International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education

Social media for environmental sustainability awareness in higher education

Suraya Hamid, Mohamad Taha Ijab, Hidayah Sulaiman, Rina Md. Anwar, Azah Anir Norman,
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Suraya Hamid, Mohamad Taha Ijab, Hidayah Sulaiman, Rina Md. Anwar, Azah Anir Norman, (2017)
"Social media for environmental sustainability awareness in higher education", International Journal of
Sustainability in Higher Education, Vol. 18 Issue: 4, pp.474-491, doi: 10.1108/IJSHE-01-2015-0010
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IJSHE
18,4
474
Received 30 January 2015
Revised 4 March 2016
Accepted 10 March 2016
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International Journal of
Sustainability in Higher Education
Vol. 18 No. 4, 2017
pp. 474-491
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1467-6370
DOI 10.1108/IJSHE-01-2015-0010
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1467-6370.htm
Social media for environmental
sustainability awareness in
higher education
Suraya Hamid and Mohamad Taha Ijab
Department of Information Systems, University of Malaya,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Hidayah Sulaiman and Rina Md. Anwar
College of Information Technology, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang,
Malaysia, and
Azah Anir Norman
Department of Information Systems, University of Malaya,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose – The explosion of social media use such as Facebook among higher education students is deemed
to have great potential in widely disseminating environmental sustainability awareness. The paper aims to
capture, summarise, synthesise and comment on the role of social media to garner interest of students and staff
on environmental sustainability issues.
Design/methodology/approach – Systematic literature review technique is adopted, and three selected
online databases were searched for relevant papers for review. Specific data were extracted from each paper,
and the discussion section was based on the developed research questions.
Findings – Higher education needs to fully leverage the ubiquity of social media to extend how environmental
sustainability is viewed by the students and staff. Sustainability practices conducted at the university level such as
recycling, reduction of electricity and water consumptions and paper reduction in classroom and used to engage
students on environmental matters. For staff, social media can be leveraged as to convey the university policy and
assist in their quest to become full-fledged green universities.
Research limitations/implications – Some of the limitations of this research include the lack of keyword
search using synonyms or related terms equivalent to the term “awareness”, lack of forward and backward
searches, and the papers were searched until end of 2013 only. Future research needs to take advantage of the
current limitations to investigate this topic and be empirically supported by theories using quantitative, qualitative
or mixed-method-based research. Future studies could also develop relevant frameworks to propose an effective use
of social media for creating environmental sustainability awareness in higher education.
Practical implications – Propagations of environmental sustainability awareness in higher education
would be more effective with the use of social media.
Social implications – In principle, the increase of environmental awareness level would increase the
students’ good behavioural conduct on environmental sustainability.
Originality/value – While the broad topic of environmental sustainability in higher education is
widely discussed, the role of social media in shaping environmental sustainability awareness is still
under researched. This situation provides a significant potential for exploration by sustainability
researchers to craft their investigation on the effective role of social media in creating environmental
awareness in higher education.
Keywords Higher education, Literature review, Social media, Awareness,
Environmental sustainability
Paper type Literature review
This research was financially supported by the University of Malaya under research grant CG051-2013.
 Introduction Social media
Environmental sustainability awareness is one of the prerequisites for environmental
attitude and behavioural change in caring for the natural environment in the face of
impeding climate change and global warming. Higher education across the globe holds the
responsibility for shaping students and staff in terms of environmental awareness and
changing the attitude of future generations towards the importance of preserving the natural
environment. In the current context of higher education, various faculty members are
playing an active role in creating environmental sustainability awareness among the
475
university students, such that any development and environmental degradation attributed
to universities through their daily business activities is being minimised. Universities have
the potential for educating the younger generations, particularly students towards
environmental sustainability through their education system, curriculum, syllabus,
practices and Green University vision. Towards this end, this paper posits that social media
can be repurposed as a tool to convey environmental sustainability awareness to students
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and staff in higher education.

