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Article

Contradictions about Sustainability: A Case Study of College Students from Saudi Arabia

by
Gaydaa Al-Zohbi
and
Maura A. E. Pilotti
*
College of Sciences and Human Studies, Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar 31952, Saudi Arabia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(4), 3483; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043483
Submission received: 30 January 2023 / Revised: 10 February 2023 / Accepted: 13 February 2023 / Published: 14 February 2023
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Education and Approaches)
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
The present study offers a window into college students’ views of environmental sustainability in a country that is one of the major oil producers in the world. College students are the main constituents of the country’s programmatic plan (i.e., the 2030 Vision) for restructuring its infrastructure and human capital away from oil and gas production and toward a knowledge and service economy. Thus, their views can influence the success of the plan. In the present study, 430 college students at a university located at the heart of the oil and gas region were surveyed via an online questionnaire. Participants were of Middle Eastern descent. It was found that their beliefs and reported actions were generally supportive of a green economy. However, their beliefs in climate change and specifically in renewable energy did not predict much of their sustainability-based behaviors (e.g., recycling). The latter findings were interpreted as reflecting the internal conflict between embracing change (i.e., a desirable but uncertain future), and resisting change (i.e., a choice that would preserve, at least for some time, the benefits of the fossil fuel economy).

1. Introduction

Saudi Arabia is in the process of reengineering its economy and with it, the very fabric of its society to build a sustainable ecosystem [1]. The 2030 Vision is a pragmatic blueprint for such an ecosystem. It purports to advance sustainable development by promoting economic diversification, conservation of its natural environment, and use of renewable sources and materials. The 2030 Vision adheres to the conceptualization of sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” [2] (p. 43). As such, it rests on three pillars, or interconnected spheres of intervention [3], including economic viability, environmental protection, and social equity.
The economic, ecological, and social spheres can be treated as separable entities, each possessing its distinct values, reasons to exist, and priorities. The challenge for sustainable development is to find a point of equilibrium among the pillars so that no one pillar is prioritized over the others [4]. Namely, the challenge is to develop and implement drastic changes in production and consumption habits that respect nature and its resources, regardless of any benefits to human capital. However, an anthropocentric misconception of sustainability, whereby human beings and their needs are key, may be responsible for the existing lack of equilibrium among the pillars and for the struggle to find one. Not surprisingly, in countries around the world, including Saudi Arabia, economic growth and social development are prioritized [5].
The unequal distribution of attention and action that the pillars of sustainable development have received across the globe coexists with concerns about the environmental degradation caused by human activities, such as the depletion of natural resources, air, water, and land pollution, and global warming [6,7,8]. Inadequate consideration for the protection of the earth’s diverse ecosystems may be attributed to a variety of human shortcomings [9,10,11], including something as trivial as the disposition to resist change [12,13,14]. Undoubtedly, the protection of the earth’s ecosystems implies change encompassing the incremental use of renewable natural resources and the decreased use of non-renewable natural resources. That is, it requires concrete actions that avoid degradation or depletion of non-renewable resources, as well as actions that foster a feasible transition to alternative renewable sources. In this context, resistance to change exists as the hostility to the loss of something that is perceived to be valuable (e.g., the wealth gained from the fossil industry) or, more broadly, the loss of the certainty offered by what is known. Resistance to change encompasses a range of actions, from passive resignation to deliberate sabotage [14].
In this context, it is a worthwhile exercise to examine a country, such as Saudi Arabia, that has adopted the pillars of sustainable development and showcased them in its 2030 Vision, while still being one of the largest oil producers [15]. In the first part of this paper, we examine the current status and envisioned aims of Saudi Arabia as a case study of the extant literature. In it, we argue that the adoption of the pillars, which at first blush appears to present an existential contradiction, is instead a pragmatic and inevitable choice made to ensure the survival of the country.
