure 3. After grouping and table creation, the data from the universities was collected. A total of sixteen universities were found to have programmes in the construction and architecture fields. Out of these, one university (Lund University) was filtered out due to absence of course information. In order to confirm, corresponding personnel were contacted at the university. In
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return, the author received alternate links to view the aims and outcomes of the included courses. It was found that the alternate links also did not provide any information and hence, Lund University was omitted from the data collection process. A total of 28 programmes were found in the remaining fifteen universities. These programmes included 670 courses. Hence, a total of 670 entries comprising of data from each individual course were included in the analysis. In any case, available data provides a very substantial database with the courses covering every possible subject in the field of architecture and construction.Below is an example of content analysis being used to code the course Sustainable Buildings - Concept, Design, Construction and Operation at KTH royal institute of technology. In the outcomes section, the course specifies ‘sustainable building design’. Since sustainable building design does not directly relate to any SDG, this research cannot consider it as any instance of sustainability education. Further, the outcomes also include ‘low resource utilization, low emissions and small environmental footprint’.
These relate directly to three instances of SDG 12 (responsible consumption and production) inclusion.
But three instances of the same SDG are not recorded individually as the same can be stated using fewer or larger number of words. In this way, this research only considers the essence rather than play of words. Thus, we get one instance of SDG 12 inclusion. In this way, the data is categorized to represent presence or absence of sustainability education, education on ecofriendly processes and new management techniques. As seen above, this research does not search for any keywords because the language used varies with every course and programme. Hence, this research only looks for the underlying meaning of very aim and outcome. On coding each of the courses based on the example stated above, the SDG scores were added up for both, the aims, and the outcomes. An example of the coding sheet is shown below. For the purpose of simplicity in documentation and observation, universities and programmes were assigned codes. You can find the codes and respective names in Appendix 4.
Fig 3. Example of coding sheet.
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From the left to the right, we start with the university code and the programme code followed by the link to the course and the course name. Status shows if the course was mandatory, elective, or vocational. The credits represent the ECTS scores for each of the courses; ECTS credits range between 3- 60 among courses and theses. The numbers 1 – 17 represent the seventeen United Nations SDGs whose scores are summed up in the end per course. These are again added up for a whole programme.Such a process enables this research to compare the programmes based on their sustainability inclusion.
The number ‘1’ in the cells shows that the course in consideration includes the SDG same as the column number in the course aims; it represents occurrences of individual SDG inclusion. A single SDG was included only once per course despite frequent descriptions of the same in the course details. The example of a course in KTH university explains the same. It is essential to note that the occurrences only prove the presence of education related to the SDGs but not the extent to which they are executed.
The same process was repeated for the research outcomes.
As stated earlier, the course and programme details were categorically collected from the university websites and programme webpages. The programmes were categorized based on the level of education and the language of teaching. The programme categories are shown in the table below.
PROGRAMME CATEGORY PERIOD (in years) ECTS CREDITS
BSc. 3 180
MSc. 1 or 2 60 or 120
BSc. MSc. (double degree) 5 300
Table- 1. Categories of programmes
All the programmes included a 15 or 30 ECTS bachelor or master level thesis in their last study period which included their overall learning and its application.
Each of the programmes was then searched for the included courses list for details like status (mandatory, elective, mandatory elective and vocational), language of instruction, and credits.
Mandatory courses are the courses which need to be studied to complete the programme. There exists no form of choice to skip these courses. An example of a mandatory course can be the thesis or degree project. Elective courses are the ones in which a student can choose between a certain number of courses without many restrictions. Mandatory electives are slightly different. Suppose there are four courses- A, B, C, D. If a student has to choose any two of the four, then these may qualify as electives. But if a student has to choose one between A and B and another between C and D, such courses qualify as mandatory electives. It is essential to notice the aforementioned restrictions to choose. In both the cases the student will study only two courses. Thus, mandatory elective courses represent a combination of mandatory courses and elective courses. Vocational courses offer an additional merit for studying. They represent a student’s interest in learning but do not contribute to the degree or the programme in any form. Such courses can be considered as extra learning. Internships can be considered as voluntary if
