Co-producing an ecosystem services-based plan for sustainable university campuses

•Ecosystem Services (ES) maps allow management units to be created within campus boundaries.•ES maps allow the inclusion of multi-scale analyses in the planning design process.•Stakeholders must perceive the ES framework positively for its inclusion in the spatial planning process.•Stakeholder perspectives should be incorporated to define strategies based on social-ecological units.•Applying the principles of knowledge co-production enhances planning process robustness. In the context of global change, social-ecological perspectives for organisations and territorial planning schemes are key to facilitate a transition towards sustainability. Consequently, Ecosystem Services (ES) assessment and mapping are being increasingly used to enhance knowledge co-production for more sustainable territorial management. Higher education organizations have the potential to catalyse the sustainability transition of society, but there is a lack of studies integrating novel and current sustainable development approaches in spatial planning at university campuses. Here, we proposed an integrated approach for developing an ecosystem services-based plan to manage the campus of the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). We developed a participatory process integrating all the various actors and the decision making-bodies of the university. This participatory process involved meetings with different groups and 2,126 surveys administrated to students, professors, researchers and administration/services staff. We also developed a technical process for assessing ES including eight ES maps (four regulating, one provisioning and three cultural), consulted with the experts and stakeholders involved, and built the final version of the planning guide integrating all perspectives to promote ES-based strategic lines. Our results showed that ES maps are useful for creating management units and for multi-scale analysis. ES maps highlighted important values of the campus, allowing the integration of more social actors that allow a stronger participative process and the creation of a long-term planning scheme. However, we identified certain aspects of the ES approach that hinder real-world application, including inherent problems associated with shifting politics.