The second part of this paper rests on the acknowledgment that female and male college students are at the very center of changes underscoring sustainable development. Undoubtedly, they represent the primary future workforce that is expected to make the blueprint named the 2030 Vision a reality. Thus, we argue that assessing the attitudes and behaviors of college students can offer a window into the extent to which the realization of sustainable development may face obstacles, including their nature, magnitude, and degree of malleability. To this end, we present the results of a survey conducted at a higher educational institution located in the Saudi region of primary oil and gas production and transport (i.e., the Eastern Region). The region rests on a quarter of the world’s oil reserves, and it is considered the industrial heartland of the country [16]. Its populous urban centers host the world’s prime oil and gas producer (Saudi Aramco), the Middle East’s main petrochemical producer (Sabic), and a massive commercial port in Dammam.
The student population of the selected institution consists largely of Saudi nationals from the Eastern Region, whose families can be classified as middle class [17]. The survey was intended to assess the extent to which a sample of the Saudi college student population would respond to the sustainable development message of the 2030 Vision. It asked students about sustainability-promoting behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes (e.g., those toward climate change and renewable energy), as well as awareness of issues related to a sustainable environment. Given the physical location of the participants at the heart of the industrial complex that currently defines Saudi’s economy, the survey was intended to be a sample of the most likely individuals to experience cognitive dissonance [18] between two ostensibly desirable overreaching goals. On one side, there are the sustainable development aims of the 2030 Vision, which would purportedly continue or even add to the prosperity of the country. On the other side, there is resistance to changing habits and, more broadly, ways of living that have brought wealth to the students’ communities and to which such communities have grown accustomed.
In the study, students from the selected population were asked to self-report cognitions (i.e., beliefs and attitudes) and behaviors (expressing ingrained habits). It was hypothesized that as the strength of one’s beliefs and attitudes increased, consistency between reported behavior and cognition would also increase [19]. The dimension of strength described the extent to which an attitude or belief is consequential in shaping a person’s thinking and action across situations. In other words, it is the person’s subjective judgment of the importance he/she assigns to the attitude or belief [19,20,21]. Because of the expected cognitive dissonance between sustainability and resistance to change, relationships between cognitions regarding sustainability, either general (e.g., climate change) or specific (e.g., renewable energy), and sustainability-specific behaviors (e.g., turning off the lights when living a room) were predicted to be weak overall.
An additional prediction was made regarding gender equity based on the fact that the signs of the transformation envisioned by the 2030 Vision are currently sprinkled everywhere in the country [22]. They target not only the physical environment, through massive public infrastructure projects but also human resources, through the overt promotion of education and gender equity. In this period of transformation, college students are at the center of the 2030 Vision. Young women and men are given equitable opportunities in education and the workplace. Now, young men stand side by side with young women who are given responsibilities and are empowered with expectations before the sole domain of males [23]. Thus, we predicted that if the gender-equity push of the 2030 Vision [24] was close to being realized in the minds of the very people who are expected to make it a reality, female and male college students would not differ in their embracing sustainable development. On the other side, because the benefits of the oil and gas economy had traditionally benefitted males, there might be less support for sustainable development (i.e., more resistance to change) in male students. Of course, we also considered that differences in the academic major selected by a student would make sustainable development more or less relevant, but only if the university did not promote sustainable development goals across the board.
In the third part of the paper, we used the Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire for Colleges and Universities [25] to situate the information we obtained from the students at one university into the larger context of other universities in Saudi Arabia. A university within each of the 13 regions of Saudi Arabia was randomly selected. Its website was examined by two independent raters to address the extent to which the university accomplishes sustainability in its (a) curriculum, (b) research and scholarship, (c) practices (e.g., energy conservation, waste reduction, etc.), (d) faculty and staff development and incentives, (e) outreach and services to communities at the local and international level, (f) student opportunities (e.g., student clubs or societies, orientation programs, etc.), and (g) formal institutional commitment (as illustrated by administrative documents, mission, and planning). The basic assumption upon which the third part of the paper rests is that higher education institutions are the main driving forces of change within any given society [26]. As such, they are the leaders upon which sustainability may be achieved both within the confines of college campuses and beyond in communities within and across countries.

