Policy Development for Initiating Green Universities in Sri Lanka: A Case Study Based on the NSBM Green University

Abstract

The higher educational institutes expand their scope of operational capacities while enhancing the
accountability and sustainability in the terms of environment. Similar to the government conventional
universities, recently oriented private institutes consecutive to develop the strategies and projects
related to green technology. The green campus concept allows operating main functions of the
institute, students and staff to utilize energy and resource in sustainable manner. In this paper
addresses policies that have initiated to use the resource and energy efficient, the problems occurred
during the development of green campus, analyzes based on the impact of the green area to reduce
carbon foot print and possible approaches that can be used from other international Green
Universities. The study selects NSBM Green University as the location. NSBM Green University is
one of the green universities in South Asia and sets an example for the whole South Asia by paving
the way for environmental sustainability. The main objective of the study is to identify the potentials
of NSBM green university under the framework of green technology. On other hand, the investigation
focuses attention on three main scopes namely; reduction of the carbon foot print by expanding the
green area, by introducing eco-friendly power generation units and consisted of waste disposal.
Meanwhile, the study tries to address the policy framework of the NSBM Green University to
promote environmental friendly life style among the university staff and students. The strategies
depict application of efficient technologies, and university resource management policy initiatives.
The research adopts a case study approach to initially and in depth analysis related to the contextual
insights of policy development in the NSBM Green University. The study emerges efficient action
cores of energy and resource utilization; it further saves land, energy, water, material and environment
protection. The study identifies the attributes like demonstrating green buildings, demonstrating
energy efficiency retrofits, demonstrating renewable energy applications, demonstrating energy
saving management and finally introducing energy saving management systems. Besides, study
reveals NSBM University can strive for a positive reputation through the implementation of the green
technology. High level of initiative ideas, sensitive of students for the green campaign and
enforcement of the government to motivate for altering green concepts are synthesized in the study
as the main results. As the conclusion green master plan is cooperated with green education, culture
and activity in the institute.

Keywords: Green university, Policy, Energy