Impact of Engagement in Campus Sustainability Activities to Competency Development: Change Agents’ Experiences and Perspectives

Abstract

Universities today have increasingly introduced and integrated sustainability elements into their curriculum to nurture students into potential future leaders for sustainability. Although various types of pedagogies have been introduced for the development of sustainability competencies in students, not many studies have investigated engagement in campus sustainability activities as a pedagogical tool. In that respect, this paper attempts to bridge the gap by investigating the potential of engagement as a pedagogical tool and how it can help in developing sustainability competencies in students. The investigation was conducted at three local universities in Malaysia, where purposive sampling was employed for the selection of data. This sampling technique is capable of carefully selecting respondents that are relevant to this investigation given the number of students involved in campus sustainability activities is small in comparison to the total student population. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 students who have been identified from the purposive sampling and considered as the most active and proactive volunteers in their respective campus sustainability activities. Respondents shared their experiences where ‘interpersonal competency’ was emphasised as the most developed and essential competency for them throughout their engagement. Another interesting finding is the importance of ‘passion’. Having a strong sense of enthusiasm for sustainability not only serves as a push factor that drives these students to put their efforts into achieving the objectives of the campus sustainability activities they are involved in but also acts as an important catalyst to the development of sustainability competencies as a whole.

1. Introduction

Current research trends on the integration and practices of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into the university curriculum have shown that sustainability pedagogies are commonly linked to competency-based learning [1,2], via a transdisciplinary approach [3,4]. Students are encouraged to learn in a more interactive and cooperative manner where they work together with students from different educational backgrounds to identify and solve sustainability problems. These interactions would expose them to the different viewpoints others from different faculties may have when addressing the same question. Educators, on the other hand, would function as supervisors during the learning process, providing the students with advice when needed. Through this transdisciplinary learning approach, the students would be driven to use their knowledge and competencies to address the issues, leading them to develop their existing competencies and probably acquire new ones. While working together to address the sustainability issues that are presented to them, the students would also have the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the issues and recognise the connections they may have with other areas related to it. This could potentially help in shaping the students into becoming professional graduates who are competent, knowledgeable and adaptable to solving various issues in sustainability.

ESD has received international recognition as a key enabler for sustainable development for a long period of time, starting with the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD, 2005–2014), the Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP, 2015–2019), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through SDG 4, Target 4.7 (2015–2030) and more recently, ESD for 2030 (2020–2030) [5,6,7]. According to UNESCO [6], ESD practices the approach of empowering “learners with knowledge, competencies, values and attitudes to make informed decisions and take responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and just society”. Given the pressing sustainability issues that are happening around the world today such as climate change, pollution, hunger, poverty and war, universities are increasingly making efforts to integrate ESD into their curriculum [8], in the hope of nurturing their students to be able to address these sustainability issues. Serving as educational hubs that house huge amounts of untapped human capital that could be the potential future leaders of tomorrow, universities assume a pivotal role in sustainability transformation [9], especially through educating their students and promoting awareness in the surrounding community. Even though there may be new technologies and policies that would help in promoting sustainability, scholars believe that education is a critical approach to addressing these pressing sustainability issues [10].

Based on past studies, many sustainability pedagogies have been investigated, proposed and employed by universities in their efforts to practice ESD. Among them are, case studies [11], problem- and project-based learning (PBPL) [12], flipped classrooms [13,14] and internship programs [15]. While many of the studies conducted on the pedagogical approach are inclined towards formal learning, there is an increase in research interest in the potential of informal learning to educate students on sustainability [16,17]. This paper attempts to look into it through engagement in campus sustainability activities. The engagement approach stands to provide the students with greater sustainability competencies development through the opportunities that are presented to them [18,19]. Instead of addressing sustainability issues through theoretical discussions, students would be able to tackle the issues directly through planning, managing and implementing the initiatives that they have devised. Building from this research gap, this paper attempts to investigate how engagement in campus sustainability activities could help in developing sustainability competencies among university students. Three research questions were constructed to help in achieving this objective and to guide this study:

(1)

What newly acquired sustainability competency have students “developed” from their engagement in campus sustainability activities?

