Green Initiatives Towards a Sustainable Future: Insights from Libraries in Kenya

Abstract

Environmental protection is an increasingly pressing issue all over the world. Ozone depletion, greenhouse effect, global climate changes, and global warming are among rising environmental concerns. The rising number of environmentally conscious consumers brings about more go green campaigns and a go green movement along with solutions and calls for consumers, corporations, and governments to be more proactive in going green in every aspect. Libraries are no exception to this. Much as this concept is so important, little is known about the green library concept in the African context and among Kenyan libraries. Subsequently, this study proposed to explore the adoption of green library concepts in Kenya for environmental sustainability with a view to proposing strategies that can be used to guide libraries in the going green transformation. The study adopted a qualitative approach. A sample of twelve libraries was purposively drawn from a population of 227 academic, public and special libraries in Kenya. Data was collected using semi-structured interview schedules complemented by observation and document review and analyzed using grounded theory.

The findings showed that libraries in Kenya, under their umbrella organizations, have taken advantage of their knowledge of greening concepts through adopting and implementing greening practices and coming up with strategies to enhance green libraries and promote environmental sustainability. They have done this majorly through redesigning and renovating to meet the ever-changing user demands in line with the green library standards. The study concludes that librarians in the Kenyan libraries understand the green building concepts and have adopted different green initiatives, albeit partially to reposition and guard their position globally. The study proposed three strategies for fully going green, i.e., active user involvement in green initiatives, improving performance and growth measuring metrics and maintaining green library standards as guided by the IFLA ENSULIB green library checklist.