PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE ADVANTAGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND PERFORMANCE THROUGH ISO14001 ACCREDITATION AT UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH

This thesis investigates the level of environmental education in universities following accreditation of ISO14001 Environmental Standard. An extensive literature review was undertaken to justify the arise of environmental education from an Environmental Management System as there is no literature found with direct focus on higher educational institutions. In addition to the findings, an online survey questionnaire was sent to six UK universities and six Japanese universities to be forwarded to their staff and students and gather data for a higher educational environmental awareness evaluation. The survey aimed to produce a thorough comparison between the ISO14001 accredited and not accredited universities and to gather information from the long-standing ISO14001 experiences of Japanese universities. After all, only two ISO14001 accredited universities agreed to participate in the survey: University of Plymouth and University of Glamorgan. The total of 216 responses arrived during the allocated four weeks surveying period. Due to the distributional control at each university the number of contacted persons and therefore the response rates are not known. The results identified improved environmental awareness amongst staff and students at both universities although there is a direct indication of the need for more environmental education. Respondents have identified a number of environmental issues where their involvements are kept to the minimum and no appropriate information is provided. The results also identified that both university invested significant efforts in achieving and maintain their ISO standard, but the majority of the communities of both universities do not know about ISO14001 and therefore not aware of the institutions’ achievement. These findings suggest not only room for improvement in higher educational institutions but these also undermine the overall aims of both universities, receiving more student application through the achievement of ISO14001 accreditationFaculty of Scienc