Determining the Level of Environmental Sustainability Practices at Campus Dormitories Using Green Indicators

Environmental pollution and degradation at university campuses occurred due to various daily activities by the residents. The provision of support services in the residential and dormitory areas in the form of energy and materials consumption are growing into concerns nowadays. In this study, indicators of environmental sustainability were developed to identify the level of sustainability at dormitory areas. The indicators should be able to convey information easily without losing too much information or creating too much distortion. There are numerous aspects that need to be considered when discussing about environmental sustainability. In order to achieve the appropriate requirement for green dormitories, various references were used based from their practices locally and internationally. The indicators proposed for this study focused on four main environmental sustainable categories which are solid waste management, water resources management, green office practices and education and awareness. Each dormitory was evaluated using the proposed indicator based on the information provided by the dormitory representatives. The score for each indicator was summed up to determine the performance of each dormitory which reflected their sustainability achievement. With the help from the respondents who represented their dormitories, some points that may be the constraints of practicing the sustainability concepts are suggested. Some suggestions were made to improve the dormitories sustainability level. At the end of this study, all dormitories were ranked in the order of their performance based on the total marks obtained from the indicator calculations. From this study, it shows that KIZ scored the highest by 44 marks while KTHO the lowest with 4 marks. As a conclusion, there is a huge difference in sustainability practices between dormitories since there are different management approaches.

Introducing 'Green indicators' in this paper, it gives a brief definition on a study which indicates the level of green practices that contributed by each dormitory.There are four main aspects of environmental sustainability practices being examined in this study, which are solid waste management, water resources management, green office practices and education and awareness.The indicator will be a guideline to determine the level of environmental sustainability for a university campus that help in improving the sustainability of the dormitories.By using the indicator, all dormitories in UKM will be rated according to their performances and this will urge them to compete among themselves to achieve the highest ranking, thus at the same time, a more sustainable environment for a dormitory will be created.
The main objective of this study is to find an appropriate method that can be used to measure the level of sustainability for a campus dormitory.All dormitories will be evaluated equally based on their practices and the scores will be given according to their performances.

The Importance of an Indicator for Campus Sustainability
The purpose of establishing environmental sustainability indicators is to obtain the information on the current sustainable practices and thus to identify what sort of improvement initiatives required to be provided.Improving the basis for sound decision making, integrating many complex issues while providing simple signals   2012).There are six categories included setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation, and education there are 33 indicators were used to calculate the ranking score in their third version (2012).UI Greenmetric was accepted worldwide and they able to attract 215 institutions in their third year of ranking published.
Next is the ASEAN Green Hotel Standards.There are 11 criteria listed for measuring the green practices, which are as follows: • Environmental policies and actions for hotel operation, • Use green products, • Collaboration with the community and local organizations, • Development of human resources, • Solid waste management, • Efficient energy management, • Efficient use of water, • Air quality management (indoor and outdoor), • Control of noise pollution, • Wastewater treatment and management, • Management and disposal of toxic chemicals.
By considering hotels and dormitories from the same perspective, which is the main responsibility is to keep the residents comfortable and enjoying their stay at the accommodation, some of those criteria for green hotels listed by ASEAN can also be implemented for dormitories.Thus, it is also possible to bring Green Hotel Standards into Green Dormitories Indicators since there are both on the same perspective.Various other green indicators were being examined such as the University of Maryland Progress Report, Handbook on the establishment and implementation of Bandar Lestari, Handbook on the establishment and implementation of Sekolah Lestari and Green Key Eco-Rating Program were also made into reference during the listing of indicators process.
A detailed study of the elements required as the basis for developing the indicators was done to establish the Green Dormitories Indicators.In this step, numerous aspects related to sustainability activities are taken into considerations.However, only the practices that have the potential to be carried out in the dormitories were taken into consideration.Several experienced personnel at the campus dormitories were interviewed to comment on the proposed green indicators for improvement.

Determining the Rating of Campus Dormitories Sustainability
Each dormitory was evaluated with the Green Dormitories Indicators.Dormitory representatives were selected randomly among the administration fellows.A short interview with the representatives was done during the evaluation.They also gave some suggestions on how to improve the indicators evaluation results.Some problems were identified that are likely to be the reasons of low sustainability practices in the dormitories which directly reflects the individual dormitories sustainability level.
Figure 2 shows the locations of the dormitories on UKM Campus which consists of the following dormitories: 1. Kolej

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The Ratings of Campus Dormitories Sustainability
Figure 3 shows the total results extracted from the indicators.It demonstrated that green office practices have the highest score as compared to the other three categories which are solid waste management, water resources management and education and awareness.There are some low scores that may result from lack of environmental sustainability activities organized in UKM which lead to low awareness among the office staff members.Solid waste management category is ranked as the second highest score among them as compared to green office practices.Every dormitory had contributed their scores in this category.This result may contribute from numerous activities done in UKM related to waste management practices in the recent years.Figure 4 shows the ranking for all dormitories.These results reflect their sustainability level as measured using Green Dormitories Indicators.Ibu Zain International Student Hostel (KIZ) had obtained the highest score, which is 44%, while Tun Hussein Onn College is the lowest with only 4%.It seems that the administration practices of an individual dormitory will determine the category that they will be performing the best.This is because KIZ admin aim and focused are in the sustainability aspects while KTHO admin focus area in Reserve Officer Training Unit (ROTU).The rest of others dormitories are at an average score of 10-30%.
Figure 1 sh and its rela