STAKEHOLDERS’ PERSPECTIVE ON BARRIERS TO GREEN BUILDING PRACTICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Promoting green practices in higher education institutions increases understanding and acceptance of environmentally friendly and resource-efficient processes in maintaining educational buildings. However, this requires understanding and guiding against several barriers that prevent the acceptance of green building practices in Nigerian higher education institutions. Hence, this study investigates the barriers hindering green building practices in higher education institutions using a case study of Covenant University, Nigeria. The study adopted a quantitative research design with a structured questionnaire to retrieve data from research participants from the Architecture, Building Technology, Estate Management, Civil Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering departments through a simple random sampling technique. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to rank 28 identified barriers, and a Kruskal-Wallis test was also conducted to establish the statistically significant differences among the respondents' perspectives. The study's findings revealed that the most prominent barriers include inadequate studies of the cost-benefit of green technology, financial constraints, contractors' inadequate experience with green building practices, total dependence on the government to promote green technology, and limited examples of green building projects. The findings imply that promoting green building practices in higher education institutions requires a better understanding of the concept and policy supporting its implementation, the certainty of green materials performance, and increased awareness of green practices. Thus, the study recommends developing a policy supporting a green campus, a template for quantitative evaluation tools for green practice performance and ensuring continuous awareness of resource efficiency to mitigate barriers to green building practices in higher educational institutions.