5.4 Assessment of perspectives and challenges on sustainability in Palestine
H. Arman 1, A. Ramahi2, F. Abubasha2, N. Al Othman2, H. Safadi2 , M. kmail 2
1 Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait, Kuwait
2 An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine
Abstract
Sustainability has rapidly become imperative at a global level. Collaborative work is required to address the
global challenges. However, the effort towards sustainability varies between developing and developed
countries. Assessing sustainability in Palestine with its unique context can exemplify the awareness and
understanding of sustainability in developing countries. The objective of this paper is to assess the awareness
of sustainability from different perspectives of government, industry, and academia. The significant of this
study is how to promote sustainability in a country with limited resources and special conditions. The primary
data was collected through conducting semi-structured and in-depth interviews with CEOs and decision
makers of the major stakeholders in government, industry, and academia. In addition, secondary data were
used, which included literature review of current practices documented in government and NGOs reports.
Keywords:
Assessment ; Awareness ; Palestine; Sustainability
1 INTRODUCTION
Nowadays, global society is facing scarce water, material,
and energy resources. This raised the concerns with regard
future generations and their ability to survive in the modern
world. As a result, new initiatives and hence concepts were
proposed to address the above challenges. Sustainability was
one of the main hot topics driving a global trend.
The western industrial revolution increased the
environmental effects since manufacturing industry grew very
rapidly and therefore more natural resources were depleted
and caused larger amount of emissions and pollution.
Moreover, the recent new wave of Chinese industrial
“revolution” drew the attention of the global community and
the necessity to act as soon as possible in order to protect
our planet and alleviate the harm.
The concept of sustainable development appeared initially in
the early 1980s [1], it then popularized in the publication of
the Brundtland report, Our Common Future [2]. The principle
of sustainable development has gained general acceptance.
This acceptance illustrates the growing awareness of the
inherent fragility of the world's ecosystems. Consistent with
the UN definition, Brundtland report defined sustainable
development as “ … meeting the requirements of present
generations without undermining the natural resource base,
which would compromise the ability of future generations to
use these resources” [3].
The contribution of the developing countries perhaps minimal
when compared to the industrial ones, yet they are in the
same boat. Therefore, cumulative endeavor is required to
handle this global issue. Although, the case presented in this
paper may not be ideal in this context, it recognizes a sample
perspective of how sustainability perceived in situation with
special conditions such as Palestine.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Government, businesses and academia have expressed a
desire to contribute to sustainability by reducing
environmental harms, improving social and economic
situation for people. However, they are still struggling to
identify the best set of alternative solutions. This is due to the
lack of collective vision that can embrace a holistic
perspective. According to Cowan et al [4], although more
than 20 years have passed since the emergence of
sustainability, there are still no uniform set of federal rules,
regulations, or guidelines to lead the industry in the United
States. This example is alarming, since US is considered a
major contributor for setting up regulations and long term
guidance in various fields and it fails here to address the
challenge facing the international community. The view of
businesses showed positive attitude towards sustainability in
several empirical studies. For example a study conducted by
Accenture [5] targeted hundreds of CEOs from companies
around the world found that 93% of the companies
considered sustainability to be important to their company's
future success. Moreover, some companies develop their
own sustainability programs because they believe that good
environmental practices will increase their profits more
effectively than most other business practices [6]. Many firms
have experienced that environmentally sustainable practices
can create value for a business by increasing revenue and
reducing operating costs, so sustainability is now seen as a
business opportunity as well [7]. Companies generally agree
that sustainability has led to innovation and increased
competitiveness by lowering costs and increasing revenues
[8].
While many companies recognize the value of a sustainability
strategy, most have not yet incorporated sustainability into
their overall business strategy [9]. The fact that the concept is
comparatively young and complex may have delayed
G. Seliger (Ed.), Proceedings of the 11th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing - Innovative Solutions
ISBN 978-3-7983-2609-5 © Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin 2013
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H. Arman, A. Ramahi, F. Abubasha, N. Al Othman, H. Safadi , M. kmail
approving logical and efficient framework to manage
business operations with alignment of sustainability strategy.
An awareness study was conducted in 2011, for staff and
students in the St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) campus
to measure the awareness level for environmental
sustainability of the campus and region. The dimensions of
sustainability included environment, economy, society and
cultural sustainability. The survey showed that sustainability
issues are important on the personal level for people at StFX
[10].
The role of academia and research bodies is important here.
A multidisciplinary effort is required from the economists,
social scientist, and environmentalists to put together a
framework that address the various, sometime conflicting,
missions and objectives to address the sustainability
challenges.
Very few studies were conducted in Palestine with regard
sustainability. However, some data is available on issues
related to environment. In spite of this, promising practices is
advanced with regard using a viable renewable energy
alternative. In July 2011, 66% of households in the
Palestinian Territory had solar energy heaters [11]. In 2008,
the total imported energy to the Palestinian territories was
43,147 Terra joules, where diesel percentage where 44%
(18,920 Terra Joules) of the total imported energy. The
electrical energy percentage was 32% (13,913 Terra Joules)
of the total imported energy [12]. The drive of such practices
was purely financial due to the expensive tariff of electricity.
People learned how to utilize the technology in small
workshops out of desperation.