2. Literature Review

2.1. The Saudi Social and Economic Ecosystems

Oil and gas production is and has been the backbone of the Saudi economy and thus the main source of revenue that drives economic activities, employment, and prosperity in the country [27]. Although oil and gas continue to dominate exports, industrialization efforts initiated in the 1980s have led to a notable diversification of the Saudi economy, including manufacturing, and entrepreneurship in service and knowledge industries [28,29]. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s wealthiest nations per capita [30,31]. Prosperity arises from a large number of medium- to large-sized companies, abundant natural resources (e.g., oil, gas, industrial metals, etc.), cheap energy costs, and extensive arable land, all supported by and existing through a robust infrastructure that contributes to the thriving business atmosphere in the country [30,31,32,33,34].
The Saudi government’s plan, called the 2030 Vision, and the related National Transformation Program of 2020 highlight the importance of diversifying the economy through the development of a knowledge- and service-based economy [35,36,37]. In a knowledge-based economy, growth depends on the quantity, quality, and accessibility of valuable information, instead of the production and distribution of tangible goods [36]. A service economy delivers services (e.g., banking, communications, wholesale and retail trade, and professional services) as opposed to tangible goods [38]. As a support system, the latter is intrinsically linked to the former. At present, despite attempts at economic diversification, the economy of Saudi Arabia remains heavily dependent on oil, gas, and petroleum-related industries. For instance, according to 2016 records, this sector is said to account for approximately 87% of revenues, 42% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and 90% of the export earnings” [35].
In the policy documents that represent the 2030 Vision, which was launched in 2016, and the ensuing National Transformation Program of 2020 [35], the intent is to develop a set of actionable objectives. The overarching goal is to reduce the country’s reliance on non-renewable resources, such as oil and gas, and promote economic diversification, including the development of particular sectors (e.g., health care, education, infrastructure, and tourism). The National Transformation Program specifically links the 2030 Vision to concrete objectives, and key performance indicators, as well as targets and benchmarks, to be followed by all economic- and development-sector institutions (i.e., the entities that are expected to execute the implementation of the 2030 Vision). In such documents, the diversification of the Saudi economy is considered vital for its sustainability.
Sustainable development entails three conceptual domains: (1) Socio-economic development consistent with ecological constraints, (2) consideration of needs, which entails the redistribution of resources to safeguard the welfare of all, and (3) the prospect of enduring use of resources to ensure the welfare of future generations [39]. In other words, sustainable development targets three key dimensions of human existence (i.e., the economic, social, and environmental spheres) that are deemed necessary for the survival of planet earth in years to come [40]. According to the Bellagio principles for assessing progress toward sustainable development [41,42], indicators are to be used for measuring at any given time sustainable development initiatives and outcomes. Although specific guidelines exist to which both the 2030 Vision and the National Transformation Program of 2020 comply in principle, the extant literature is not entirely clear as to the extent to which progress has been achieved in different sectors of the economy of Saudi Arabia and within its society at large [43]. Most importantly, it is unclear whether the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened or merely delayed the achievement of identified targets worldwide [44,45,46,47].
There are 17 sustainable development goals [48,49] that can be measured through 231 unique global indicators [50]. Saudi Arabia is part of the region labeled “Northern Africa and Western Asia”. According to the progress chart from 2022 [50], the current levels achieved in the region for each of the 17 goals vary considerably, ranging from “far from the target” to “target met”. In Saudi Arabia, some goals, however, have dominated others [51], such as goal 7 (i.e., ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all). The country has focused on the development of renewable energy through programs and projects that target solar, wind, and nuclear energy [51]. Thus, a reasonable issue to examine is the extent to which the country is “green”. A green economy is defined as one whose outcomes include a low carbon footprint, resource efficiency, well-being, and social equity [52]. As such, the green economy represents the economic, environmental, and social domains of sustainable development (i.e., its three key building blocks).
Chaaben et al. [53], who used the EEPSE Green Economy Index (EEPSE GEI) to determine the extent to which sustainable development was achieved during the period 2015–2020 in Saudi Arabia, found mixed results. Important to note is that the index relies on five indicators: Quality of education, economy, civil society, government, and natural environment. Overall, from the year that the 2030 Vision plan was launched (2016) to 2020, the EEPSE GEI score illustrates substantial progress (from 47.32 to 51.12). However, a closer look at the indicators also shows that Saudi Arabia faces major challenges in environmental protection and economic diversification. Challenges specifically include the high per capita energy-related CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions, persistent limited reliance on renewable energy technologies by industries and consumers [54,55], weak environmental regulations, and dismal consumers’ awareness regarding environmental protection [53].

