Ecological footprint of research university students: a pilot case study in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Abstract

Ecological footprint (EF) is potential to be applied in universities to assist building management units to coordinate in order to reduce environmental impact and to achieve sustainable resource consumption from its main activities including teaching-learning, research and operations. As many Malaysian universities declare to become sustainability campus, the adoption of ecological footprint in measuring campus sustainability will provide insight and better understanding about the performance of campus sustainability efforts. The main concept of ecological footprint which convert levels of consumption into the amount of land needed, will able to reveal the average student performance and impacts towards the campus. Further, a study is conducted to determine the average ecological footprint level of students in research universities Malaysia considering students formed the majority of the community in a campus. A pilot study has been conducted in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) among students staying in hostel together with staffs from UTM Office of Student Affairs and Alumni (HEMA) and UTM Office of Asset and Development (PHB). Then, Redefining Progress (RP) ecological footprint online calculator is used in computing the ecological footprint of UTM students.