(2)

What kind of “improvements” in sustainability competencies have students gained through their involvement in campus sustainability activities?

(3)

Which sustainability competency do the students believe to be “essential” for them throughout their engagement in campus sustainability activities?

This study is structured to contain five sections with Section 1 providing a brief background of the study. The research questions are also included in this section. It is followed by the literature reviews where past studies conducted on engagement as a pedagogical tool, definitions of sustainability competency and types of competencies to be developed in students will be provided. Following the literature review is the research methodology which describes how the investigation was carried out. This study adopts a purposive sampling methodology for the selection of data. The reason why purposive sampling was employed in this study is because the number of students involved in sustainability activities is small in comparison to the total population of students at the university. To ensure the data collected are relevant and depict the actual circumstances, this sampling technique was judged as suitable for this study. An in-depth interview was employed for data collection from the data sampling. Section 4 discusses the findings from this investigation on the competencies the students have developed, improved and believed to be essential. The conclusion of this study where the general overview and recommendation for future studies will be elaborated in Section 5.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Engagement in Campus Sustainability Activities as a Learning Platform

Engagement in campus sustainability activities could be considered as being similar to experiential learning or service learning given that it involves the students being engaged in the learning process or simply termed as “learning by doing”. Through experiential learning, students are provided with opportunities to apply their knowledge into action to solve pressing issues, in addition to them working beyond disciplinary boundaries to gain a better understanding of the community contexts and systemic factors [20]. This was also supported by Ibrahim [21] and Konrad et al. [22], who demonstrated how participating in sustainability projects or community-engaged pedagogies could impact the development of sustainability competencies in the students. Different from formal learning, the engagement approach provides the students with a safe space for them to venture beyond their comfort zone, allowing them to challenge the issues without fearing the possibility of failure due to their actions [23]. Besides developing their knowledge and competencies, the engagement approach also offers other advantages towards the development of the students to become professional and responsible graduates. By participating in the sustainability activities, students could gain valuable cultural experiences from the interactions they had while carrying out the sustainability activities [24,25], and develop an intrinsic interest towards sustainability [26]. Formal learning may not be able to yield this effect given that the learning process mostly revolves around discussing the problems, exchanging ideas and solving the problems through theoretical assessment within the four walls of the classroom.

2.2. Sustainability Competencies

Sustainability competency has been defined differently by various scholars. Barth et al. [16] claimed that there has been no common agreement on the definition or concept of competency. In their study, Barth et al. [16] defined competency as the “dispositions to self-organization, comprising different psycho-social components, existing in a context-overlapping manner, and realizing themselves context-specifically”, and these competencies can be developed at different stages through successful actions. Rychen and Salganik [27], on the other hand, described competency as “the ability to successfully meet complex demands in a particular context through the mobilization of psychological prerequisites (including both cognitive and non-cognitive aspects)”. In another study conducted on competency development, Rieckman [28] defined competency as an interaction of knowledge, capacities and skills, motives and affective dispositions. The definition proposed by Rieckman [28] was largely agreed upon by many scholars and was displayed in their studies on sustainability competencies development in university students [11,29]. In short, all the scholars agreed that competency is the promotion of synergy between knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in addressing a problem or issue. The same definition is also used in the context of sustainability where sustainability competency is seen as an “integration of knowledge, skills, and attitudes that facilitate efforts to sustain relevant human and natural resources required for social, environmental, and economic progress of current and next generations” [30,31].

