The purpose of this paper is to orient universities on their first versions of the sustainability reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, which, as mentioned by Hussey et al. (2001), Lozano (2006) and Morhardt et al. (2002) is the best option for sustainability reporting in universities. The paper analyses the sustainability indicators reported by 26 universities following the GRI guidelines, 18 revised by the authors and others reviewed by Lozano (2011), in order to establish a pathway for new universities wanting to elaborate their sustainability reports and also offers a perspective of new indicators that can be covered in forthcoming reports. A list of 23 indicators, in the three dimensions (economic, environmental and social) given in the GRI guidelines, were identified as the mostly used in the 26 sustainability reports analysed. The most reported indicators belong to the economic and environmental dimensions which is coherent with Lozano (2011) findings, and in the social dimension, the society performance indicators are the least used. This paper provides higher education institutions willing to report their sustainability indicators a starting point where to focus while establishing their baseline for sustainability. The list of 23 indicators shows a tendency on what is valuable for the universities to report using the GRI guidelines and cuts off the list 61 performance indicators (between core and additional ones) which can be revised later on, once universities have gained experience and knowledge on sustainability reporting. Value –This paper is the first to establish a short list of indicators that universities can revise in order to produce their first sustainability reports using the GRI guidelines. Also, the paper recognizes the need to normalize indicators for benchmarking and universality of them, as stated by Thompson & Creighton (2005).
The purpose of this paper is to orient universities on their first versions of the sustainability reports based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines, which, as mentioned by Hussey et al. (2001), Lozano (2006) and Morhardt et al. (2002) is the best option for sustainability reporting in universities. The paper analyses the sustainability indicators reported by 26 universities following the GRI guidelines, 18 revised by the authors and others reviewed by Lozano (2011), in order to establish a pathway for new universities wanting to elaborate their sustainability reports and also offers a perspective of new indicators that can be covered in forthcoming reports. A list of 23 indicators, in the three dimensions (economic, environmental and social) given in the GRI guidelines, were identified as the mostly used in the 26 sustainability reports analysed. The most reported indicators belong to the economic and environmental dimensions which is coherent with Lozano (2011) findings, and in the social dimension, the society performance indicators are the least used. This paper provides higher education institutions willing to report their sustainability indicators a starting point where to focus while establishing their baseline for sustainability. The list of 23 indicators shows a tendency on what is valuable for the universities to report using the GRI guidelines and cuts off the list 61 performance indicators (between core and additional ones) which can be revised later on, once universities have gained experience and knowledge on sustainability reporting. Value –This paper is the first to establish a short list of indicators that universities can revise in order to produce their first sustainability reports using the GRI guidelines. Also, the paper recognizes the need to normalize indicators for benchmarking and universality of them, as stated by Thompson & Creighton (2005).