The use of knowledge transfer in campus real estate management about sustainability

Abstract

The Dutch national climate agreement mentions important goals related to sustainability. The task is to reduce CO2 emissions by 49% in 2030 compared to 1990 and by 80 to 95% in 2050. To achieve these goals, every sector, including public real estate like universities, needs to contribute. This study focuses on the 14 Dutch universities. Universities are urged to set an example because of their socially responsible character. In 2008, the Dutch universities signed a covenant to reduce their energy consumption and CO2 emissions. However, there is still a lot of improvement needed. A network of academic experts for knowledge exchange can help with this. Exchanging knowledge within an inter-university network could give many new and valuable insights for implementation. At this moment, universities are mainly reinventing the wheel for themselves instead of exchanging insights with others. This research is about the different existing networks, drivers, barriers, and tools of knowledge sharing between universities and provides an answer to the main research question: “How can inter-university knowledge transfer support university campus managers to achieve the universities’ sustainability goals?”. It serves as exploratory research for the larger Campus NL research from the TU Delft Campus Research Team. One of the topics they are going to research is campus learning. Through an extensive literature review, 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews, strategy-analysis, and observations, this research concludes that every university has the same goals, and by working together, they might find possible ways to achieve these goals sooner. They can stick together to get more funds or guidance and get insights into what others are doing. This research has provides an overview of the barriers and drivers of knowledge transfer that campus managers working on the energy transition are experiencing at this moment and therefore contributes to knowledge about knowledge transfer and also serves as a starting point for the Campus NL research.

Keywords | Knowledge transfer, campus management, barriers and drivers, sustainability goals, real estate