From the general agreement displayed by the scholars on the concept of sustainability competencies, it was pointed out that sustainability competencies can be seen as a key educational goal for universities in producing graduates who are capable of tackling complex sustainability issues [32,33]. By nurturing these competencies in the students, they are trained to be able to utilise their skills and knowledge without neglecting the values of solving the sustainability issues, and prioritising the well-being of the environment, society and economy of the present and future generations. The same outlook is similarly shared by Kapitulčinová et al. [34] and Jelonek and Urbaniec [35], where through the development of sustainability competencies, students can employ a holistic and future-oriented approach to solving sustainability issues and at the same time, searching for potential opportunities for the betterment of society, economy and the environment. Another important factor that can be pointed out from the concept of competency is that the development of competencies depends on the context of the situation and the ability of the individual to take action within that context [36,37]. Developing competencies is hardly equivalent to acquiring knowledge through learning, to the point where it is described as learnable but not teachable [16]. Unlike theoretical knowledge that can be measured through examinations, quizzes, discussions or presentations, competencies cannot be directly assessed unless it is put into action in a real situation [38]; hence, this is why engagement or the informal learning approach can be seen as an essential method to develop sustainability competencies for university students.

2.3. Types of Sustainability Competencies

Over the years, many studies have been conducted on the types of sustainability competencies that need to be developed for students to be able to address sustainability issues [11,31,39]. These competencies range from problem solving, critical thinking, anticipatory thinking, interpersonal competency and many more. By inculcating these competencies, students are being prepared not only to be capable of solving problems, but are also shaped to be a team player and a responsible individual. To date, the framework of sustainability competencies developed by Wiek et al. [40] has often been used as the foundation for many of the studies conducted in this research area [41,42,43]. Universities that have begun to introduce sustainability courses at their own institutions have also adopted this framework, serving as a guideline for their sustainability curriculum [44,45]. In 2015, Wiek and Kay [46], added a new sustainability competency, integrated problem-solving into the framework. This revised framework will be adopted in this study and the key sustainability competencies categorised in the framework are shown in

Table 1. Key sustainability competencies.

Competencies	Description
Systems-Thinking Competence	The ability to evaluate complex systems across different disciplines (society/environment/economy) and across different scopes (local to global).
Anticipatory Competence	The ability to interpret, evaluate, design and foresee future scenarios related to sustainability issues and solutions to the sustainability problem.
Interpersonal Competence	The ability to motivate, empower and facilitate collaboration and participation of a wide diversity of people across different cultures, social groups, and communities in addressing sustainability issues; civic, collaborative and participatory competencies.
Normative Competence	The ability to map, design, plan, negotiate and apply sustainability values, goals, principles and targets; value-focused thinking and social-ecological integrity.
Strategic Competence	The ability to map, design, plan and implement interventions/transitions towards sustainability; the ability to translate knowledge into action.
Integrated Problem-Solving Competence	The ability to integrate different ideas/perspectives of the issues into a solution to the sustainability problem.

Source: Adopted from Wiek and Kay [46].

. These sustainability competencies will be used as a guide to developing the codes for analysing the data of this research.

Looking at the competencies listed in the framework of Wiek and Kay [46], the majority of the competencies proposed are quite similar to other frameworks developed by other researchers on sustainability competencies that need to be developed in the students [43,47,48,49,50,51]. These competencies are intended to enable the students to work with the involved stakeholders in unanimity while elucidating the issue in a more effective and efficient manner. While there are one or two competencies that may differ from these frameworks, competencies such as strategic competence, interpersonal competence, normative competence and anticipatory competence were commonly mentioned.

2.4. Research Context and Case Selection

In Malaysia, the development of campus sustainability is seen to be on the rise [52,53], and these developments can be seen in various aspects of the university such as the management, policies, education, community engagement and so on. It is believed that through education, the transition towards sustainability can be achieved. This resulted in universities throughout the country embracing the development of campus sustainability and the proposition of ESD as one of the sustainable development policies in Malaysia [54]. An educational blueprint was also developed that spans from 2013–2025, accentuating the importance of nurturing graduates who are optimistic towards sustainability [55].

This research was carried out at three universities in Malaysia: Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). These three universities were selected not only based on their position in global sustainability rankings, but also for being well known locally for their progressive campus sustainability initiatives [56,57,58,59]. Besides integrating sustainability elements into their curriculum [60], various sustainability activities were also carried out by these universities to promote sustainability awareness among the campus stakeholders and the surrounding community.

