Triple Bottom Line: An Academic Perspective on Sustainability Practices and Accountability

This paper offers a critical analysis of sustainability in higher education institutions. This analysis will be based on the theoretical framework of triple bottom line (TBL) approach and academic accountability. It will explain how sustainability as an organizing and controlling framework may help these organizations to achieve institutional prosperity. This paper provides some guidelines on how to replicate sustainability teaching to an international audience. Semi-structured research interviews have been used as a qualitative research method to collect the empirical data from members of staff at Keele University. The research findings show that there are some sustainability tools that could be used to reinforce the academic practices in order to be more sustainable for the current and future generations. These tools include mixture between the sustainability themes and academic activities. Sustainability themes represent a wide range of institutional strides to assess the social, environmental and economic impact of the academic activities. The contribution of this paper focused on engaging the sustainability literature and the academic activities which represent the starting point for building up a generic framework of institutional prosperity. This paper explores not only an analysis of the TBL approach and academic accountability but also some critical lenses to develop sustainable practices. The innovative character of this research focuses on exploring the fundamental meaning of institutional prosperity and academic accountability in higher education institutions. In addition, it offers nuanced informed contribution by addressing sustainable academic practices, as an organisational tool, to help universities to be more sustainable.