In terms of creating awareness for environmental sustainability, two perspectives
were identified in relation to behavioural change. The first perspective assumes that
changes in behaviour are brought about by increasing public knowledge through raising
awareness regarding an issue and by fostering an appropriate attitude. The second
perspective proposes that individuals systematically review their choices and then act in
their economic self-interest without the need to have enough knowledge and awareness
in the first place (McKenzie-Mohr, 2000). While it is acknowledged that the second
perspective through programmes, such as community-based social marketing
(McKenzie-Mohr, 2000), is quite effective at fostering sustainable behaviour, this
research is in line with the first perspective. A number of theoretical and empirical
studies have indeed confirmed that behavioural change may indeed be caused by
activities with the objective of raising awareness. Theoretical studies, such as the
transtheoretical model (Prochaska and Velicer, 1997; Horwath, 1999; Prochaska et al.,
1994) and empirical research by Swaim et al. (2014) and Halady and Rao (2010), have
confirmed our conjecture that increasing environmental sustainability awareness is one
of the keys for behavioural change.
Pertaining to the use of social media, the use of such technology is attributed to its
popularity and usefulness (Redecker, 2009; Schroeder et al., 2010; Hamid et al., 2014). In
recent years, social media has been widely used in the social space to support human
social interaction and collaboration (Boyd, 2007; Zeeng et al., 2009; Gulbahar, 2013).
Social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, is the most used tool to facilitate fast
and effective communication, as well as the medium for spreading information to a wider
audience (Irwin et al., 2012; Merchant, 2012; Kimmons, 2014). Hence, the power of such
social media could be further harnessed for the benefit of the natural environment.
Therefore, higher education institutions have a significant role in shaping
environmental awareness among the students, their academics and regular staff through
various means including social media.
However, the role of social media to communicate the idea of environmental sustainability
and its awareness is not well understood. This review paper intends to ascertain how social
media can be used as an enabler for creating awareness in the context of higher education. A
systematic literature review (SLR) was carried out to understand the topic and how social
media is being used to create environmental sustainability awareness. An SLR is considered
to be a powerful tool in the literature searching methodology that provides a focus for
synthesising the results based on the defined protocols (Kitchenham, 2004). This method was
 IJSHE adopted because of its capability for collecting, identifying and synthesising evidence and
18,4 finding gaps in any particular research focus.
While there are a number of SLR methodologies available, such as an evidence-based
guide to community preventive services (Briss et al., 2001), the EPPI Centre Guide (Oakley,
2003) and procedures for performing systematic reviews (Kitchenham, 2004), this paper
adopts Kitchenham’s (2004) SLR procedures because of its widely accepted use in
476 information systems (IS) research and the flexibility provided by this methodology to be
adopted in other fields (Kitchenham, 2004). Even though this technique has the capability of
making a methodologically rigorous review of the research results, it is not meant to simply
provide summative information concerning the research results but rather to help
researchers identify evidence based on the guidelines developed (Kitchenham et al., 2008).
The step-by-step approach helps researchers to clearly depict the research results and
findings.
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Objective of this review

This study investigates the role of social media in higher education for environmental
sustainability awareness. Based on the literature search, it was found that there is an absence
of an SLR type of paper published with regard to the topic of the role of social media in
environmental sustainability awareness in the context of higher education. Therefore, the
objective of this paper is to capture, summarise, synthesise and critically comment on how
higher education around the world addresses the issue of environmental sustainability and
raising awareness among students and staff, either with or without the assistance of social
media.

Methodology
To facilitate the objective attainment of this review, three research questions were
constructed, as per SLR requirements:
RQ1. What is environmental sustainability and how is environmental sustainability
awareness viewed in higher education?
RQ2. What types of social media are used in creating environmental sustainability
awareness in higher education, and what is their role?
RQ3. What are the key lessons pertaining to environmental sustainability awareness in
higher education?
Overall, these questions were formulated as the basis for gaining a deeper understanding of
the concept of environmental sustainability awareness and the role of social media in
spreading the awareness in the context of higher education.

Data source and search process

The search strategy for this review includes three online databases (ODB) selected because of
the relevance and availability of the search terms. Only articles published from January 2000
until year 2013 were selected. Furthermore, papers published prior to year 2000 were
excluded because of the absence of social media during the early years. Table I justifies the
selection of the ODB.
The search processes used the following keywords: environmental awareness, higher
education, social media, factors and benefits. However, during the search process, five
combinations of the keywords were used as follows:
 (1) Combination of Keywords 1: environmental awareness and higher education* (or Social media
university).
(2) Combination of Keywords 2: environmental** and higher education* (or university).
(3) Combination of Keywords 3: social media*** and environmental awareness and
higher education (or university).
(4) Combination of Keywords 4: factors and environmental awareness and higher
education (or university). 477
(5) Combination of Keywords 5: benefits and environmental awareness and higher
education (or university). (Note: * the term university was also used to ensure
equivalent terms are also covered; **the term environmental* was also used to
ensure aspects of environmental attitudes are also covered; **the term social media
was also replaced with terms, such as social technology, social technologies,
Facebook, Twitter and blog to include extensiveness).
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The terms were used to reflect the objective of this research in exploring the state of
environmental awareness in higher education, the use of social media in spreading
environmental awareness in higher education as well as in understanding the key lessons on
how higher education could spread environmental awareness.
Table II summarises the results from the unfiltered search process using the four
combinations of the keywords. As shown in the table, the majority of the papers (94 per cent)
were found in the ScienceDirect database with 4 per cent from Scopus and the remaining 2
per cent from the ISI Web of Science. This indicates that most of the research on
environmental awareness in the context of higher education was (and is) published through
journals included in ScienceDirect, whereas the remaining two ODBs were less popular
concerning the topic of environmental awareness in higher education.
In terms of keyword combinations, the first keyword combination produced the most
results (40.8 per cent), the third combination produced 31.8 per cent, the fourth keyword 26.8
per cent, whereas the second keyword had a small percentage of 0.6 per cent. The unfiltered