3. Materials and Methods

To be able to address the research questions developed in this paper, an in-depth semi-structured interview was conducted to look into the development of sustainability competencies in students through engagement in campus sustainability activities. Purposive sampling was employed for the selection of data as this sampling technique is capable of carefully selecting informants or respondents that possess certain criteria that are essential to the research [61,62]. The number of students that are associated with the campus sustainability activities is small in comparison to the total student population in the university, making this technique relevant for this research. The selection process was carried out with the support of the coordinators of the campus sustainability offices by requesting recommendations on the lists of students involved in sustainability activities. Being responsible for the implementation and supervising of the campus sustainability activities and initiatives, these coordinators not only possess background information about students’ involvement, but also have worked closely with the students in managing campus sustainability activities, making them the ideal source of reference in the selection of respondents. The coordinators were given the criteria that the students selected for the study must be active or recent members of the campus sustainability activities, bodies or office (within the past three years).

A total of 232 students from the three universities were identified to fit the list of criteria that was handed to the coordinators. However, while there were 232 students identified to be associated with the campus sustainability offices and had participated in the activities, the coordinators had drawn attention to the rate of involvement of these students in the campus sustainability activities. The majority of these students were seen to be one-off participants in sustainability activities and their involvement was only for a very short period of time. Thus, there were concerns that the perspective shared by these one-off participants may influence the findings of this study on the development of competencies through their engagement in sustainability activities. From the 232 students, the coordinators from the three universities recommended a total of 21 students. The reasons for the recommendation were based on their active and proactive involvement in the campus sustainability activities: the duration of their involvement, the commitment they have shown throughout their engagement and the impactful contributions that they have brought to sustainability at their respective campuses. The lists of campus sustainability activities for the students involved are included in Appendix A.

Upon identifying the respondents, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted where the students were asked to share their experiences on the development of sustainability competency through their engagement in campus sustainability activities. The data collection was carried out from May 2018 to May 2019 upon obtaining approval from the research ethics committee after vetting the interview questions. Before the interview was conducted with the students, they were asked if they were willing to participate in the study as they were recommended by the coordinators of the campus sustainability activities. All 21 students responded positively. The respondents were given a consent form to fill in that allowed their responses to be used for research purposes. The respondents were informed about the objective of the study and the types of questions that would be asked of them. Open-ended questions were used in the interview to allow the respondents to express their perspectives freely without any restrictions. The interviews were conducted in dual languages (Malay and English) due to the preferences of the respondents. This would enable them to fully express their perspectives and opinions to the questions they were asked without any restrictions or language barriers. The interview sessions with the 21 students averaged 40 min. The responses from the interviews were initially transcribed as per the interview. The transcriptions were then translated into English upon consulting with an English language expert to ensure the translations were conducted correctly without affecting the true meaning of the interviews with the students. Words and phrases that did not affect the meaning were eliminated to shorten the answers. Prior to the interview, the respondents were ensured that their identity would be confidential, and that the responses provided will only be used for research purposes. The respondents in this study were identified as Respondent 1, Respondent 2, Respondent 3 and so on.

Table 2. Distributions of respondents.

		Students Involved in Campus Sustainability Activities	Recommended Respondents	Respondent Identification
University	Universiti Malaya	81	11	Respondent 1 Respondent 2 Respondent 3 Respondent 4 Respondent 5 Respondent 6 Respondent 7 Respondent 8 Respondent 9 Respondent 10 Respondent 11
	Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia	103	5	Respondent 12 Respondent 13 Respondent 14 Respondent 15 Respondent 16
	Universiti Putra Malaysia	48	5	Respondent 17 Respondent 18 Respondent 19 Respondent 20 Respondent 21
	Total	232	21

shows the distributions of respondents involved in this investigation from the three universities.

