Sustainable Development Practices Implemented by the Community Partners of San Beda University (SBU)

Abstract

Sustainable development is a flagship subject of the stewardship ideology, an advocacy principle and challenge in the business implementation across the enterprises, big or small, all over the world. With the dynamic global scenario, the HEIs in the Philippines need to teach and support these sustainable development not just through its academic programs but to its community extension actions. To be able for San Beda University to do its responsibility in teaching and implementing sustainability, there is an immediate need to assess the current sustainability practices of the community partners of Community Engagement Center (CEC).The main objective of this research study is to identify the sustainability practices of the five community partners of CEC-SBU based on Elkington’s model of sustainability wherein it is three pillar model namely, environmental, economic and social sustainability requires equal attention. This study also aimed to determine the best practices of these community partners. The data collected are based on semi-structured interviews and field visits to the community partners. The results showed that the common SD practices identified are water utilization (under environmental dimension); maintain good quality of products (under economic dimension); and generation of employment and income, product safety, safety standard of work, organizational ethics and social interaction (under social dimension). The best SD practices were also evaluated. The study confirms the proposition that community partners of CEC-SBU shows low level of implementation in the environmental sustainability dimension. The results of this research can serve as a reference and guide in the community engagement agenda and activities of all SBU faculties, administrators, service personnel and students towards sustainability. The researchers recommend that CEC-SBU should conduct activities and other interventions for the community partners that enable adoption of SD practices especially those under environmental sustainability dimension. Future researchers must undertake further studies that describe, evaluate and measure the sustainable practices of community partners of CEC and SMEs in specific industries.