Towards sustainable campus environment: case study of UTM campus Johor Bahru

Abstract

There are many important criteria that should be taken into consideration to make a sustainable campus environment. Among them are bringing ideas together with consumers, designing spaces that are not only just for the facility, balancing flexibility and control on campus, enhancing the relationship with the environment, planting of plants and reducing traffic jams of vehicles. This paper highlights some of the environmental problems found in the campus mainly at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Johor Bahru Malaysia. These include vehicle problems, not enough outdoor areas for students to do work and unfriendly pedestrian walkways With the recent government calls to conserve energy and to manage buildings together with their surrounding context to be more sustainable, it has led the top management in UTM to outline a sustainability campus policy since the year 2010. Various strategies have been established and implemented to improve the quality of student life on campus such as encouraging students to cycle or walk to their respective faculties and promoting a healthy and active lifestyle within a secure environment.