Institutional determinants of sustainability awareness in higher education: advancing SDG 4.7 through curriculum integration, policy frameworks and campus engagement

Purpose This study aims to examine the impact of institutional mechanisms, including academic curriculum integration, policy frameworks and campus sustainability initiatives, on sustainability awareness among undergraduate students in higher education. Conducted within the context of Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) City Campus, this research contributes to global efforts in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 by promoting education for sustainable development through institutional innovation. It responds to calls for evidence-based practices in sustainability management within higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly in ASEAN contexts. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted using proportionate stratified random sampling among 311 undergraduate students from four faculties, which are the Faculty of Data Science and Computing, Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business, Faculty of Hospitality, Tourism and Wellness and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at UMK City Campus. Validated multi-item instruments were used to measure institutional determinants and sustainability awareness. Data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to evaluate the measurement and structural models, with all significance tests conducted two-tailed. Findings The results show that academic curriculum integration, institutional policy frameworks and campus sustainability initiatives are each significantly associated with students’ sustainability awareness. Among these, curriculum integration recorded the largest coefficient. Peer and community influence did not reach conventional significance (β = 0.12, p = 0.060). The four institutional mechanisms together explained 61% of the variance in sustainability awareness (R² = 0.61), indicating that institutional design accounts for a substantial share of variation in students’ environmental consciousness, although the cross-sectional design does not permit causal inference. Research limitations/implications This study advances institutional theory by showing that the three institutional pillars are not equivalent in their capacity to shape individual cognition: regulative and normative mechanisms, expressed through policy and curriculum, showed clear micro-level penetration, whereas the cultural-cognitive mechanism represented by peer influence did not. Mapping these pillars onto the antecedents of the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) yields a boundary condition for TPB, namely, that the subjective-norm pathway is institutionally contingent rather than universal and should not be expected to operate where the cultural-cognitive pillar is not yet consolidated. This study is based on a single Malaysian university, so the model requires replication across institutions at different stages of sustainability institutionalisation, ideally using longitudinal designs capable of establishing temporal precedence. Practical implications The findings suggest that universities seeking to advance sustainability may benefit from aligning curriculum reform, institutional policies and operational practices to enhance student engagement. Embedding sustainability into academic frameworks and making campus initiatives more visible and participatory may support behavioural change and the institutionalisation of SDG implementation, although this study measures awareness rather than behaviour. Social implications By strengthening sustainability literacy at the undergraduate level, HEIs may contribute to broader societal transitions towards low-carbon, equitable and climate-resilient futures. This study measures awareness rather than behaviour or graduate outcomes, so this contribution is presented as a plausible pathway consistent with the sequence from awareness to intention posited by the TPB and not as an empirically established effect. Establishing it would require longitudinal or behavioural evidence that the present design does not provide. Originality/value This study simultaneously examines four institutional mechanisms against a directly measured student-level outcome to enable the assessment of relative explanatory effects. The findings show that formal institutional mechanisms have greater explanatory influence than informal mechanisms, while peer and community influence does not independently explain sustainability awareness beyond formal institutional structures. By linking the pillars of institutional theory with the antecedents of the TPB, the study explains how institutional structures shape individual sustainability cognition. The ASEAN context, where sustainability institutionalisation remains uneven, provides a relevant setting in which these relationships can be examined rather than constituting the contribution itself.