Application of Knowledge Management for Sustainable Development in Institutions of Higher Education

Abstract

Campus sustainability is an increasingly popular notion for universities around the world in light of increasingly serious global environmental problems. Yet the very concept of “sustainability” itself is a complex, or “wicked”, problem that makes managing this transition complex and difficult. The scope of a sustainable campus could include anything from greening facilities, increasing environmental education, integrating sustainability priorities into purchasing policies, and an endless list of other considerations.

Given the breadth that sustainability could have on a university campus, employing tools to help manage this goal will create more effective and immediate change. One possible tool is Knowledge Management (KM), the practice of “capturing, organizing and storing information” (“Imperial College London,” 2010, para. 25). Specifically, a framework by Allen et al is applied to the sustainability in higher education (SHE) problem to help universities take steps towards creating sustainable campus.