2.2. The Role of Educational Institutions in Sustainable Development

In Saudi Arabia, as in other parts of the world, higher education institutions are seen as major propellers of change on their campuses and, more broadly, in the communities where such institutions exist. Both conceptually and practically, change includes environmental sustainability. Not surprisingly, institutions across the globe have enhanced their focus on sustainable development through actions, such as reforming their curriculum, research agenda, and community services, as well as incorporating sustainability into campus development and daily operations [56,57,58]. Changes come from the recognition of the need to reduce the impact of campus activities on the environment at large and ensure that students not only gain literacy in sustainability but also embrace sustainable behaviors [59,60]. The success of sustainability-related actions on campus rests on the cooperation and engagement of all stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, administrators, and the communities in which universities are embedded [61]. In this context, students are the key stakeholders. Thus, understanding their perceptions about and their involvement in environmental sustainability may offer prima facie evidence of the extent to which a university is likely to employ sustainable practices [62,63].
In several studies predominantly conducted in the Western world, students have been found to be informed of sustainable initiatives at their colleges and universities and even willing to support and participate in such activities [59,61,62,64,65,66,67]. Similarly, administrators have been reported to have performed sustainability-related activities on campus, which may include enhancing the energy efficiency of infrastructures, implementing waste recycling protocols, and promoting sustainable transport for commuters. Despite the key role that universities and colleges play in promoting environmental sustainability, student populations of the Middle East have remained somewhat neglected in studies examining people’s views of environmental sustainability and/or their promotion of sustainability on campuses and at home. Specifically, very little is known about students’ perceptions of and engagement in environmental sustainability efforts in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the fossil energy industry.
A notable exception is a study conducted by Abubakar et al. [68] at the University of Dammam in the Eastern Region of Saudi Arabia. The researchers surveyed 152 students from the College of Architecture and Planning, whose curricula offer courses related to sustainability. Even with a sample of students who would be expected to be familiar with the concept and its implications, the results were rather mixed. If the responses “quite a bit” and “a great deal” are merged, 46.0% of the students claimed to have knowledge of, 34.3% have interest in, and 75.0% be concerned about sustainability, but only 26.3% expressed willingness to participate in initiatives fostering it. The latter was seen as mainly the responsibility of others, such as industries in the private sector and governmental agencies. Only a modest 15.8% of the students asserted that everybody is responsible. Students’ perceptions of the extent to which the university implemented sustainability practices were also less than overwhelmingly favorable: Energy conservation (34.2%) and water conservation practices (27.6%), recycling (30.3%), and promotion of sustainable transportation (23.1%) and landscaping (51.3%). Notwithstanding the university’s formal commitment to sustainability, opportunities to promote it or exercise it on campus were judged to be limited. Indeed, only job fairs and career counseling devoted to sustainable enterprises were reported by a large number of students (61.8%) to be available on campus. Whether a similar set of findings would be obtained at the university that actively promotes sustainable developmental initiatives and matters was examined in the research described below.

3. Materials and Methods

The research we conducted is detailed below. Information is organized into two related subsections, one devoted to the survey participants and one describing the materials and procedure used for data collection.

3.1. Participants

The participants were 430 full-time undergraduate students at a private university in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, PMU). The region is a largely industrialized territory that serves as a major platform for most of the country’s oil production and exports. Participants constituted a convenience sample of students who were recruited from general education courses to include all educational levels (26.5% freshmen, 51.6% sophomores, 15.3% juniors, and 6.5% seniors) and majors. For simplicity, programs that fell within the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics were labeled as STEM, whereas programs that fell outside these domains were labeled as non-STEM. STEM majors (44.4%) included the disciplines of computer science and engineering, whereas non-STEM majors (55.6%) encompassed business and law fields.
There were 211 males and 219 females. All commuted to and from the university’s main campus approximately 5 days a week by car (91.4%) or bus (8.6%). Saudi nationals comprised the largest constituency (94.7%), followed by citizens of other Middle Eastern countries (5.3%). All students lived either at home (97.44%) or in off-campus apartments (2.56%). Their ages ranged from 18 to 35 years.