The data collected from the interviews were analysed through thematic analysis. The fundamental trait of thematic analysis is the systematic process it has in coding, drawing out the essence of the respondents’ experiences from the textual data and analysing the patterns (themes) within the documented data [63,64,65]. Thematic analysis could examine the diverse perspectives of different respondents, whether they share similar standpoints or not and how it can generate unexpected insights from the data collected. The theme construction does not rely solely on quantifiable measures, but instead, it takes the important components of the data that have a relation to the overall research question.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Competencies Reported to Be Acquired

The first interview question investigates the competencies the students reported as newly acquired from their engagement in campus sustainability activities. From the responses provided, 13 out of 21 of the students emphasised interpersonal competency as the newly acquired competency from their engagement in campus sustainability activities. Working in an environment where one needs to work collectively to solve the issues, interpersonal competency plays a crucial role in ensuring their efforts are being carried out effectively and efficiently. For Respondent 10, having to interact with different entities in seeking their support to carry out sustainability activities has allowed her to acquire and develop interpersonal competency. From these interactions, Respondent 10 has managed to “built up her confidence” and “soft skills” given that these people were mostly managers from big companies where students would rarely get the opportunity to meet during their student tenure. A similar experience was also shared by Respondent 18 on how she acquired interpersonal competency from participating in campus sustainability activities and having to work with people from outside of the university:

Because it is more towards project management, so like how to communicate with the people from outside, how to deal. From the government officials, the NGO (non-governmental organizations), from any companies that we seek help.

Besides interpersonal competency, there were also other sustainability competencies that were mentioned by the respondents to have been acquired from their engagement in campus sustainability activities. These competencies were linked to the capabilities of being able to manage the activities efficiently and being able to view sustainability issues from a more comprehensive and critical standpoint. For Respondent 9, having a “more systematic understanding of sustainability issues” and the competency to “negotiate” were shared as the competencies he has acquired from his engagement in sustainability activities. Systemic or systematic thinking is closely related and can be linked to one’s management aptitude. The individual is capable of evaluating complex systems across different disciplines and across different scopes (Refer to Table 1). The experience of Respondent 9 had allowed him to see the true nature of sustainability, which revolves around many interconnected elements. Solving it requires critical and wholesome evaluation of the problem along with effective management competency. In terms of “negotiation”, this competency was acquired due to the task that was assigned to him, gathering participation support for the activities and changing the viewpoints of the campus communities in championing the sustainability cause.

For Respondent 15, her engagement has led to her acquiring competencies that are related to program management. Lack of basic knowledge on how to carry out an activity, her engagement in sustainability activities has taught her the methods of how one should run or manage an activity. Correspondingly, from the experience and understanding of how to manage the activities, she also succeeded in acquiring communication or interpersonal competency as a result of having to communicate with various entities, both internal and external to the university that could help her in carrying out the planned sustainability activities.

The first that I learned was how to handle the program. That time, I did not know like how to, from A to Z what actually we have to do. So, the first thing that I learned was really on how to handle the program. Second is communication, we communicate a lot with people, corporate and all.

From the responses of the students on the newly acquired competency through their engagement, campus sustainability activities can be seen as a platform that could provide the students with opportunities to develop their sustainability competencies. The experiences are different from in-class learning as students have to deal with entities that are not related to their courses and the initiatives that are being carried out could transpire in actuality. Even though group presentations and case study discussions in classes may help in developing competencies in the students, they still lack real-life experience. Engagement in campus sustainability activities exposes the students to more than just the development of sustainability competencies, it grants them first-hand experience in addressing the issues. The experiences from engaging in sustainability activities could be used in their future undertaking, whether it is in their personal life or professional careers.

4.2. Competencies Reported to Be Improved

The second interview question investigates the competencies the students reported to have improved from their engagement in campus sustainability activities. This question examines the impact sustainability activities have in further developing the competency that the students already possess. To ensure that there was no misinterpretation by the respondents on the resemblance of the first two interview questions, the differences between the two questions were explained in detail to the interviewees. Furthermore, the responses from the students were also double-checked with the first interview question and verified again with the respondents to avoid confusion before continuing further with the interview. The majority of the respondents (13 out of 21) claimed to have improved their interpersonal competency through their engagement in campus sustainability activities. Having to work with different people of different standings, Respondents 8 and 14 have discovered different approaches they could use when communicating or negotiating with them.

