From Values to Practice: Building a Sustainable Culture in Education

What is it about?

This study explores how sustainability values can become part of the culture in an educational institution. It uses Ciputra Education as a case study to show how core values are turned into daily practices. By integrating the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the 4I Framework of Organizational Learning, the research explains how sustainability is taught, shared, and embedded throughout the organization. The researchers interviewed ten people from the institution and used NVivo 14 software to ensure the results were reliable. They found that building a sustainability culture happens step by step—starting with personal understanding and gradually becoming actions across the entire organization. The study highlights several important internal factors, such as the founder’s wisdom, entrepreneurial leadership, quality management systems, and human capital. It also shows that external factors, such as government regulations, information technology, and competition, support the process. In the end, the study offers a model that shows how educational organizations can cultivate a culture of sustainability. This model can help school leaders understand how to connect their values to real actions and create a long-term, positive impact through their institutional culture.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Education plays a crucial role in shaping future generations. However, sustainability in educational institutions often remains at the level of vision statements or slogans rather than becoming part of everyday organizational practice. Many institutions still struggle to translate sustainability values into daily behaviors, leadership practices, and organizational systems. This study is important because it demonstrates how sustainability values can move beyond rhetoric and become embedded within the organizational culture of an educational institution. Using Ciputra Education as a case study, the research shows that a sustainability culture is built gradually through a learning process involving individuals, leaders, organizational systems, and external influences. Importantly, the findings help educational leaders understand not only the internal and external factors that shape a sustainability culture, but also the mechanisms through which sustainability values are internalized—how these values are learned, shared, and enacted in everyday practices, ultimately generating long-term impact for the institution.

Perspectives