3.2. Materials and Procedure

The questionnaire was developed to focus on 3 conceptually different areas: (a) Awareness, responsibility for environmental changes, and willingness to act (5 questions), (b) particular actions supporting sustainability (6 questions), (c) the role in establishing sustainable development exhibited by the higher education institution in which students were enrolled (3 questions). Multiple-choice questions assessed either students’ beliefs and attitudes through a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree (−2) to strongly agree (+2), or their frequency of behavioral engagement through a 5-point scale from never (0) to always (4). An open-ended question asked for a definition of sustainable development to be typed by the participants. Filler questions were intermixed to reduce the impact of social desirability.
During the middle of the second semester of fully face-to-face classes since the COVID-19 pandemic, students were asked to participate in a survey regarding their views on sustainability. The survey was administered online. Students clicked on a link that displayed the survey. After informed consent was given, students were asked some demographic questions (age, major, educational level, nationality, housing arrangement, and mode of travel). Then, the questions about sustainability and filler questions were displayed one at a time. The completion of the survey took approximately 10–15 min.
Questionnaire construction was based on the researchers’ review of the extant literature and their decision to focus questions on environmental sustainability to ensure candid responses by the students of the selected student population. Before administration, face and content validity, and test-retest reliability were assessed [69,70,71].
Face validity referred to the extent to which questions appeared relevant to the selected construct (i.e., the environmental dimension of sustainable development) and were unambiguous in the judgment of the students from the subject pool of the study. To assess face validity, two students read the definition of sustainable development proposed by the United Nations. In it, sustainable development was defined as entailing three conceptual domains: (1) Socio-economic development consistent with ecological constraints, (2) consideration of needs, which entails the redistribution of resources to safeguard the welfare of all, and (3) the prospect of enduring use of resources to ensure the welfare of future generations [39]. After comprehension was ascertained, students were asked to rate questions as to whether they would fit the concept of sustainable development. Cohen’s Kappa Index (CKI) was 0.79, which was above the minimal criterion of 0.60 interrater agreement.
Content validity was ascertained by relying on ten individuals familiar with the field of sustainable development. They were asked to rate each question using a three-point scale: Not necessary, useful but not essential, or essential to the concept of sustainable development. The content validity ratio was 0.79, which was above the minimum 0.62 required for the retention of items [72].
Test-retest reliability, which concerned the extent to which the questionnaire provided stable and consistent results, was assessed by having 5 students to re-take the questionnaire after approximately three weeks. The interrater reliability was 0.89.
While the data were collected, the Sustainability Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) for Colleges and Universities [22] was used to situate the information we obtained from the students into the larger context of other universities in Saudi Arabia. Random selection was utilized to identify one university per each of the 13 regions of the country (Eastern Province, Najran, Asir, Riyadh, Ha’il, Al Madinah, Makkah, Tabuk, Al Jawf, Al-Qassim, Jizan, Al Bahah, and Northern Borders). Then the pages of the websites of the selected universities were examined for their sustainability on seven critical dimensions: (a) Curriculum, (b) research and scholarship, (c) practices (e.g., energy conservation, waste reduction, etc.), (d) faculty and staff development and incentives, (e) outreach and services to communities at the local and international level, (f) student opportunities (e.g., student clubs, orientation programs, etc.), and (g) formal institutional commitment (as illustrated by administrative documents, mission, and planning). Two independent raters examined the websites. If any disagreement existed between the raters’ answers, a third one was engaged. Answers were translated into a quantitative format on a 4-point scale, including 0 (none), 1 (a little), 2 (quite a bit), and 3 (a great deal), or a binary scale, including 1 (yes) or 0 (no). The absence of information for a given dimension was given a 0 on all scales.

4. Results

Results are divided into five subsections. Those labeled 1–3 contain descriptive statistics and inferential statistics assessing gender and major differences, whereas Section 4.4 contains analyses of the correlation between beliefs and particular behaviors related to sustainability. The last subsection is devoted to contextualizing the university from which the sample of participants was taken.

4.1. Awareness, Responsibility for Environmental Changes, and Willingness to Act

Participants who rated environmental events according to their impact found climate change to be the most impactful (see Table 1). When asked whether they believe the earth’s climate is changing, 80.2% strongly or moderately agreed, 4.2% disagreed, and 15.6% did not have an opinion. Among those who believed that climate change exists, its source(s) varied. Namely, attribution of responsibility referred to human beings (45.3%), natural processes (16.5%), or both (35.6%). A small number of students denied that climate change exists (2.1%) or reported not knowing its causes (0.5%). When asked who should take primary responsibility for addressing climate change, most students expected action to be taken by individuals (56.0%). Government agencies (19.8%), local communities (6.5%), and the private sector (for-profit companies: 14.9%, non-profit companies: 2.8%) were also expected to act, but to a lesser degree.
Based on Saudi Arabia’s current dependency on fossil fuels, students were asked about their attitudes toward replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, such as wind and solar, on a national scale. A large number of students either strongly agreed or agreed (74.4%), whereas 19.8% expressed neutrality, and 5.8% either strongly disagreed or disagreed.

