Studying the Work of a Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating Metric Within Two Canadian Universities

• In Event: 70.052 - Researching Policies and Programs: Critical Analysis of Assessments and Evaluation Measures

Abstract

This paper offers a series of reflections on the work of sustainability assessment in Higher Education. It focuses on two universities in Ontario, Canada, and draws from a variety of data sources to narrate how a particular tracking, assessment and rating system (STARS) is enacted within specific conditions, contexts and settings within these universities. Although there is now a relatively extensive dataset of sustainability measurements and ratings of universities, little research exists about the work of these metrics ‘on the ground’ and ‘in practice’. Our study seeks contextualized analyses of possibilities (and weaknesses) that STARS holds as an actor of/for change, and concludes with what it might mean to live well with such systems.

Authors

• Steve J. Alsop, York University

• David A. Greenwood, Lakehead University

• Philip Vaughter, York University, Canada

• Ana Maria Martinez, York University

• Christopher Matthew Richards-Bentley, York University