This study, at the time of writing this paper, is the first
sustainability awareness assessment study in Palestine. It is
explorative in its nature, since a generic overview is required
at this stage and further systematic examination and
assessment should follow based on the initial results.
3 METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this study is to assess the level of awareness
of sustainability from different perspectives of government,
industry, and academia. To conduct this investigation, mainly
a qualitative research approach was used. Moreover, a
questionnaire was used as an additional tool to provide
further information to the primary approach. Figure 1 depicts
the methodology that was followed in this research.
The formulation of the objective of this research was
developed after conducting a collaborative project as part of
TEMPUS program. Literature review was used to further
understand the concept of sustainability and help to design
the research method. Qualitative and quantitative approach
was used where semi-structured interviews were conducted
and a straightforward questionnaire. The interviews targeted
three key stakeholders; government, industry, and academia.
The participants were selected carefully in order to reflect
rigid and considerable view. For example CEOs were
interviewed for large firms, University Presidents Assistant for
academic affairs, and senior government representatives in
the relevant bodies.
The questions of the semi-structured interviews focused on
five themes where set of questions would address each
theme after asking general questions about sustainability
practices. Each interview took approximately 45-60 minutes
to complete. The selected themes were water, energy,
materials, pollution and environment. These are the major
themes and believed the most relevant and urgent in
Palestine.
Figure 1: Research Methodology.
A survey was designed to enhance the study by including
another side perspective which was represented by a sample
of students from An-Najah National University in Nablus,
Palestine. The questionnaire was available online for 10
days. The link to the questionnaire was distributed by e-mail
and on students’ pages on Facebook
The questionnaire took approximately five minutes to
complete. The purpose of the first set of questions was to
gather general personal information and assess the
awareness of sustainability in general. The next set of
questions addressed the same five themes followed in the
interview (water, energy, materials, pollution and
environment). A total of 377 participants completed all
questions in the survey from all the faculties in the university.
4 ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: SUSTAINABILITY
AWARENESS
4.1 Government
The interviews transcripts were analyzed to examine the
common issues perceived for each theme from the three
different perspectives. The general view of government was
positive towards acting upon sustainability matter and they
showed general awareness with this regard in terms of
understanding its importance. However, it failed to initiate
laws to regulate the various sustainability related activities.
Moreover, few awareness activities were organized in the
past and very few are planned for this matter. This indicates
that lack of awareness in specific areas which means no real
actions has been taken to improve the situation and make
progress.
The various interviewed bodies in the government showed
lack of coordination between them with regard the activities
designed to support the effort towards increasing the
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Assessment of perspectives and challenges on sustainability in Palestine
awareness of sustainability in the community. Moreover, the
lack of physical and specialized human resources prevents
the governmental authorities to enforce the current outdated
regulations.
4.2 Industry
The awareness in the industry showed varied results as some
firms had already took actions towards this issue while others
seemed to be almost ignorant. Part of this would be an
indication of the lack of awareness and the absence of laws
that force businesses to be sustainable. In spite of this, the
competent firms were only interested in the area where
significant savings can be achieved in applying sustainable
concepts and would reflect positive financial results.
Moreover, the lack of resources encouraged firms to look at
more sustainable approaches in their processes as was the
case of some manufacturing firms in the south of Palestine
where water is very scarce.
4.3 Academia
The third investigated perspective was the role of academic
institution and their awareness through looking at the
programs and curriculums, research programs, and various
related activities such as conferences, workshops and
seminars. The results showed that the top universities in the
country have already taken some initiatives in collaboration
with European universities to develop academic programs in
sustainability. However, most of the current programs have
very few topics in the courses that cover any of the
sustainability topics.
An online questionnaire was used to collect university
students’ views about sustainability in general and of the
university role. The distribution of the respondents with regard
gender and year of study is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2:The distribution of the participants in the survey
according to gender, faculty, and year of study.
The analysis of the questions related to students practices
and observation at the University is summarized in details in
Figure 3. The general portrait shows low awareness in most
of the issues they were asked to respond except the issue
regarding the reuse of some of the consumable products
(point 2) which is a practice that may be attributed to the lack
of physical resources and its associated costs. The other
exception was related to ethical behavior to do with culture
(point 7) as people are trying to save money and reuse
whatever they can.
However, all the other issues such as projects, courses,
policies, awareness activities in sustainability seem to be
lacking and have not been a priority or areas of concern for
the decision makers in the universities according to the
students’ perspective. This support the results obtained from
Figure 3: Results of each question in the students’ survey
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H. Arman, A. Ramahi, F. Abubasha, N. Al Othman, H. Safadi , M. kmail
the interview with the academic top management in the
universities.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The results of this initial study with regard the sustainability
awareness level was not as poor as it was expected
considering the very special political conditions of Palestine
and being one of the very developed countries. The level of
awareness can be qualitatively considered low as the
practical activities (i.e. sustainability laws, projects, initiatives,
etc) considered very limited when compared to other
countries in the region. The sample of the young educated
community, represented by the university students, showed
passive perceptions towards sustainability and lack of
awareness as well. However, the special condition and
difficult challenges in Palestine can be a source of innovative
sustainability solution to compensate for resource scarcity
especially in the situation where advanced technology is not
necessarily required. The culture of reuse ideas was a good
example. These solutions can be publicized globally where
appropriate since normal environment as the case in
developed countries may not ignite the same level of
creativity in finding new sustainable solutions.
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