Students’ satisfaction and empowerment of a sustainable university campus

Abstract

AbstractUniversities are crucial in empowering a sustainable campus through the adoption of sustainable development practices (SDP), which are expressed in terms of economic, organizational, environmental, and social dimensions. Previous findings point out that students’ satisfaction ensures universities’ sustainability. Both SDP and students’ satisfaction increasingly rule universities positioning. Nevertheless, research addressing the relationship between universities’ SDP dimensions and students’ satisfaction is limited. Given this gap, this study focuses on this still unexplored relationship, as perceived by 738 full-time students at seven Portuguese universities and their academic satisfaction, using structural equation modeling. The empirical findings reveal that SDP influence students’ satisfaction, mainly through organizational and social dimensions. From the resulting implications, it is worth highlighting that: Empowerment of the sustainable university campus is positively associated with students’ satisfaction; and universities need to be continuously committed to improving particularly the economic and environmental dimensions of SDP.