Respondent 8 was exposed to different methods of communication when dealing with different individuals with regard to the status or position one holds. Serving as a learning platform that gathers different individuals to work together in addressing sustainability issues, campus sustainability activities provide a safe space for these students to test and employ different methods of communication as well as working styles. Learning within a classroom may not be able to provide a similar opportunity as engagement in sustainability activities, given that it usually only involves students and lecturers who are enrolled in the course and less likely to involve interacting with the communities or private sectors. From his engagement in sustainability activities, Respondent 8 is able to apply different methods and approaches of communication when dealing with his counterpart, whether it is the administrators, researchers, students, industries or the community. As for Respondent 14, the improvement in her interpersonal competency was a result of having to organise and manage sustainability activities. Respondent 14 had to work together with several different bodies, both internal and external to the university in carrying out sustainability activities. These interactions were mostly conducted to borrow equipment such as tables and chairs from the administration, as well as obtain “the approval” to carry out the activity. Though these interactions may prove to be difficult at times, the constant interaction has managed to heighten her negotiation skills and interpersonal competency.

I would say communication. When I need to communicate with the outside network. Because, when we do program we have to deal with people from Prasarana (Department of Infrastructure in the university), Prasarana is the most difficult, to ask for tables, chairs and to seek their approval. Other than that, everyone in the network within and outside of the network of university.

While the majority of the respondents reported experiencing improvement in their interpersonal competency, there were a few who responded differently. For these respondents, their engagement in campus sustainability activities has improved their level of adaptability, patience and openness towards others’ opinions. Respondent 20 who has joined various organisations, stated that “each of the organization have their own working style”, and in order to be able to contribute to the cause and bring change to the organisation, one needs to be able to adapt quickly. Unable to acclimatise to the new working culture could hamper the progress of the planned sustainability activities. Similar views and findings were also shared by Quétel et al. [66], stressing the value of adaptability and how it could contribute to one’s sustainable functioning, provided that they also receive support from the institutional level. Respondents 12 and 21 mentioned patience and being open to others’ opinions, respectively, as the aptitudes they believed to have improved from their engagement in campus sustainability activities.

So conducting these programs, I have learned to be patient. How to be consistent, perseverance because when we are patient, we will get whatever we want but, in a certain duration.

I think being open-minded. Because I can like accept more things because different people, different opinion so, I need to be open-minded to accept all the different, funny opinions. Second, one maybe need to be a little bit better in leadership and managing time.

Working together with other individuals in carrying out sustainability activities could prove to be challenging at times as every individual has different opinions and approaches on how to manage the activities. The conflicting opinions on how the sustainability activity should proceed, the delay in getting approvals from the management and the methods to approach the issues could test an individual’s tolerance level. This was shared by Respondents 12 and 21 based on their engagement experience in having to work together with other stakeholders in managing sustainability activities. The perspectives shared by these respondents prove to be different from past studies that investigate the development of sustainability competencies in students; particularly, the elements of adaptability and patience were not found to be mentioned as competencies or aptitudes that need to be developed in students when dealing with sustainability. The respondents have shared that engagement in campus sustainability activities has more to offer than just improvement to their competencies. This could be due to the learning approach used to develop or nurture sustainability competencies in the students. The exposure to working with other stakeholders in managing the activities and being able to address the sustainability issues directly could also influence their sustainability values, attitudes and behaviour. In future studies, there is a need to investigate the potential of engagement in sustainability activities as a learning approach and the relevance of adaptability and patience to be nurtured in the students in preparing them to face sustainability issues.