Source Justification

ISI Web of Science Covers wide range of academic fields from sciences, social sciences, arts and
humanities (http://wokinfo.com/citationconnection/)
Scopus Covers peer-reviewed journals in the scientific, technical, medical and social
sciences including arts and humanities (www.elsevier.com/online-tools/scopus/
content-overview)
ScienceDirect Covers wide range of journals from academic field of physical sciences and Table I.
engineering, life sciences, health sciences and social sciences and humanities Selected online
(www.sciencedirect.com/) databases

Keyword (KW) ISI Web of Science Scopus ScienceDirect Total

KW 1 13 28 343 384
KW 2 0 0 6 6
KW 3 4 6 289 299 Table II.
KW 4 2 1 249 252 Summary of the
Total 19 35 887 941 search process
 IJSHE search results indicated that among the factors and benefits from environmental awareness
18,4 the topic of environmental awareness in higher education was generally found in the
discussion. However, very little research was either conducted and/or published on the topic
of the role of social media for environmental awareness in higher education.
Because of the copious number of papers, a filtering process was conducted by the
authors of this paper to enable manageability in reviewing the articles. Three cycles were
478 adopted for the filtering process. The following explains the filtering cycles performed:
(1) Filtering Cycle 1:
• This includes removal of duplicate articles by going through each of the 941
citations retrieved from the search process.
• For this purpose, all the raw 941 citations were stored in EndNote, a reference
manager software.
• Using EndNote, “peculiarities”, such as articles with missing author(s), year and
title were removed.
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• After removing the duplicate citations, 705 articles were considered for the next
filtering cycle.
(2) Filtering Cycle 2:
• Using the remaining 705 articles from Cycle 1, the authors went through the title
and abstract of the papers.
• Judging from the title and abstract of the papers, decisions were made to ensure
whether the actual context of the paper was on environmental awareness in
higher education or otherwise. If it was decided that the paper was relevant, it was
retained, otherwise, it was removed.
• In this stage, a large number of articles were found to be irrelevant because of the
titles and abstracts of the papers not being related to the research topic. A total of
623 papers were removed in this stage.
• At the end of Cycle 2, 82 papers were considered relevant for further analysis. The
full versions of these 82 papers were downloaded from the relevant databases.
(3) Filtering Cycle 3:
• Using the remaining 82 articles from Cycle 2, the authors started to analyse the content.
• This cycle involved reading through the articles, mostly by scanning through the abstract
and the detailed content of the papers.
• After consolidating all the analysis from the different group members, the authors then
decided that all 82 papers were relevant to the topic.

Figure 1 graphically summarises the process of filtering the articles.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

In setting the inclusion and exclusion criteria (Kitchenham, 2004; Kitchenham et al., 2008),
only studies consisting of the pre-defined keywords were included. The limitations were
generally set to full text peer-reviewed; must be either in article form or conference paper
indexed by the ISI Web of Science, Scopus or ScienceDirect; and the articles must be in
English. This study excluded studies from editorials, informal articles from
company/organisation, book chapters, prefaces, article summaries, interviews, news,
magazines, trade journals, correspondence, discussions, comments, reader’s letters and
summaries of tutorials, meetings, workshops, panels and poster sessions.
 Total references retrieved and Social media
searched N = 941

Exclude duplicate
N=236
Total tle and abstract screened
N = 705
Rejected at tle and abstract
N=623 479
Total abstract & full texts screened
N = 82

Final included papers Figure 1.

N = 82 Filtering process
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Papers that did not contain environmental awareness in the context of higher education or at
least mention higher education were also excluded. However, while most papers were not
covering social media, analysis needed to be done to determine how social media could
address the gaps in disseminating environmental awareness in higher education.

