The Impact of the Sustainability Principles on the Strategic Planning and Reporting of Universities. An Exploratory Study on a Qualified Italian Sample

Abstract

Strategic Plans (SPs) and Sustainability Reports (SRs) represent institutional communication tools implemented by universities to demonstrate their adoption of sustainability and sustainable development goals (SDGs of Agenda 2030) as drivers in their strategic planning processes. These tools make the adopted strategies and operations visible and easily understandable to stakeholders, highlighting the university’s commitment to a new balance between business, environment, and the social sphere. Moving from this premise, with the aim to evaluate the degree of transposition of sustainability and sustainable development principles into the Italian university system, we propose an exploratory research on universities’ institutional declarations, in the form of the SRs and SPs available on their web sites. To this aim, we conducted a content analysis aiming at a preliminary phase of text coding, based on a set of analytical categories—pillars—namely Education and Learning, Research, Operations and Governance, and External Leadership. The work has allowed us to identify: an interesting extent to which the sustainability principles have been transposed into the Italian university system, with particular regard to the third category of Operations and Governance (36% of coded segments in SRs and 32% of coded segments in SPs); a considerable awareness of universities of their key role played on the sociopolitical and economic levels for the diffusion of the Agenda 2030 within civil society.

How Higher Education Institutions Walk Their Talk on the 2030 Agenda: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The literature on this topic also describes the value of developing ethical codes and reporting tools for SD, which can foster the dissemination of SD projects in local communities and the larger territory (Di Nauta et al, 2020;Mion et al, 2019). Likewise, international ranking systems (such as Times Higher Education and Green Metrics) are gaining relevance due to their growing impact on higher education policies, governance strategies, and institutional practices.…”

The Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to the SDGs—An Evaluation of Sustainability Reporting Practices

“…Specifically, Cottafava et al (2019) revealed how the inclusion of SDG training programs significantly improves the sustainable development strategy of the HEIs and allows for an increase in the transparency of the institutions through the deeper connection and involvement of stakeholders. In addition, many universities have started to integrate sustainable principles in their strategic plans due to the increasing awareness of the social role represented by HEIs (Di Nauta et al 2020). In these terms, Leal Filho et al supported the relevance of the SDGs in HEIs and suggested a framework for a more effective implementation of the goals in teaching and research as well as in operational activities.…”

CSR Education in Economia Aziendale Curricula: An Overview

“…In this regard, many studies underlined that an increasing number of academics have started to contribute to the 2030 Agenda through their research activities (Kolb et al 2017). Furthermore, other studies revealed that many HEIs have started to collaborate with public and private organizations to contribute to the SDGs through projects and applied research (Di Nauta et al 2020). However, the contribution provided by the HEIs to the SDGs in terms of teaching activities remains limited to a few best practices (Cottafava et al 2019).…”