Background
We spent the first few weeks of the study tour brainstorming different project ideas with the Estonian students and then planning the interviews for our campus sustainability project together.
Planning the Project
For this year’s “tour,” the main objective of the program was to collaborate with a group of Estonian students on a common project related to sustainability. We had our first official meeting on October 6, 2021, with a group of students and instructors at Tallinn University.
We spent the first few weeks getting to know one another and discussing ideas for our joint project during our weekly group meetings. After considering different ideas, we decided to focus on the theme of campus sustainability and to conduct interviews with faculty and management/administrative staff at our respective universities in order to learn how they think about sustainability and what they perceive the role of the university to be in working towards the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In addition to conducting interviews, we administered an online survey for students at Sophia in order better understand their perspectives. Based on the results from our interviews and student survey, we hoped to identify certain gaps that are hindering both universities from achieving campus sustainability and to determine the most meaningful and effective next steps forward for our universities.​
Preparing the Interviews
In Sophia University and Tallinn University, we conducted the interviews for university management staff and professors. We had done interview preparation steps for about two months. The 4-step process chart is below.
Deciding what we want to know through the interviews
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Preparing the interview questions
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Making an appointment for the interviews
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Conducting the interviews
(1) Deciding what we want to know through the interviews
This process took the longest time in the interview planning. The reason for the difficulties came partly from cultural differences between Estonia (Tallinn University) and Japan (Sophia University). In this study tour, the definition of the term ‘sustainability’ was vague at first, so we had to start with consensus building.
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(2) Preparing the interview questions

We created two main groups to conduct the interviews. Group 1 was assigned to the task of interviewing faculty members, and Group 2 was assigned to interviewing administrative and management staff. Within these two groups, we formulated the list of interview questions. In order for us to compare the interview results among both universities, we agreed to ask basically the same questions. However, due to the smaller number of students participating in the Japanese side and the shorter time available for interviewing each respondent, some of the questions were asked in slightly different ways.
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Group 1 Interview Questions:
Q1: Define Sustainability
Q2: Do students/faculty members share the same definition of sustainability as you?
Q3: Do you think the university is doing a good job in actually promoting sustainability?
Q4: How do you incorporate sustainability into your learning?
Q5: What kind of improvement should there be on campus?
Q6: Do you worry about our future in terms of not just sustainability but other fields?
Group 2 Interview Questions:
Part 1: The University's Plans and Achievements
Q1: What do you think are some of the outstanding environmental efforts made by Sophia University? One or several is fine. Would you say that the SDGs have been taken into account in these efforts? Should Sophia University set specific goals related to environmental and climate issues?
Q2: In the goals indicated in the university's future plan (e.g., "Grand Layout 2.1"), is there any way to understand the degree of achievement or some kind of outcome? Are they being checked, reviewed, and adjusted to achieve the goals? Are there any actual results that you have seen so far?
Q3: Is it correct to say that achieving sustainability as a whole is still a priority in the university's future plans?
Part 2: Personal Connection
Q1: When you think of sustainability, what are three keywords that come to mind? Please explain what you mean by them.
Q2: Are you familiar with the SDGs? Do you think that Sophia University places the most importance on them?
Q3: In your own work, how high would you say the achievement of campus sustainability is in terms of priority?
Q4: In your opinion, what areas of the SDGs should be prioritized?
Q5: Looking back, how would you describe sustainability in a nutshell?
At the same time, we also prepared a list of potential interview respondents. This list was also created so that we could interview as many people of the same position as possible so that we could make a comparison with Tallinn University.
(3) Making an appointment for the interviews
From the list of potential interviewees, we contacted them to request an interview. Many respondents readily agreed to be interviewed, but in some cases it was decided to collectively interview those who were in the primary position in the organization. When we applied for the interviews via email, we sent the questions to the respondents so that they could check the questions beforehand. In addition, all interviews were conducted online using Zoom.
(4) Conducting the interviews
Interviews were done by each group. Almost all interviews took thirty minutes.