Data analysis
This section explains the method used to analyse data for this phase of the research. The use
of thematic analysis was applied in the analysis of data, as it provides a structured way of
understanding how to develop thematic codes and sense themes. Three stages are involved
in the use of thematic analysis. Stage 1 involves deciding on the data and design issues, Stage
2 involves developing themes and codes and Stage 3 involves validating and using the codes
(Boyatzis, 1998). Stage 1 was successfully carried out through the search of relevant
databases and Stage 2 required specific decision-making on developing the themes.
Adopting the prior research-driven approach in developing the themes, this approach
allowed the use of existing concepts as a basis to replicate, extend or refute prior discoveries
(Boyatzis, 1998). The papers were analysed according to the predefined concepts, such as
environmental awareness, role of social media and context of study. The themes were then
identified and grouped from the views of the authors according to the initial concepts.

Findings
From the initial concepts, emerging themes were discovered as sub-themes from the
preliminary concepts, such as quality of life, sharing, practices, change, education,
engagement, policy, evaluation and environmental awareness issues. The process of
extraction also involved the use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs, or
non-social media, such as email, website, circulars or intranet, for environmental awareness
implementation in universities.
The contents of the articles were further analysed and extracted pertaining to how the
social media were being used (or not used) to create and communicate environmental
awareness. The findings extracted from the papers were then categorised according to the
initial concepts discussed above and later combined to fit the three research questions (refer
to methodology section).
In Stage 3, validation of the codes was made using the collaborative checking technique,
where data, analytic categories, interpretations and conclusions were tested with members of
the research group (the authors of the paper) (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Cutcliffe and
 IJSHE McKenna, 2002). The following section analyses the results from the data synthesis in which
18,4 the themes and codes were generated.
The data synthesis based on the reviewed literature provides initial findings for the SLR
process, as depicted in Table III. Themes and codes were generated out of the data synthesis
process. To provide a structure to ease the data analysis and synthesis, three research
questions were developed and discussed before a summative discussion around the role of
480 social media in environmental awareness in higher education was concluded.

Discussion
In this section, discussion pertaining to the entire findings made out of the SLR process is
presented. The discussion is geared towards understanding the role of social media in
creating environmental sustainability awareness in higher education.
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Research question Synthesis

RQ1. What is environmental
sustainability and how environmental
sustainability awareness is viewed in
higher education?
RQ2. What are the types and role of
social media used in creating
environmental sustainability awareness
in higher education?
RQ3. What are the key lessons pertaining
to environmental sustainability
awareness in higher education?
Table III.
Data synthesis
The review of literature concerning this research question
attempted at discerning what environmental sustainability
and environmental sustainability awareness means to people
and how environmental sustainability is viewed in higher
education. Based on the data synthesis, the literature
generally views the concept of environmental sustainability
as follows:
Concept of environmental sustainability: better quality of life
How environmental sustainability awareness concept is viewed:
sharing
practices
change
education
engagement
policy
evaluation
issues
The review of literature concerning this research question
attempted at knowing the types and role of social media
being used by higher education in creating environmental
sustainability awareness. Based on the data synthesis, the
literature categorises the issue into:
Types of technology: social media vs non-social media
Role of social technology: as a tool to disseminate
awareness as a tool to deliver environmental education
Data synthesis was also carried out as to understand the key
lessons pertaining to environmental awareness in higher
education. The key lessons are:
environmental awareness requires knowledge, derived from
education (hence, education requires environmental issues to
be included into the university curriculum)
environmental awareness needs participation
environmental awareness requires implementation programmes
environmental awareness needs engagement
environmental awareness requires systematic planning,
implementation and evaluation
 Environmental sustainability concept and common views on environmental sustainability Social media
awareness in higher education
As a whole, one single concept that frequently appeared across the literature on
environmental sustainability is about a better quality of life. The prominent theme on better
quality of life is depicted in the literature when the impact of not caring or not sustaining the
natural environment resulted in the degradation of the overall quality of life (Chenoweth
et al., 2007; Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar, 2008; Ben-Zvi-Assaraf and Ayal, 2010; Chua and 481
Oh, 2011; Abdul Aziz et al., 2012). This is through prolonged drought, extreme flooding,
massive pollution causing extended period of heavy fog and haze or the causing of an
epidemic, such as malaria, dengue and other diseases. In the articles reviewed, there was a
lack of evidence showing the role of social media in facilitating the improvement in the
quality of life, raising environmental sustainability awareness and, subsequently, affecting
behavioural and attitude change.
In this context, social media, while not leveraged to this extent, should be seen as a new
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platform by higher education to create environmental sustainability awareness among

