Towards smart approaches to sustainability on campuses: construction, validation and assessment of a measurement scale

Purpose This study aims to achieve two main objectives: construct and validate a measurement scale of smart approaches to sustainability on campuses and assess how these approaches have been implemented by higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide from a whole-institution perspective. Design/methodology/approach A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods was used, which included interviews and a survey application − the last one involved 947 HEIs’ staff members from 101 different countries worldwide. Findings This study allowed the development of a measurement scale for smart approaches to sustainability on campuses, named the “Smart Sustainable University Scale”, which can be used to assess HEIs stakeholders’ perceptions on the topic by universities across the globe and provide insights on practices that they can adopt. In addition, this study allowed the analysis of the implementation of smart approaches to sustainability in several universities worldwide. It revealed that this topic is still in its early stages within the university context, with numerous opportunities for improvement. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the originality of this study lies in introducing a novel measurement scale and conducting one of the first comprehensive investigations on the subject.