4.2. Particular Actions Supporting Sustainability

When participants were asked about the frequency with which they performed specific actions that are intended to support a sustainable environment, they reported performing different actions at varied frequencies (see Table 2). Tuning off the lights when leaving a room was listed as the most frequent, whereas using reusable containers (e.g., water bottles) was the least frequent.
Interestingly, when students were asked whether they would be willing to pay more money for products and services to encourage the adoption of renewable energy on a national scale, only 20.5% rejected the idea. Most students stated that they were willing to pay from 1% to 50% more for products and services.
It is important to note that there were no gender differences in any of the surveyed behaviors, as determined by one-way ANOVA [Fs(1, 428) ≤ 3.53, ns]. Instead, there were differences between STEM and non-STEM majors in the frequency of recycling [F(1, 428) = 4.37, MSE = 1.78, p = 0.010, ηp2 = 0.010], and reliance on reusable containers [F(1, 428) = 7.54, MSE = 1.59, p = 0.006, ηp2 = 0.017]. Namely, on a 5-point scale from 0 (never) to 4 (always), non-STEM majors reported performing recycling [M = 2.74 and SD = 1.27] and relying on reusable containers [M = 2.39 and SD = 1.23] more often than STEM students [M = 2.47 and SD = 1.41; M = 2.06 and SD = 1.30, respectively]. No significant differences were detected in the other actions [Fs(1, 428) ≤ 1.0, ns].

4.3. Beliefs in Climate Change or Renewable Energy and Particular Actions Supporting Sustainability

A Spearman correlation analysis was carried out to determine whether beliefs in climate change (general conviction) or renewable energy (specific conviction) were related to reported sustainability-related actions (see Table 3). For each of the significant correlations, a coefficient of determination was then computed to determine the degree to which beliefs predicted particular behaviors. Although beliefs were correlated with specific actions, links were so weak that predicting specific behaviors from beliefs in climate change or beliefs about renewable energy would be a futile enterprise. That is, coefficients of determination for significant correlations ranged from 1.0% to 4.0%.

4.4. The Sustainable Development Role of the Higher Education Institution in Which Students Are Enrolled

When asked to define sustainable development, 46.8% of the students admitted not knowing its meaning. The remaining students defined it either generally as a maintainable ecosystem (40.0%) or, more specifically, as a system that relies on renewable energy (13.2%). However, definitions provided focused on the physical environment and did not reflect the complexity of the concept developed by the United Nations. When asked directly about the role that the institution in which they have enrolled may play in environmentally sustainable initiatives (e.g., increasing the use of renewable energy), 64.7% of the students strongly agreed or agreed that the institution should do more, 27.0% did not have an opinion, whereas 8.3% either strongly disagreed or disagreed.
Students were largely favorable to sustainable development being integrated into university courses: 65.6% of the students strongly agreed or agreed that the institution should do more integration, 27.9% did not have an opinion, whereas 6.5% either strongly disagreed or disagreed. However, their reported knowledge of sustainable development (as expressed in their open-ended answers) suggested that favorable answers might have been the byproduct of a term that was perceived as having a positive connotation.

4.5. The Sustainable Development Characteristics of Universities in Saudi Arabia

We used the SAQ for Colleges and Universities [25] to situate the information we obtained from PMU students into the larger context of other universities in Saudi Arabia. The maximum number of points on each of the questionnaire’s dimensions and the actual number of points obtained by each university were used to compute a percentage indicating the extent to which progress on that dimension was obtained (see Table 4). The university from which the sample of participants was taken was then compared with the mean (M) ratings of the other 12 universities.
The wide variety of sustainability-related scores in each dimension exhibited by the 12 universities was noted but ultimately disregarded to compute a chi-square for goodness of fit for each dimension. Results indicated that the sustainability achievement of PMU was slightly higher than that of the average Saudi university on three key dimensions: Curriculum, practices, and faculty and staff development and incentives. Thus, the students surveyed in the present study appeared to have been more in tune with the idea of sustainability than other student populations in Saudi Arabia.