students and staff. The variety of social media available in the technology scape provides
options for higher education to choose the most suitable mechanism to convey a better
quality of life message through the use of social media.
In relation to the common view on environmental sustainability awareness, the findings
indicated that the sharing of information is important in disseminating awareness on
environmental issues to the intended audience – staff, students or the general public
(AlKuhaimi and AlMogait, 2012; Alwiet al., 2012; Sulaiman and Abdul Rahman, 2013).
Furthermore, it takes various kinds of green practices adopted by higher education to create
more awareness (Bergea et al., 2006; Eden and Eshet-Alkalai, 2013; Efthymiou et al., 2013;
Figueredo and Tsarenko, 2013; Zhang et al., 2011), and it often involves a change in
behaviour, attitude and value system of the individual, group and society (Zain et al., 2011,
2013; Sidiropoulos, 2014; Vicente-Molina et al., 2013).
Education is also found to have great importance in creating awareness, which is
achieved by developing an appropriate curriculum, syllabus and training (Ferreira et al.,
2006; Karol, 2006; Kaplowitz et al., 2009; Chang et al., 2011; Zain et al., 2011; Raivio, 2011;
Evans and Graff, 2012; Barbalios et al., 2013; Geng et al., 2013; Yuksek, 2013). In addition,
engagement with parties, both internal and external, is also vital to create more awareness
and environmental citizenship (Stefanovic, 2008; de Carvalho Maffia et al., 2011). Researchers
have argued that policies, such as vision, implementation of environmental management
system and Green University ambitions are all done in the attempt to create more
environmental sustainability awareness (Gao et al., 2006; Sammalisto and Brorson, 2008;
Jinliang et al., 2010; Barata et al., 2011; Aklin et al., 2013; Jabbour et al., 2013; Yuan et al., 2013).
To have effective awareness, sustainability audits and evaluation involving measurement,
assessment and reporting are critical (Baboulet and Lenzen, 2010; Sulaiman and Abdul
Rahman, 2013). Finally, it is a commonly held view that understanding the related issues
such as challenges, barriers, benefits and driving/inhibiting factors are also important to
ensure environmental awareness (Evangelinos et al., 2009; Yurttas and Sulun, 2010; Zhang
et al., 2011; Yuan and Zuo, 2013).
This review suggests that higher education needs to fully leverage the ubiquity of social
media to extend how environmental sustainability is viewed (particularly towards a more
positive way forward) by the students and staff. This can be implemented by using social
media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube, with contents relevant to
environmental sustainability education taught to the students in any relevant course.
 IJSHE Social media can certainly be used to share information on environmental sustainability
18,4 awareness (York et al., 2009; Hasan et al., 2012). Practices conducted at the university-level,
such as recycling, reduction of electricity and water consumption, riding a bicycle on and to
the campus and paper reduction comprised environmental sustainability practices that can
be shared (Higgitt, 2006; Sobreiro and Jabbour, 2007; Barata et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2011;
Efthymiou et al., 2013; Pappas et al., 2013). The lessons learnt from these practices are able to
482 trigger the intended lifestyle or behavioural change among students and staff. The use of
social media for environmental sustainability can be seen as a form of educational tool to
complement the teaching and learning in class, as well as to continuously engage the
students in environmental causes (Hasan et al., 2012). For staff, the management of higher
education can leverage social media to convey the university policy pertaining to greening
their campus. University administrators are able to introduce a policy pertaining to paper
reduction targets for each faculty and how each faculty would support the policy, such that
evaluation can be made by the university administrators to determine how successful they
have been in implementing the paper reduction initiatives. In addition, social media can be
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used to discuss issues faced by staff and students in their environmental practices for
everyone else in the “university community” to help address the issue.

The types of social media used in creating environmental sustainability awareness in