4.3. Competencies Reported to Be Essential

The third interview question looks at the competencies the students reported to be essential and have helped them in their engagement in campus sustainability activities. The responses collected from the students could be categorised into two different groups, with the majority of them (13 out of 21) stating interpersonal competency as the essential competency that has helped them in their engagement. Participating in sustainability activities involves working with various people and this is not limited to working with students only; sometimes, it involves working with individuals from the industries, government bodies or the surrounding community. This requires the students to be able to communicate effectively and create a good working environment that promotes collaboration between the stakeholders of the sustainability activities. Respondent 2 who appreciated interpersonal competency as the essential competency throughout her engagement stresses how this competency has helped her in making people “understand about sustainability” and enlighten them to the benefits they could obtain by advocating the cause. A similar stance was also shared by Respondent 8 on the importance of interpersonal competency and this was mentioned along with having leadership skills and passion for sustainability, quoting it as equally essential when engaging in sustainability activities:

Number one is leadership. Because you have to portray yourself as a leader. Because people will only do what you do. So, you don’t just simply talk but not walk the talk. So, yeah, leadership by example is very important in sustainability …

Second, is the human-to-human interaction. You have to know what is your target groups. Let’s say you are trying to convince the management, so you have to put the right language, the right skills, the right proposal for them. If you would like to influence your friends, so you have to use the layman kind of interactions.

Then the third one, which is important is the passion to continue. Because sustainability, you cannot just have it as one-off. So, cannot be considered as sustainability initiative, sustainability activities, you have to go on and on and on.

Being a leader who is capable of leading others by example is one of the effective methods to convince others to participate in the efforts of achieving sustainability. The act of communicating to others to support sustainability activities without actions could only bring sustainability initiatives so far. On the other hand, passion or having a strong sense of enthusiasm for sustainability is essential as it gives the individual a sense of commitment, willingness and interest towards achieving the goal of the sustainability activities. This enthusiasm not only would serve as a push factor that motivates the students, but also prompt them into developing the required sustainability competencies that would help them in their engagement.

For the second group of respondents, a different view was exhibited where passion for sustainability was emphasised as more essential than sustainability competencies. To these respondents, having sustainability competencies alone is insufficient to carry out sustainability activities, much less solve the pressing sustainability issues that the world is facing today. Though passion is seen as more of an attitude and value, this group of students strongly believes passion is the catalyst towards the development of sustainability competencies. Sharing his perspective and experiences from engaging in the activities, Respondent 1 disclosed his point of view on how passion would help one to develop the competencies they would require to help them in their engagement.

The skill will come later, the first one is you need to, believe what you are doing and you really passionate about it. And then, once you go through every-thing, you will learn how to use the skill, to engage the students, to engage the people, the staffs at JPPHB (University’s Department of Maintenance) and all, really at the first time you need to like, passionate about it and you believe in what you are doing. So, if you don’t believe in yourself, how you want to engage with the people, how you want to lead people on doing that …

With commitment, it would stimulate the students to find various methods to ensure the progress of the sustainability activity or improve themselves to be able to accomplish the intended outcome that has been established prior to the implementation of the activity. Categorised under the same group of respondents, Respondent 9 shared his perspective on the importance of perseverance and that it should similarly supersede the development of sustainability competencies. In contrast to learning within the classroom where students solve problems through discussions and exchange of ideas, sustainability activities demand continuous involvement and commitment from the students.

One is perseverance, you cannot give up in this kind of thing. You have activists who’ve been involved for 40, 50 years and the world hasn’t change but they are still doing it? And the second thing is, just this, ability to gain confidence and trusts. Because, ultimately if people change it’s because they believe in what you are saying. So, if you are convincing, then people are more likely to believe you and if you are trustworthy, you can prove that, what you are trying to fight for, it’s sensible, it’s logical, it’s reasonable, then people are more likely to trust you.

According to Respondents 1 and 9, passion and perseverance can take one far in the pursuit of sustainability. This perception could be considered plausible due to the nature of sustainability activities that necessitate strong commitment, persistence and patience from an individual. Despite being well equipped with knowledge and competencies for sustainability, without strong interests and perseverance, one may not last long in their efforts to achieve sustainability. Based on the concept that is being put forward by ESD, values and attitudes (both passion and perseverance are categorised as values) are also vital elements that need to be nurtured in the students [67,68]. However, these aspects were mostly overlooked by scholars and the focus was mostly on knowledge and competency development in the students [69,70]. There is a need to investigate the significance and relevance of passion and perseverance as part of sustainability competencies for the students.