5. Discussion

The findings of the present study illustrate that college students from a university at the heart of the petroleum and gas industry region are largely aware of climate change, its sources, and potential remedies. They also report high frequencies of sustainability-related behaviors. However, when the relationship between reported behaviors and either beliefs in climate change or, more specifically, beliefs about renewable energy is examined, links are weak at best.
The findings regarding college students’ views of sustainability, including awareness and concerns, are different from those of another survey of a more homogenous group of students from the College of Architecture and Planning of a university also located at the heart of the petroleum and gas region (The University of Dammam, currently known as Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University). The study [68], which focused on sustainability on campus, reported that students exhibited awareness of and concern about environmental sustainability. However, they did not demonstrate much interest and willingness to participate in sustainability-related activities. Instead, most of our students reported both awareness and interest in sustainability-related activities. The difference between the two student populations may reside in institutional practices.
Abubakar et al. [68] noted that Dammam University’s campus practices for fostering environmental sustainability were limited to landscaping, waste recycling, and job fairs. Practices ignored areas, such as transportation, energy, and water conservation. In our study, in addition to an aggressive waste recycling program and other common environmental conservation-related practices, PMU was found to actively promote sustainability across disciplines. For instance, through a sustainability fair, students were given opportunities to showcase their work toward a sustainable development agenda. Furthermore, PMU embedded items of sustainable development in its general education instruction as well as in particular academic programs, such as engineering see [73]. Contrary to other institutions [74], elective and mandatory courses at PMU were found to be devoted to or actively integrate sustainable education themes. PMU was also found to reinforce consistent assessment of students’ attainment to inform instruction and curriculum development in a never-ending loop of beneficial influences [75,76]. As such, the impact of themes of sustainability on students’ attainment would be repeatedly appraised. The effort to embed instructional contents that inform students of sustainable development issues and remedies was driven by the assumption that sustainable education would need to start in the classroom before becoming an ingrained feature of students’ ways of thinking [77].
In four Saudi universities, Abdelwahed [78] found that students in management information systems, management, accounting, finance, and business were aware of and had positive attitudes toward sustainable entrepreneurship. Ebaid [79], who surveyed accounting students at four Saudi universities, found that although students appeared to be familiar with the concept of sustainable development, and aware of its relevance and implications, their knowledge was less than thorough. We found the same pattern here, even though with a more diverse group of students. In our study, there were no gender differences in concrete sustainability-related behaviors, such as recycling, but differences between STEM and non-STEM majors. Although the lower frequency of reported recycling and reliance on renewable containers of STEM majors was minor, it was an indication that STEM students, such as those in engineering, tended to be linked to the oil and gas industry much more than students in business or law.
In universities of the Eastern Region, Alsaati et al. [80] also found a high percentage of college students who have shallow knowledge of sustainability. The researchers specifically found that students had difficulties recognizing recycling materials, renewable materials, and measures of energy consumption but reported a high frequency of involvement in actions related to sustainability and conservation. Consistent with our study, no gender differences were reported. The absence of gender differences may reflect the gender equity push that has been inserted in all sectors of Saudi Arabia, including education, by the 2030 Vision [81,82,83]. However, in our study, students’ beliefs did not seem to correspond much to their actions (as per correlation analyses). A rational explanation for the observed weak correlational patterns is that social desirability might have inflated students’ reported beliefs in climate change and renewable energy [84,85,86]. Social desirability occurs when people bias their responses to improve their view of themselves in reference to a standard that is detected in an assessment tool (e.g., a questionnaire).
Our study’s limitations include its sample of participants. Although the size of the sample was substantial, it came from one university whose promotion of sustainability is rather aggressive. Notwithstanding the promotion of this theme, students’ knowledge of sustainable development was meager. Thus, students at other universities with a weaker endorsement of sustainability may display even more dismal knowledge. There may also be notable differences among students depending on their educational level [87,88]. However, such differences did not emerge in our study. Furthermore, our study relied on self-reports of beliefs, attitudes, and actions. We did not observe students performing the reported actions. Lastly, over time, the 2030 Vision is likely to become more of an unescapable reality in the quotidian life of students. As a result, views and behaviors may reflect a greater understanding and acceptance of sustainable development goals in years to come.