higher education and their role
It can be argued that there is limited discussion in the existing literature that specifically
addresses the type and role of social media in propagating environmental sustainability
awareness in the context of higher education. Only one article was found concerning the use
of Facebook to create environmental awareness about the Green ICT concept and
self-directed learning in a Malaysian university (Din et al., 2013). The authors claimed that
the objective of the study was to study “How Facebook can be put to a good use specifically
in raising the awareness to address issues of ecological imbalance and global climate change
that are affecting many parts of the world” (Din et al., 2013, p. 465). Although their paper did
not go into detail about how Facebook should be used to achieve the study’s objective, they
later recommended that universities need “to initiate the usage of Online Social Networking
(OSN) platforms as a mechanism to promote Green ICT” (Din et al., 2013, p. 472).
Another article described the use of non-social media, in particular, the use of e-desktop,
email (albeit email is “social” in nature, however it is not considered as social media in this
paper) and CD-ROM to deliver environmental education in distance learning and potentially
life-long learning (Barratt, 2006). The other articles did not mention any use of technology for
environmental awareness.
The lack of studies on the use of social media highlights the fact that environmental
sustainability in higher education is not widely propagated to the students and staff through
social media. The traditional means for internal communication about the issues of
environmental sustainability awareness is still through email and other internal forms of
communication such as newsletters. The use of websites is also arguably popular. However,
such modes of information sharing are for one-way communication, whereby interactions
are limited or almost non-existent. They are just being used to convey to the audience the
university initiatives but are unable to obtain feedback.
Another possibility is that the use of social media for creating environmental
sustainability awareness is still in the stage of infancy, whereby universities have only
recently started to adopt and experiment with social media, and making publications of such
research are still not widely available. The issue of using social media is also considered
problematic because of the reduced “legitimacy” of social media, as it is perceived to be a
 more “informal” form of communication (Sutton et al., 2008; Aula, 2010; Landsbergen, 2010; Social media
Du and Edward, 2012). Furthermore, the use of the sanctioned official website or email is
easier to manage by the university in a more “formal” manner. The problem of getting staff
to manage the official social media account of universities, such as Facebook and Twitter, is
often for sharing a variety of news and not confined to only environmental awareness. It is
becoming a trend for universities to use Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as alternative
media to share official news or respond to questions from the public (Gilpin, 2010; Steiner
et al., 2013). This includes promotional and marketing of the university itself, sharing of 483
latest events organised by the university and informing students or potential students of the
latest information on courses or programmes. However, the use of such social media tools for
environmental sustainability awareness is seldom featured. Hence, it could be an advantage
for higher education to create a dedicated social media account on Facebook or Twitter that
is managed or administered by officers or voluntary students or staff focusing on
environmental issues to provide full legitimacy to environmental sustainability awareness
conducted by the university.
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Based on the existing literature, technology, including social media, has two roles: to
disseminate information and to deliver education about environmental awareness (Barratt,
2006; Din et al., 2013). However, the existing literature on sustainability in a wider context
(not exclusive to higher education) argues that social media is also able to be used to:
• provide a platform for advocacy; and
• distribute and present transformation that can change behaviour (Hasan et al., 2012).

As a platform for the advocacy of sustainability, social media, such as Facebook, facilitates
the formation of online groups in which opinions are expressed, images are captured, and
audio and video are uploaded in real-time for public display through which information is
spread rapidly across the world (Hamid et al., 2014). This has the potential to create
awareness to the wider society concerning the initiatives taken by the organisation towards
greening the community. Social media may also be used to change attitudes and behaviours
through the information communicated. Thus, with the existence of green champions
communicating their involvement using social media, the innovative use of social media
could influence behaviour towards greener outcomes.

Key lessons on environmental sustainability awareness in higher education

From the reviewed literature and the synthesis of the findings, it can be argued that there are
five top findings pertaining to environmental sustainability and awareness thereof in higher
education. First, is that the knowledge about the environmental sustainability issue is
created through the education system and that this is vital if the university is serious in
implementing green initiatives (Bergea et al., 2006; Chuanhui and Hanwei, 2011; Taleghani
et al., 2011; Abdul Aziz et al., 2012; Alwi et al., 2012; Basri et al., 2012; Sidiropoulos, 2014;
Vicente-Molina et al., 2013). Education in this regard includes the revision/inclusion of the
syllabus and curriculum to feature environmental sustainability elements and the
development of teaching and learning materials (Aklin et al., 2013). Some universities are
already integrating green elements into their architecture, computer science and IS and
engineering curriculum (Abdul Aziz et al., 2012; Xiong et al., 2013). However, it is the belief of
the authors that environmental sustainability elements need to be deeply integrated in all
disciplines as the environmental issue is a relevant concern in generally all academic
disciplines.
Second, environmental awareness requires participation from everybody in the higher
education, where the initiative takes place to be effective (Sammalisto and Brorson, 2008;
 IJSHE Carleton-Hug and Hug, 2010; Barbalios et al., 2013; Figueredo and Tsarenko, 2013). Without
18,4 sufficient participation as well as commitment, the initiative would fade away because of the
absence of a champion to pursue the cause. Third, engagement with the staff, students and
outside communities is important to ensure that the environmental sustainability initiative is
updated, progressed and achieved the intended goals (Sobreiro and Jabbour, 2007;
Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar, 2008; Chua and Oh, 2011).
484 Environmental sustainability awareness may also be propagated by having various
kinds of implementation programmes targeted for everybody in higher education,
particularly students (Haigh, 2006; Zhang et al., 2011; Din et al., 2013; Efthymiou et al., 2013).
This aspect is highly related to the participation of all stakeholders. Any initiative or
implementation programme with lukewarm reception or disinterested parties would risk the
awareness programme and could face termination of the green initiatives. Hence, it is
important for higher education to have champions for each of the implementation initiatives
and keep the team committed to the programme while simultaneously influencing others,
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particularly staff and students to support the implementation programme.

