WSSD, 2016

Pioneering in sustainability reporting in higher education:

Experiences of a Belgian business faculty

Talia Stough - KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business, Belgium

talia.stough@kuleuven.be (presenting)

Kim Ceulemans - University of Victoria, Centre for Social and Sustainable Innovation, Canada

Sustainability monitoring and reporting• Need for regular monitoring and evaluation of the progress

made in implementing education for sustainable development (ESD) practices (UNESCO 2014).

• Sustainability reporting (SR) has been identified as one of the elements needed to foster progress on SD integration in higher education institutions (HEIs) (Lozano et al. 2013b)

Sustainability reporting (SR) in HEIs• SR is a voluntary activity aimed at communication of, and

accountability on, SD impacts towards stakeholders and at the assessment and improvement of the organizations' SD performance (Adams and Frost 2008. Daub 2007. Joseph 2012).

• Sustainability reporting is mainly a corporate activityo Over last ten years some pioneering higher education

institutions have started SR (Alonso-Almeida et al. 2015; Ceulemans et al. 2015a).

SR in HEIs• HEIs mainly engage in SR for reasons of (Ceulemans et

al. 2015a):o Increasing transparencyo facilitating SD assessmento stakeholder engagement o change for SDo improving their reputation)

• Also (but less importantly):o improving HEIs’ rankingo facilitating external benchmarkingo providing evidence for accreditation bodies

Features of sustainability reporting

Global Reporting Initiative • The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Guidelines most

widely used reporting frameworko Comprehensiveo indicator-based o conceived through broad and ongoing stakeholder

processes • No sector-specific guidance for HEIs (i.e. educational and

research activities).• 32,438 sustainability reports in GRI Disclosure Database in

March, 2016 (covering publication years from 2000 to early 2016), 234 sustainability reports were published by 99 HEIs.

HEI assessment tools • HEIs have also been assessing their SD activities with

HEI-specific assessment tools (for example):o Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System

(STARS) o The Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework

(CSAF) o Auditing Instrument for Sustainability in Higher

Education (AISHE)

State of SR in HEIs• Low level of SR by HEIs (in terms of quantity and quality of

the reports) • Strong focus on environmental themes• Europe and North America were the leading continents in

adopting the GRI Sustainability Reporting Guidelines in HEIs

• HEIs were in the early adopter stage in terms of practicing SR

(Alonso-Almeida et al., 2015.; Fonseca et al., 2011; Lozano, 2011).

State of Sustainability Assessment in HEIs• Difficult to design appropriate instruments for monitoring

and analyzing the SD performance of HEIs due to the lack of reviews of current SD assessment tools

• Failure of certain tools to assess HEIs’ core activities or to cover SD integration holistically

Gap in literature• Lack of exchange of information on the topic in the higher

education sector and a lack of in-depth guidance on how to organize the sustainability reporting process in organizations as complex and distinctly organized as HEIs (Lozano et al., 2013a)

• Process of SR has not been studied in depth in the literature as compared to a focus on the outputs of SR (Ceulemans, 2015)

Research aim• Addresses gap in literature on topic of SR in HEIs• Describe and analyze the sustainability reporting process

during the preparation of four consecutive sustainability reports (published in 2011 - 2014) for a Belgian university, led by the business faculty’s sustainability office

• Identify main challenges and opportunities of SR in HEIs • Offer analytical insights through the use of action research

HUB/KU Leuven • 2011 Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUB) became first

Belgian HEI with a GRI sustainability report o 7000 students; 900 staff members o SR lead by business faculty o Decision to report came from sustainability assessment

(AISHE) feedback: communication about sustainability initiatives needed to be strengthened

• 2013 HUB academic departments merged with KU Leuven

Data Collection Phase• Where to begin? • The GRI guidelines were used to guide the data collection

and analysis process and to provide indicators to disclose the HEI’s main environmental, social, and financial impacts

• Reconnaissance: meet with central departments (logistics, human resources, student services, financial, etc.) o What data already monitored and available?

• Review internal documents relevant to indicators (i.e., HR policies, the annual reports, etc.)

Subsequent reporting • Already having a printed report made it easier to

communicate with colleagues about how the data will be used and how themes tie into the umbrella term of “sustainability”

• Already know which persons/departments in the organization maintain what data; people know how information you want and how it will be used (streamlined data collection phase)

• Some data remains a challenge to collect year after yearo data sets unique to the GRI indicators that had to be

generated for the sole purpose of SR (i.e., compilation of the workforce organized by category, age, gender, and pay).

