Developing a quantitative tool for sustainability assessment of HEIs

Purpose – Implementation of a sustainability paradigm demands new choices and innovative ways of thinking. The main objective of this paper is to provide a meaningful sustainability assessment tool for make informed decisions, which is applied to higher education institutions (HEIs).Design/methodology/approach – The objective is achieved by developing a quantitative tool for sustainability assessment using a driving force‐pressure‐state‐exposure‐effect‐action (DPSEEA) framework. The DPSEEA framework considers environmental, social, economic, and educational performance as main dimensions of sustainability. The proposed model is called DPSEEA‐Sustainability index Model (D‐SiM). The D‐SiM is a causality‐based model in which the sustainability index (SI) is an outcome of nonlinear effects of sustainability indicators in various stages of DPSEEA. To have an improved understanding of input factors (driving forces) and their impact on sustainability, a simplified empirical model is developed and applied to HEIs...