The fourth lesson involves during the course of the implementation, where students need
to be engaged in the topic to make environmental sustainability considerations penetrate
their subconscious level and, hence, be able to transform the concept to their daily practices.
This can be done by explaining the motives behind the implementation of green initiatives
(Sobreiro and Jabbour, 2007; Stefanovic, 2008; Carleton-Hug and Hug, 2010; Yurttas and
Sulun, 2010; Chua and Oh, 2011; Disterheft et al., 2012; Yuan et al., 2013). The goals, strategies
and expected outcomes from the implementation need to be communicated to the students
and staff to provide them with the motivation and understanding of why greening the
environment is necessary. According to Melville’s (2010), belief-action-outcome framework,
belief formation is very important in which beliefs, desires and opportunities pertaining to
greening initiatives must be communicated to the intended target of the initiatives. In the
action aspect, the translation of the beliefs into a set of actions or tangible implementations,
such as recycling activities, ride sharing or reductions of waste are the examples of such a
translation. The outcome aspect includes the effect of the actions into actual daily behaviour
change, improvement of green performance as well as the larger impact on the society in
terms of a better quality of life (Melville, 2010).
Finally, environmental sustainability and its awareness activities via campaigns requires
systematic planning, implementation and must be evaluated in respect of its the
effectiveness (Chenoweth et al., 2007; Jinliang et al., 2010; Jones et al., 2012; Jabbour, 2013;
Yuan and Zuo, 2013; Sulaiman and Abdul Rahman, 2013). The literature suggests that
environmental sustainability is not a seasonal trend which is only highlighted as a short or
medium-term initiative of the university. Typically, environmental sustainability is a
long-term goal, which requires a direction, champion, financial means and support from the
stakeholders over a period of time. Hence, careful planning needs to be conducted by
outlining the vision and mission; strategic, tactical and operational strategies; as well as the
evaluation of the outcomes at a reasonable interval. Benchmarking the green activities
against those of other higher learning institutions is one of the ways the university can learn
from others. This benchmarking can be done via partnering, site visits or the exchange of
ideas in green summits or conferences. Universities are also able to use social media to
“soft-benchmark” (i.e. by comparing) their own green initiatives against other universities
and learn from the experience of other universities. For all these to materialise, the formation
of a dedicated environmental sustainability team to oversee the whole implementation of
green initiative should be given attention to by any higher learning institution intending to
embark on a green journey.
 Utilising the social media for environmental sustainability awareness and future research Social media
agenda
The first lesson stated above pertains to the integration of green elements into the course
curriculum. Therefore, we propose that the use of social media as part of the teaching and
learning technology would be useful in delivering environmental sustainability education to
the students. For example, a Facebook group can be created for the course to identify how the
course could contribute to environmental sustainability from the perspective of the said
knowledge domain. Future research in this area is to follow through concerning whether the 485
use of social media is effective in creating environmental sustainability awareness that really
changes students’ behaviour. The second and third lesson indicated that social media could
be used as an effective platform to create active participation and engagement, such as
becoming environmental volunteers. Hence, environmental sustainability initiatives can be
used to make students and staff actively participate in environmental sustainability
practices that are conducted from time to time. Future research in this area should focus on
investigating how social media can be leveraged to create effective and sustainable
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participation and engagement over a period of time.

The fourth lesson pertains to the use of social media that can be used as part of the course
curriculum. For example, social media, such as YouTube, can be used in various ways, such
as:
• to demonstrate how environmental sustainability initiatives are applicable in certain
situations; and
• the students could carry out hands-on activities and record their environmental
sustainability initiative, report the lessons learnt to the community at large using
YouTube as a means of communication.

