On the Way to Intercollegiate Campus: Green Promises and Real Ecological Student Practices

Abstract

The article discusses the issues of creating intercollegiate campuses and the gap between the statements about the environmental sustainability of projects and the environmental awareness and behavior of their future users. The authors focus on the environmental practices of students and the assessment of the level of awareness of environmental problems. Data collection and analysis was carried out on the basis of qualitative methods: semi-structured interviews with students of Tyumen State University, 58 persons, the data were analyzed by thematic and axial coding. According to the results of the study, it was revealed that with a high level of awareness of students about environmental aspects, environmental practices are poorly represented in their daily experience and have not become sustainable eco-habits. Informants noted the lack of necessary infrastructure at the university as the main barrier to environmental behavior. In the presence of environmental-oriented training courses, social networks remain the main channel for informing about environmental initiatives of the university. The authors have proposed recommendations for the ecologization of the university.

Keywords

• intercollegiate campus
• residential college
• green campus
• sustainability
• sustainable development
• environmental behavior
• pro-ecological practices
• students