Stakeholder engagement• Stakeholder engagement activities only meaningful if

university knows what they wish to gain from engagement processes.

• Annual online survey that sought to gain insight into the perception of internal stakeholders (students and personnel) o how well SD integrated in activities (education,

research, outreach, and operations)• Need for more communication?

o Priorities• What topics are material?

• External stakeholder roundtable

Student involvement in SR• In-class stakeholder engagement processes:

o work in small groups using the GRI indicators as a framework to rate the materiality of different issues

• Co-authorship of reporto Masters students of Environment, Health and Safety

Management contributed to sections of report (data collection, stakeholder engagement, and writing initial texts)

Difficulties of SR in HEIs• Lack of time and resources to engage in the reporting

process is a major challenge (Ceulemans et al. 2015a. Lozano et al. 2013a)

• Organization of HEIso Lack of cross-coordination between academic and

operational and among operational departmentso High level of autonomy of different groups

• “Sustainability” conceptualized as environmental topics• Lack of culture of transparency for (Belgian) HEIs.• Scope setting• GRI does not include HEI-specific indicators (i.e.,

education, research).

Opportunities of SR in HEIs• Increase communication

o governmental bodies, accreditation bodies, business partners, and other academic institutions

• Increase collaboration and performanceo Cross-collaboration between academic and operationalo Increase stakeholders’ understanding and willingness to

engage• SR as a learning tool (university as a “living laboratory”)

o students are involved in the sustainability process of the university

o simultaneously gain hands-on knowledge that can be applied later in their careers

Evolution of Reporting

2011•First Belgian higher education institution with a GRI report

•Internal stakeholder engagement

2012•External Stakeholder Engagement process

•Student external assurance processes

2013•Student co-authorship

•Student external assurance processes

2014•Campus Brussels Report (joint Odisee and KU Leuven FEB)

Reports can be found here:

References

• AASHE (2016a). “STARS, a program of AASHE”. AASHE, https://stars.aashe.org (Last accessed 2/18/2016).

• Adams C. and Frost G. (2008). “Integrating sustainability reporting into management practices”. Accounting Forum, 32, 288-302.

• Alonso-Almeida M. M., Marimon F., Casani F. and Rodriguez-Pomeda J. (2015). “Diffusion of sustainability reporting in universities: current situation and future perspectives”. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 144–154.

• Ceulemans K., Lozano R. and Alonso-Almeida M. (2015a). “Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education: Interconnecting the Reporting Process and Organisational Change Management for Sustainability”. Sustainability, 7, 8881–8903.

• Ceulemans K., Molderez I. and Van Liedekerke L. (2015b). “Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education: A Comprehensive Review of the Recent Literature and Paths for Further Research”. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 127–143.

• Cole L. (2003). Assessing sustainability on Canadian University campuses: development of a campus sustainability assessment framework. Royal Roads University, Victoria, Canada.

• Daub C.-H. (2007). “Assessing the quality of sustainability reporting: an alternative methodological approach”. Journal of Cleaner Production, 15, 1, 75–85.

• Fonseca A., Macdonald A., Dandy E. and Valenti P. (2011). “The state of sustainability reporting at Canadian universities”. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 12, 1, 22-40.

References

• Joseph G. (2012). “Ambiguous but tethered: an accounting basis for sustainability reporting”. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 23, 2, 93-106.

• Lozano R. (2011). “The state of sustainability reporting in universities”. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 12, 1, 67–78.

• Lozano R., Llobet J. and Tideswell G. (2013a). “The process of assessing and reporting sustainability at universities: Preparing the report of the University of Leeds”. Revista Internacional de Sostenibilidad, Tecnologia y Humanismo, 8, 85-113.

• Lozano R., Lukman R., Lozano F.J., Huisingh D. and Lambrechts W. (2013b). “Declarations for sustainability in higher education: becoming better leaders, through addressing the university system”. Journal of Cleaner Production, 48, 10–19.

• Roorda N. (2002). “Assessment and policy development of sustainability in higher education with AISHE” in Leal Filho W. (ed.). Teaching sustainability at universities: Towards curriculum greening, environmental education, communication and sustainability. Peter Lang Scientific Publishers, Frankfurt, Germany.

• UNESCO (2014). UNESCO Roadmap for Implementing the Global Action Programme on Education for Sustainable Development. UNESCO, Paris.