Future research can be conducted to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of social media
in creating awareness that leads to actual behavioural change among students when they
graduate and start working. The last lesson is especially for universities to possibly use
social media to learn from other universities locally or abroad about the implementation of
their environmental sustainability initiatives. The use of social media to conduct a
benchmarking study is an opportunity that universities can consider, as it generally involves
zero or minimal costs where lessons learnt are ripe for replication. In terms of future research
agenda, researchers in the field may conduct studies concerning the effectiveness of social
media-oriented benchmarking activities in producing environmental best practices that
could be replicated from others who have successfully instilled environmental sustainability
practices within the organisation.

Conclusion
In general, environmental sustainability awareness is not an entirely new topic in the
literature. It has been heavily discussed in various academic publications, such as journals
and conferences. However, the topic is multi-faceted as it is approached from various angles
as discussed above. Environmental sustainability and its awareness is currently a global
movement, and discussion of this topic does exist around the world. From Asia to Africa to
Europe, North America and South America, the topic is of interest to higher education. The
topics however revolve around a green curriculum, green syllabus, green lessons, green
practices and even a green university. However, there is still a lack of studies on the use of
technology of any kind highlighted as a means to disseminate the environmental awareness
issue. More so, in the age of social media, very limited research deals with the use of social
media, such as Facebook or Twitter to create awareness among students, staff and
 IJSHE administrators of higher education on environmental sustainability. This can be seen as an
18,4 opportunity missed, where the pervasiveness of social media should actually be leveraged as
the most effective medium to convey the message on environmental sustainability
awareness. Therefore, there is a huge potential in this research area concerning how social
media can be optimally leveraged to benefit environmental sustainability and the vision for
sustainable development. Future research needs to take advantage of this current gap to
486 investigate this topic and be empirically supported by theories using quantitative,
qualitative or mixed-method-based research. Future studies could also develop relevant
frameworks to propose an effective use of social media for creating environmental
sustainability awareness in higher education.

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About the authors

Suraya Hamid is a Lecturer at the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Computer
Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. Her academic
qualifications were obtained from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for bachelor’s and
master’s degrees and the Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne, Australia
for PhD degree. Presently, she has 15 years of teaching experience because of having worked in
Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR) from 1999-2003 and then in the University of Malaya since
2003 until now. Suraya was involved in various research, leading to publication of a number of
academic papers in the areas of information systems specifically on information seeking
behaviour, e-government, Green IS, health informatics and educational technology and media.
Since 2003, she has been publishing more than 35 academic papers published in local as well as
renowned international conferences. A number of her works was also published or currently
in-press in respectable ISI-cited journals and a SCOPUS-cited journal. For her PhD on online social
networks (OSN) in higher education, Suraya’s research was widely acknowledged. This was
indicated by her receiving a Google (Australia) Travel Prize in 2012. Her research was also
recognised by the Australian Government in the form of an Australian Education International
(AEI) Bursary Award at ISANA 2011. She actively supervises many students at all levels of study
from undergraduate (i.e. bachelor’s degree) up to post-graduate (i.e. master’s and PhD degree).
Suraya Hamid is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: suraya_hamid@um.edu.my
Mohamad Taha Ijab is a Research Student at the School of Business IT & Logistics, RMIT
University. His research interest is in the field of Green Information Systems. He is also investigating the
topics of sustainability innovation in large organisations as well as in the higher education sector.
 Hidayah Sulaiman is a Senior Academic at the Tenaga Nasional University (UNITEN) a leading Social media
energy focused university in Malaysia. Her research revolves around the area of information systems in
organizations, particularly health care and higher education, information technology governance and
knowledge management. In line with the university’s vision to be a world leading energy university, her
current research involves IT sustainability issues, Green IT strategy and governance as well as social
media use for organization strategic initiatives.
Rina Md. Anwar is a Senior Academic at the College of Information Technology, Tenaga Nasional
University (UNITEN). Her vast research area covers from the use of IT in local community, mobile 491
crowdsourcing and information systems use in organizations. Her current research involves the use of
IT in environmental disaster management for local communities.
Azah Anir Norman is currently a Lecturer in the Department of Information Systems, Faculty of
Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. She had
previously worked as a security consultant in the MSC Trustgate.com (subsidiary body of MDEC
Malaysia) a certification authority in Malaysia for more than four years. She received her PhD in
information systems security, where her research interest includes e-commerce security, information
systems security management, security policies and standards. She was awarded a few research grants
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which focused on social media security and cybersecurity practices. Her articles in selected research
area have been printed in local and international conference and ISI/Scopus WOS journals. She actively
supervises many students at all levels of study from undergraduate (i.e. bachelor’ degree) up to
post-graduate (i.e. master’s and PhD) supervisions.

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