Performance assessment and benchmarking of higher education institutions and academic buildings in Canada : a sustainability perspective
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Engineering, School of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCO
creator: Alghamdi, Abdulaziz Saeed M.
issued: 2021-11-03T21:02:32Z
issued: 2021
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Canadian higher education institutions (HEIs) consume 60% of the total energy supplied to the educational sector, which ultimately contributes to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, HEIs consume a large amount of water for indoor use and research purposes. Existing tools developed for the sustainability assessment of HEIs, cover generic aspects such as operations, engagement, and innovation but often overlook key environmental accounting aspects like water, energy, and carbon (WEC) flows. Furthermore, academic buildings are the largest infrastructure units in HEIs and are sub-grouped under the commercial and institutional (C&I) buildings in Canada. HEIs buildings are intrinsically different from other C&I buildings in terms of energy and water consumption patterns. There is a dire need to assess the sustainability performance of HEIs and academic buildings as critical infrastructure units. This research aims to develop a framework for sustainability performance benchmarking of HEIs in terms of WEC flows. First, an inter-university benchmarking method was proposed to classify and benchmark 34 HEIs across Canada. The results indicate that small-sized HEIs perform better on average than their medium and large-sized counterparts. Furthermore, the size-based classification of the HEIs better justifies the relationship between the flows of energy and GHGs. A strong correlation coefficient of 0.97 between energy consumed and associated GHG emissions was observed for small-and-medium-sized HEIs. Later, an intra-university benchmarking was performed on 71 academic buildings using fuzzy clustering techniques to classify academic buildings. To account for the uncertainties in partitioning, the fuzzy c-mean algorithm was employed to classify the buildings based on the normalized WEC performances. The findings show that building activities such as laboratory intensive buildings are among the least sustainable as a cluster of buildings. The fuzzy clustering t…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/80144
note: PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT AND BENCHMARKING OF HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND ACADEMIC BUILDINGS IN CANADA: A SUSTAINABILITY PERSPECTIVE by Abdulaziz Saeed M. Alghamdi M.Eng., McMaster University, Canada 2012 B.Sc. Eng., King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Civil Engineering) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) October 2021 ©Abdulaziz Saeed M. Alghamdi, 2021 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Performance Assessment and Benchmarking of Higher Education Institutions and Academic Buildings in Canada: A Sustainability Perspective Submitted by Abdulaziz Saeed M. Alghamdi in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering Examining Committee: Rehan Sadiq, Ph.D. (SoE, UBC Okanagan) Supervisor Kasun Hewage, Ph.D. (SoE, UBC Okanagan) Co-supervisor Sumi Siddiqua, Ph.D. (SoE, UBC Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Shahria Alam, Ph.D. (SoE, UBC Okanagan) Supervisory Committee Member Kevin Hanna, Ph.D. (EEGS, UBC Okanagan) University Examiner Vikram Garaniya, Ph.D. (University of Tasmania) External Examiner iii Abstract Canadian higher education institutions (HEIs) consume 60% of the total energy supplied to the educational sector, which ultimately contributes to significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, HEIs consume a large amount of water for indoor use and research purposes. Existing tools developed for the sustainability assessment of HEIs, cover generic aspects such as operations, engagement, and innovation but often overlook key environmental accounting aspects like water, energy, and carbon (WEC) flows. Furthermore, academic buildings are the largest infrastructure units in HEIs and are sub-grouped under the commercial and institutional (…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2021-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0402934
language: eng
degree discipline: Civil Engineering
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Sadiq, Rehan
contributor: Hewage, Kasun
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/80144