The path of universities to sustainability: Students perspectives during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic baffled the traditional educational system and the face-to-face educational process, shifting to the online environment. Almost all university activities were carried out online for a period of time, which put pressure on university strategies, including sustainability. To maintain the international ranking of universities applying a sustainability strategy, the largest and most representative university in Romania continued to implement the principles of sustainability in its activities during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus fostering a positive, strong, and trustworthy image amongst its main group of stakeholders, namely students. The aim of this paper is to determine to what extent students related to the university's sustainable strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic and to assess whether students could rely on their university to integrate sustainability-related strategies into the overall university strategy. The authors propose a conceptual model to generate trust in the sustainable practices, which is analyzed with the help of structural equations in SmartPLS. The results highlight the fact that the students continued to adopt sustainability principles during the pandemic, expressing their preference that the university continue to implement its sustainability strategy, although the focus was on the safety measures generated by the new context. This strategy focusses on sustainable practises, green mobility, and consumption, and, of course, on the sustainable initiatives that address them. The article presents research based on stakeholder theory, emphasizing the numerous implications for higher education institutions, which can adopt different good practices with a view to improving stakeholder trust and satisfaction.