Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Department of Architecture, Khorasan Institute of Higher Education, Mashhad, Iran
2 Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Abstract
Today, the focus on the sustainability issue in universities has become of significance considering the climatic and environmental issues. Therefore, universities are moving toward uniting the sustainability methods in their systems. Currently, many universities in Iran are performing essential activities in relation to environmental issues. This study is to determine the share of universities in sustainability quantitatively, and then it analyzes their activities. This research evaluates their activities in two steps based on the clustering and the efficiency of their performance. In the first step, the universities are grouped into homogenous clusters based on hierarchical clustering method with regards to their activities in sustainability area. Following that, the Comparative Table is used to calculate the gained percentage in each index based on the mean of the scores of each group using the data of the year 2021. This is done to have a better understanding of the performance of each cluster and the universities priorities for becoming greener and more successful in green-metric system. By evaluating the productivity and the efficiency of the universities, this study represents the most sustainable universities in group one (as the highly sustainable) and group two (as moderately sustainable) which have achieved the maximum grade in energy, transportation, research and instructive areas. These results also show that environmental variables (including water management, waste and infrastructure management) need to be taken into account by universities.
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