Summary

Can sustainability initiatives support positive economics, or are they necessarily cost-additive? With thousands of colleges and universities across the globe actively pursuing sustainability and carbon-neutrality goals, the question of how to balance institutional sustainability priorities and fiscal responsibility hovers in discussions ranging from utility planning to student programming. Educational institutions often heavily weigh the economics and academics of a potential sustainability project. However, pressing issues with long-term implications, such as climate change and rising operations costs, can make campus sustainability projects an appealing option. Institutions will incorporate the environmental, financial, and social aspects of a decision differently and through different avenues of funding. Examples of measures that institutions of higher education are taking to incorporate sustainability include adaptations of campus infrastructure, operations, and administrative leadership, and those measures necessarily intersect with financial planning and outcomes.

An overview of general models and specific institutional examples of sustainability initiatives in the areas of infrastructure, operations and management, education and community engagement, and administration indicate that sustainability measures, especially for environmental sustainability, can contribute to positive campus economics. This outcome, however, is most likely when decision-making considers both long-term and cross-sectoral impacts to evaluate the true cost–benefit profile as it applies to the institution as a whole.