4.4. Overall Findings

From the interview with the students who shared their experiences and perspectives on how engagement in campus sustainability activities has impacted the development of sustainability competencies, various competencies were cited to be developed, improved and believed to be essential in their engagement. Some of the respondents provided more than one competency that they believed to have developed, improved and deemed to be essential in their engagement.

Table 3. Summary from the interview with the students.

Interview Question	Competencies Developed from Engagement in Campus Sustainability Activities (from the Most Stated to the Least Stated)
What newly acquired sustainability competency have students “developed” from their engagement in campus sustainability activities?	Interpersonal competence Strategic competence and interpersonal competence (negotiation) Systems-thinking competence and interpersonal competence (negotiation) Integrated problem-solving competence
What kind of “improvements” in sustainability competencies have students gained through their involvement in campus sustainability activities?	Interpersonal competence Strategic competence and interpersonal competence (negotiation) Perseverance Adaptability to the situation
Which sustainability competency do the students believe to be “essential” for them throughout their engagement in campus sustainability activities?	Interpersonal competence Strategic competence and interpersonal competence (negotiation) Passion for sustainability Knowledge on sustainability Adaptability to the situation

provides the summary of the responses from the students on which competencies they have developed, improved and deemed to be essential based on their engagement in campus sustainability activities. The arrangement of the competencies was based on the frequencies mentioned by the students from the most stated to the least stated.

The competencies mentioned by the students were based on the experiences they had undergone in their engagement to carry out sustainability activities. Passion for sustainability and adaptability were two new novelties discovered to be essential in the students’ engagement in campus sustainability activities.

5. Conclusions

The development of sustainability competencies in students has often been the focus of ESD research and this was often carried out through the adoption of the formal learning approach. In this study, a different perspective was shared on how sustainability competencies could be developed in the students through informal learning, specifically via engagement in campus sustainability activities. Besides being a platform where students could acquire in-depth sustainability knowledge and develop their sustainability competencies through the opportunities and spaces provided, these activities also help in shaping students’ values, attitudes and behaviour. The experiences of interacting and working together with different stakeholders would heighten the students’ capabilities to become more critical, forward-thinking and inclusive in addressing sustainability issues.

Two limitations were identified when carrying out this study. First is the lack of support and accessibility provided by the management of other universities in allowing the research to be conducted. Only these three universities were willing to give access to allow this study to be carried out at their institutions. The second limitation was the availability of respondents. Although there was a list of potential respondents provided by the coordinators, some of the students were reluctant to participate in the study.

The experiences shared by the students from their engagement in campus sustainability activities have shown that interpersonal competency was the most reported competency to be acquired, improved and essential for them in their engagement. The reason for this was mainly due to the nature of tasks that these students were assigned, where they had to work with various stakeholders in carrying out the sustainability activities. Good interpersonal competency would promote a suitable collaborative environment within the group, and this allows the activities to be carried out effectively and efficiently. Nonetheless, other competencies such as strategic thinking and critical thinking were also mentioned in the students’ engagement experiences.

Two interesting findings were obtained from this study: the importance of adaptability to work in a diverse group and passion for sustainability. This discovery can be considered a novelty given that similar findings are hardly found in past studies that investigate sustainability competencies development in students. More research is needed in this area given the lack of studies conducted on developing sustainability competencies through informal learning and the potential of engagement as a pedagogical tool for sustainability competency development in students. The need to explore the development of sustainability competencies in the students through different pedagogical approaches is also recommended for future research. It is believed that different sustainability pedagogies develop and identify different competencies as vital for the students. Further research on the integration of ESD into the universities’ curriculum system at the local front is recommended. Studies in this research area are still limited in comparison to the studies conducted in the US and Europe. This offers huge research opportunities for researchers to explore and contribute to expanding this research area from the Malaysian context.