Purpose & Goals

Floods, famine, fires: fallout from the planet’s increasing temperature makes the climate crisis a reality that affects everyone (IPCC 2023) – libraries and librarians included. Academic libraries contribute to carbon emissions and waste through managing infrastructure, energy and water use, the purchasing of materials and resources, printing, and so on. While we are facing a dire situation, there is still plenty of room for action. Strategic plans are designed to provide direction and measurable goals which are essential to systematically furthering sustainability on campus. By exploring strategic plans of Canadian university libraries, our study provides an analysis of current strategic priorities and language which can be used to inform future strategic planning sustainability initiatives. The goal of this study is to explore the extent to which environmental sustainability is present in the strategic plans of Canadian university libraries, and to analyze how it is being included, when it is included at all. After a review of the literature, no analysis has been done on an institutional level regarding environmental sustainability (ES) presence in academic library strategic planning. Furthermore, much of the scholarly discourse regarding environmental sustainability in libraries is limited to surveys regarding participant perceptions, or communicating programming ideas related to environmental sustainability in academic libraries. This study aims to synthesize and communicate what is currently being done at the strategic planning level of academic libraries in Canada.

Design & Methodology

University libraries were selected based on Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) institutional membership to ensure coverage from across Canada and to retrieve consistent full-time equivalent (FTE) data. To be included, the member had to be a university with an FTE exceeding 1000, and have a publicly available strategic plan that expired no later than 2023. Out of 63 universities with a FTE exceeding 1000, 30 had strategic plans meeting our criteria. These 30 libraries underwent screening for mentions of environmental sustainability, resulting in 20 assessed using conceptual content analysis. Conceptual content analysis was used to analyze textual data by identifying key concepts and tracking their frequency of use. Analysis occurred at the word/word sense level, being as specific as possible while leaving room for ambiguous uses of “sustainability.” While we did have a predetermined set of categories to code for, adopting a flexible coding methodology allowed for possible variations in words or word senses used as coding progressed. Our nine coded words were: sustainab*, UN SDGs (United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), ecology, climate change/climate crisis, environment*, ecosystem, eco-friendly, green, and stewardship. Coding was performed for frequency, guided by established rules. For instance, terms like “sustainable” were coded under “sustainability,” while mentions of the UN SDGs were noted separately. To account for French strategic plans, the closest possible translation was used to allow comparison across languages. Surrounding words were put into a content box to keep track of associated uses. Additionally, we coded for location of concepts. For example, words found in the mission, value, or purpose sections of strategic plans counted as “guiding principle,” while concepts found in a goal or sub-goal all counted towards “goals.” Coding was done by hand by both researchers individually, and compared to determine internal consistency.

Findings

Of the 20 strategic plans analyzed, 12 (60%) had ES as a goal unto itself; 14 (70%) featured ES as a guiding principle; and only 3 (15%) had ES integrated throughout the strategic planning document in multiple goals. There were 6 (30%) instances where ES was both a goal unto itself and a guiding principle of the strategic plan, and 2 (10%) instances where ES was a goal unto itself, integrated into parts of other goals, and a guiding principle of the strategic plan. 14 (70%) of the strategic plans had coded words mentioned 1-4 times throughout the document, while 6 (30%) had coded words mentioned anywhere from 5 to 15 times. The strategic plans with a higher volume of coded words (mentioned 14 and 15 times) were the same documents where ES was a goal unto itself, integrated into parts of other goals, and a guiding principle of the strategic plan; these strategic plans were most explicit about sustainability. The strategic plans with a lower volume (1-4) mention of coded words were also more vague in the senses in which they used coded words. 7 (35%) strategic plans spoke exclusively about ES, while another 7 (35%) included a mix of environmental and broad sustainable language. 6 (30%) plans only mentioned the coded words in the broad sense. The categories “sustainab*,” “ecology,” “climate/climate change,” and “environment” had the most associated words. The terms “crisis” (3), and “action” (9) were the most frequently used associated words and were exclusively paired with “ecology” and “climate/climate change.” “sustainab*” and “environment” had the widest array of associated words. The most frequently used code was “sustainab*” with 45 instances, which reflects both broad and environment-specific usages. The next two most frequently coded concepts were “environment*” with 18 instances, and “climate” with 16.

Action & Impact

McMaster University Library (MUL), where we work, is one of the university libraries that has sustainability as a goal unto itself. After reviewing the possibilities and gathering inspiration from other strategic plans, we will advocate for sustainability (amongst other intersecting values such as equity, Indigeneity, and access) to be not only articulated as goals unto themselves, but better integrated throughout and as guiding principles in the crafting of strategic initiatives, so that this work is not done in a silo but rather across units and departments of the library in a holistic manner. MUL is entering a new round of strategic initiatives planning, and leadership has asked for our input as part of the Library Sustainability Committee regarding how we can integrate intersectional environmental sustainability in our plans; we plan to draw upon this work as evidence to support our advocacy. More broadly, we seek to expand the community of academic libraries doing work related to environmental sustainability—both in the practice of everyday work responsibilities of academic librarians, but also as a more prominent thread of scholarly conversation in academic librarianship as well. We hope these findings will encourage academic libraries to consider implementing environmental sustainability into future iterations of their strategic plans, as the climate crisis is an intersectional issue that requires our collective efforts to protect against the worst possible outcomes.

Practical Implications & Value

During our literature review, we found very few publications documenting the assessment of sustainability (environmental or otherwise) in strategic plans (notable exceptions were Jones & Wong 2016, Missingham 2021, and Triblehorn 2023). We hope that environmental sustainability will be considered a priority for strategic planning for all libraries going forward, and formally documenting the ways in which this is currently being done in this paper may help to add to the scholarly discourse on the topic and guide proliferation of its inclusion. One possible future direction of research stemming from this project would be evaluating annual reports from the included university libraries’ to measure the impact of the strategic plans that did have an environmentally sustainable focus. The findings of such a follow-up may help guide best practices for drafting strategic plans with environmental sustainability, as there may be some correlation to be found between the degree to which sustainability was a guiding principle, a goal unto itself, or interwoven through the document, and the associated outcomes. Another possible avenue for exploration would be to compare the university libraries strategic plans to their broader institutional strategic plans to analyze any thematic throughlines or influence that may be visible related to the theme of sustainability. Another separate direction for future research based on this project would be to analyze the original dataset (i.e. current strategic plan documents of Canadian university libraries) for other themes, such as mentions of decolonization and equity, for example. To quote panelist Sarah Triblehorn at the 2024 ARL President’s Institute: “Policy isn’t the goal; policy exists to keep us accountable.” While planning is not technically direct action, strategic plans guide efforts on an institutional scale and make meaningful direct action possible, which is essential if we are to have hope in the face of the climate crisis.

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