Barriers to the adoption of green buildings in engineering schools: case studies

• Grant number: 12/07263-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2012
• End date: April 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour
• Grantee: Nayara Kasai
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Engenharia (FE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Bauru. Bauru , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) generate significant environmental impacts, is the intense amount of activities that develop daily is similarity with "small towns". In this context, it has been suggested to IES to search for better environmental compliance and a strategy for this to occur is the adoption of green building. However, some researches, mainly international ones, have indicated that their adoption by the HEI faces a number of barriers such as organizational and financial, among others. These barriers may be manifesting itself also in the Faculties of Engineering, and has received special attention from the Brazilian government and research funding agencies to increase the quality and quantity of engineers trained in Brazil. In this context, the objective of this research is therefore to analyze what are the main barriers to the implementation of environmentally sustainable buildings in FEB - UNESP and the EESC - USP and develop some suggestions to be overcome. The research will involve the study of two cases (FEB, and EESC), where the candidate will hold stock interviews (with responsibility for the Engineering of these institutions and with other target respondents), collect documents and observe the reality of these HEIs, with order to identify the main barriers to green building and develop useful suggestions to overcome them. In both cases, the supervisor of this proposal already has prior contact, enabling the search. As a result, in addition to identifying the main barriers, intended to make a number of suggestions to overcome them. These results will be reported either in the form of the Science Report as FAPESP in the form of a scientific paper. This project is adhering to the line of research on "Environmental Management" of the DEP-FEB-UNESP and is part of broader projects that the advisor is doing. For example, there is an ongoing FAPESP Scientific Initiation research on barriers to implementing an environmental management system in FEA-RP/USP. (AU)