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Purpose: The study of sustainability within universities is recognized as essential for debates and research; in the long term, the "sustainable university" concepts can contribute to sustainability from a larger perspective. This study aims to propose a conceptual model for evaluating the students' sustainability considering their interactions with the university and the environment. The proposed model is titled Sunshine model. It is applied to students of the La Salle University, Peru. Design/methodology/approach: The model combines academic performance, happiness and the ecological footprint to quantify university students' sustainability. A structured questionnaire survey was elaborated and applied to get the raw data that feeds the three methods. The students' average grades evaluate academic performance. Happiness is quantified by the happiness index method, and the ecological footprint is measured by the demand for food, paper, electricity, transport and built-up areas. Results are evaluated under both approaches, overall group performance and clusters. Findings: The proposed model avoids misleading interpretations of a single indicator or discussions on sustainability that lack a conceptual model, bringing robustness in assessing students' sustainability in universities. To have a low ecological footprint, the student needs to need up to 1 planet for their lifestyle, be considered happy with at least 0.8 (of 1) for happiness index, and have good academic performance with at least a grade of 7 (of 10) in their course. Regarding the case study, La Salle students show a high academic grade degree of 7, a high level for happiness index of 0.8 and low performance for ecological footprint by demanding 1.8 Earth planets, resulting in an "environmentally distracted" overall classification for students with 2019 data. From a cluster approach, 81% of evaluated students (n = 603) have low performance for ecological footprint, whereas 31% have low performance for indicators of recreational activities of happiness. Changing lifestyles and making more recreational activities available play crucial roles in achieving higher sustainability for the La Salle students. Research limitations/implications: The happiness assessment questionnaire can be subject to criticism, as it was created as a specific method for this type of audience based on existing questionnaires in the literature. Although it can be seen as an important approach for diagnoses, the proposed model does not consider the cause–effect aspect. The decision-maker must consider the sociocultural aspects before implementing plan actions. Practical implications: University managers can better understand why university students have high or low sustainability performance and provide more effective actions toward higher levels of students' sustainability. Originality/value: The proposed model, Sunshine model, overcomes the single-criteria existing tools that access the sustainability of universities. Rather than focusing on university infrastructure, the proposed model focuses on the students and their relationship with the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The study of sustainability within universities is recognized as essential for debates and research; in the long term, the "sustainable university" concepts can contribute to sustainability from a larger perspective. This study aims to propose a conceptual model for evaluating the students' sustainability considering their interactions with the university and the environment. The proposed model is titled Sunshine model. It is applied to students of the La Salle University, Peru. Design/methodology/approach: The model combines academic performance, happiness and the ecological footprint to quantify university students' sustainability. A structured questionnaire survey was elaborated and applied to get the raw data that feeds the three methods. The students' average grades evaluate academic performance. Happiness is quantified by the happiness index method, and the ecological footprint is measured by the demand for food, paper, electricity, transport and built-up areas. Results are evaluated under both approaches, overall group performance and clusters. Findings: The proposed model avoids misleading interpretations of a single indicator or discussions on sustainability that lack a conceptual model, bringing robustness in assessing students' sustainability in universities. To have a low ecological footprint, the student needs to need up to 1 planet for their lifestyle, be considered happy with at least 0.8 (of 1) for happiness index, and have good academic performance with at least a grade of 7 (of 10) in their course. Regarding the case study, La Salle students show a high academic grade degree of 7, a high level for happiness index of 0.8 and low performance for ecological footprint by demanding 1.8 Earth planets, resulting in an "environmentally distracted" overall classification for students with 2019 data. From a cluster approach, 81% of evaluated students (n = 603) have low performance for ecological footprint, whereas 31% have low performance for indicators of recreational activities of happiness. Changing lifestyles and making more recreational activities available play crucial roles in achieving higher sustainability for the La Salle students. Research limitations/implications: The happiness assessment questionnaire can be subject to criticism, as it was created as a specific method for this type of audience based on existing questionnaires in the literature. Although it can be seen as an important approach for diagnoses, the proposed model does not consider the cause–effect aspect. The decision-maker must consider the sociocultural aspects before implementing plan actions. Practical implications: University managers can better understand why university students have high or low sustainability performance and provide more effective actions toward higher levels of students' sustainability. Originality/value: The proposed model, Sunshine model, overcomes the single-criteria existing tools that access the sustainability of universities. Rather than focusing on university infrastructure, the proposed model focuses on the students and their relationship with the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Environmental aspects have been acknowledged as an important issue in decision making at any field during the last two decades. There are several available methodologies able to assess the environmental burden, among which the Ecological Footprint has been widely used due to its easy-to-understand final indicator. However, its theoretical base has been target of some criticisms about the inadequate representation of the sustainability concept by its final indicator. In a parallel way, efforts have been made to use the theoretical strength of the Emergy Accounting to obtain an index similar to that supplied by the Ecological Footprint. Focusing on these aspects, this work assesses the support area (SA) index for Brazilian sugarcane and American corn crop through four different approaches: Embodied Energy Analysis (SAEE), Ecological Footprint (SAEF), Renewable Empower Density (SAR), and Emergy Net Primary Productivity (SANPP). Results indicate that the load on environment varies accordingly to the methodology considered for its calculation, in which emergy approach showed the higher values. Focusing on crops comparison, the load by producing both crops are similar with an average of 0.04ha obtained by SAEE, 1.86ha by SAEF, 4.24ha by SAR, and 4.32ha by SANPP. Discussion indicates that support area calculated using Emergy Accounting is more eligible to represent the load on the environment due to its global scale view. Nevertheless, each methodology has its contribution depending of the study objectives, but it is important to consider the real meaning and the scope of each one. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Society needs urgently good tools to understand the biosphere dynamics, become aware of Earth''s biophysical limits and make appraisals of environmental performance of human dominated systems. In this context, the Ecological Footprint (EF) was suggested as one of the most important tools. But, according to calculations based on Emergy Analysis, the indicators of EF could underestimate the problem of human carrying support. EF does not consider the work of untouched nature in productivity and ecosystems services. In order to improve the EF results, the present study suggests: (a) to include the ecosystems not considered in conventional EF i.e. tundra, deserts and areas covered by ice; (b) to consider the value of Net Primary Production (NPP) in Emergy units (seJm−2 year−1) as the base for the calculation of Equivalent Factors (EQF); (c) to account for the consumption of fossil energy used in collection, treatment and distribution of water for domestic use, for this the carbon emissions data (in tonCm−3 of water) were used. Introducing these changes to the conventional EF calculation and considering the Peruvian economy (in 2004) as the study case, the Biocapacity obtained was 14.31ghacapita−1 and the footprint was 6.68ghacapita−1. These values mean that Peru can support 2.14 times its population if the current life style is maintained, as opposed to the 4.0 times ratio obtained with a conventional EF calculation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]