School of Sustainability Graduate Culminating Experiences

For decades, understanding the complexity of behaviors, motivations, and values has interested researchers across various disciplines. So much so that there are numerous terms, frameworks, theories, and studies devoted to understanding these complexities and how they interact and evolve into actions. However, little research has examined how employee behaviors translate into the work environment, particularly regarding perceived organizational success. This study advances research by quantitatively assessing how a greater number of individual employees’ pro-environmental behaviors are related to the perceived success of environmentally sustainable workplace activities. We have concluded that the more pro-environmental behaviors an employee embodies, the more positively they perceive the success of their local government's sustainable purchasing policy. Additionally, other factors matter, including organizational behaviors, like training, innovation, and reduction of red tape.

This study examines the creation of a sustainability toolkit that can be implemented in many communities, beginning with Johnson City, Tennessee. This project began in 2019 and will continue to grow indefinitely. For this project, a toolkit that will allow the public to have access to the tools and information they need in order to make their homes more energy-efficient will be created. It will be stocked in the local library in Johnson City Tennessee for free use to the public, as long as they have a library card, they can check out the toolkits. The toolkits will be used by the public, then returned to the library so that they can be restocked and checked out again. This study looks at the market, business and organizational research and the infrastructure of the project. Methods of research included looking at how the need for a change came about, who will benefit, existing similar programs and how they will be used in conjunction with this project, current organizational structures attached to the project, current team infrastructure and what resources are needed to fill the voids. Findings include what financial resources will be required and how they will be acquired, as well as resources that are currently available for this project and what is still needed in order for this project to be successful. As a result of this project, at least two libraries in the Johnson City area will be stocked with several energy toolkits for free and a partnership for future project expansion will have been established. This study looks at the process and what was learned during the implementation of the project.

Sustainable purchasing policies and e-procurement are both fast becoming popular topics across city governments in the United States. As these two relatively new initiatives meet, the relationship they share has some promising implications that have gone mostly unexplored until now. E-procurement systems have gained a reputation of being one of the most effective ways to advance sustainable purchasing goals, but the belief alone may not be enough to create director-level buy-in throughout city governments. The possible link between these two tools was identified while working with the City of Phoenix’s Office of Environmental Programs. While helping them integrate sustainability considerations into their procurement process, it was noticed that e-procurement systems typically facilitated many of the obstructions the department faced and that there could be a positive relationship between their already existing e-procurement system and their sustainable purchasing policy. To investigate this relationship deeper, a survey of city government procurement was sent to 1,845 directors from Finance, Public Works, and Environmental departments across 791 U.S. cities. These decision-makers answered questions relating to their assessment of how sustainable purchasing policies are implemented and the extent to which their city uses an e-procurement system. Tests of independence were then performed to determine if a relationship between different e-procurement activities and perceived success of cities’ sustainable purchasing policies existed. Results show that the use of an environmentally friendly database of products and services in a city’s e-procurement system is the single most important e-procurement pursuit cities can undertake to influence the opinions that city managers have regarding the success of their sustainable purchasing policy. By understanding this connection, The City of Phoenix and other cities facing the same challenges are able to develop best practices to leverage e-procurement for purchasing sustainably and fully implementing their sustainable purchasing policies.