6. Conclusions

Ours is one of the few studies to be conducted in Saudi Arabia, at the very heart of the oil and gas production region. As such, the current study provides a window into the mind of undergraduate students who live face-to-face with the oil and gas production engine of Saudi Arabia. Namely, in their quotidian life, they have practical experience with the industrial apparatus that constitutes the engine and its multiple appendices. Moreover, the livelihoods of their families heavily rely directly or indirectly on the oil and gas industry. Thus, these students’ views can contribute to the theory and practice of sustainability in a socio-economic context that can be described as offering a serious challenge to desirable change.
According to Lewin’s three-step change theory [89], human behavior is a dynamic balance of forces, often operating in opposing directions: Those that facilitate change and those that restrain it. The first step in fostering change is to unfreeze the status quo (i.e., a state of equilibrium has to become a state of imbalance). The second step is to set a target, serving as a new state of equilibrium to achieve. The third step is to freeze the achieved target to ensure stability. At every step, the role of the collective(s) that a person inhabits is critical. Collectives can exercise substantial social influence through information sharing, observational learning, and more direct acts of intervention. As such, reference groups are to be considered important factors in determining the extent to which students embrace the changes demanded by sustainable development [90,91]. Reference groups may extend to the virtual world through social media applications, which benefit widespread use in Saudi Arabia [92].
Although our study has not addressed these factors, its methodology and findings can offer useful information for cross-cultural comparative studies, as well as help develop interventions that support the widespread implementation of sustainable ecosystems around the world. In an interconnected world, the concept of cross-cultural awareness [93,94] reflects a person’s recognition of cultural diversity. It is an index of one’s knowledge of the unique characteristics of different cultures and their impact on interpersonal exchanges and relationships. Thus, understanding the views and reactions to the concept of sustainable development of Saudi students and those of students from other countries is just the first step toward the successful implementation of sustainable development across the globe.

Author Contributions

All authors, G.A.-Z. and M.A.E.P., contributed equally to the research, including conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing, and project administration. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the guidelines for educational research of the OHPR of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as well as those of the American Psychological Association’s ethical standards for educational research. The research was conducted under the purview of the Deanship of Research at the selected institution.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

Data are available upon request.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our appreciation and gratitude to the students who participated in the study and to the members of the Undergraduate Research Society who contributed to the data collection. We are also grateful for the support of colleagues of the PMU Cognitive Science Research Cluster.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Table
Table 1. Percentage of students who rated a particular environmental event as most impactful.
Table 1. Percentage of students who rated a particular environmental event as most impactful.
EventNumber of ParticipantsPercentage 1
Climate change20146.7%
Burning of fossil fuels13030.3%
Rising sea levels10724.9%
Melting of the ice cap10524.4%
Ocean acidification9923.0%
Long-term droughts9722.6%
1 Because two or more events could be selected as most impactful, the total does not equal 100.
Table
Table 2. Sustainability-related actions as a function of the frequency with which they are performed.
Table 2. Sustainability-related actions as a function of the frequency with which they are performed.
Sustainability-Related ActionNever/RarelySometimesOften/Always
Frequency of recycling29.1%0%70.9%
Turn off the water while brushing12.6%17.2%70.2%
Reliance on reusable containers26.5%30.9%42.6%
Turn off the lights when leaving a room5.6%14.0%80.4%
Turn off equipment when not in use11.6%20.7%67.7%
Table
Table 3. The relationship between the frequency of sustainability-related actions and either general (climate change) or specific (replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy) beliefs.
Table 3. The relationship between the frequency of sustainability-related actions and either general (climate change) or specific (replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy) beliefs.
Sustainability-Related ActionGeneral
rs
Signif.		Specific
rs
Signif.
Frequency of recycling+0.10*+0.10*
Turn off the water while brushing+0.16*+0.20*
Use reusable containers+0.08ns+0.04ns
Turn off the lights when leaving a room+0.13*+0.20*
Turn off equipment when not in use+0.15*+0.17*
* Results are considered significant at the p < 0.05 level. The label ns refers to results that failed to reach significance.
Table
Table 4. The degree to which each dimension was achieved by PMU relative to other Saudi higher education institutions.
Table 4. The degree to which each dimension was achieved by PMU relative to other Saudi higher education institutions.
Dimension of the SAQPMUM OthersRangeꭓ2
Curriculum71%31%0–86%15.69
Research and scholarship40%28%0–80%ns
Practices44%27%0–78%11.67
Faculty & staff dev. and incentives33%18%0–100%4.41
Outreach and services20%14%0–40%ns
Student opportunities21%16%0–47%ns
Institutional commitment14%11%0–57%ns
ns = non-significant at p < 0.05.
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Al-Zohbi, G.; Pilotti, M.A.E. Contradictions about Sustainability: A Case Study of College Students from Saudi Arabia. Sustainability 2023, 15, 3483. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043483

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Al-Zohbi G, Pilotti MAE. Contradictions about Sustainability: A Case Study of College Students from Saudi Arabia. Sustainability. 2023; 15(4):3483. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043483

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Al-Zohbi, Gaydaa, and Maura A. E. Pilotti. 2023. "Contradictions about Sustainability: A Case Study of College Students from Saudi Arabia" Sustainability 15, no. 4: 3483. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043483

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