QUALITY DISCLOSURE IN SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING: EVIDENCE FROM UNIVERSITIES.

• Author: Romolini, Alberto

1. Introduction

   Sustainability is a global issue (Dryzek, 1997). In the last few years, sustainable development has become one of the dominant global discourses of ecological concern. In this context, universities can play a critical role (Orr, 1992, p. 4).

   Various organizations around the world define sustainability differently (Elliot, 2013, pp. 18-19), however the most frequently quoted definition is from the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987, p. 43): sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development is not brought about by policies only--it must be taken up by society at large as a principle guiding the many choices each citizen makes every day, as well as the big political and economic decisions. In other words, sustainable development concerns economic and social structures (Council of the European Union, 2006).

   Over the last few years, sustainability reporting has been acquiring increasing importance among corporations and their stakeholders around the world (International Integrated Reporting Committee, 2011). Also in the higher education sector, reporting for sustainability is an increasingly important issue (Walton et al., 1997). Universities use resources, own large areas of land and innumerable buildings and they are fundamental for the development of the economy (Zilahy and Husingh, 2009). In other words, they occupy a unique position, being responsible for the education and training of future generations.

   In the light of these considerations, Taylor et al. (1994) called universities 'silent destroyers'--not as high profile as chemical companies but with very considerable environmental impact. Moreover, formal education should be recognized as critical in forming environmental and ethical awareness, values, attitudes, skills and behavior (Johnston et al., 2003, p. 7; Lemons, 1995). Previous studies underlined that there was a broad consensus on common priorities, encouraging universities to take up the challenge of addressing environmental responsibility (Yale University, 1994; Walton, Alabaster and Jones, 2000). Now the development of methods and means of improving the role of universities in spreading sustainability issues is needed more than ever (Sedlacek, 2013). However, while universities recognize they have a central role in promoting environmental citizenship across all disciplines and thus all professions, expertise and resources are often not developed or disseminated, remaining trapped in individual institutions or even within individual departments (Beringer, Wright and Malone, 2008). The education sector accounted for less than 0.75% of 2007's global reporting output (CorporateRegister, 2008, p. 10) and few studies are addressing the perspectives of sustainability reporting in universities (Fonseca et al., 2011; Johnston et al., 2003; Newport, Chesnes and Lindne., 2003; Walton, Alabaster and Jones, 2000). Moreover, we are not aware of any studies currently engaged in international comparison of social reporting by universities.

   The present study aims to show the state of sustainability reporting in higher education and to give an assessment of the reports' quality. To that end, it provides an analysis of the extent of reports issued by universities in order to underline their main features and to contribute to the international debate about the development of sustainability reporting in the public sector.

   The paper has four sections. The section below describes the theoretical framework regarding the state of sustainability reporting in higher education. Section three highlights studies concerning quality in sustainability reporting. The methodology is explained in section four. Section five presents the results and implications of the analysis and section six sets out the final conclusions, limits and possible future research developments.

2. Studies into the quality of Annual Sustainability Reports

   Many authors (Atkinson, 2000; Beloff, Tanzil and Lines, 2004; Szekely and Knirsch, 2005; Tanzil and Beloff, 2006) have made general evaluations of the notion of corporate sustainability performance measurement, while others have considered more specific issues such as environmental and social performance evaluation (Olsthoorn et al., 2001; Wood, 2010).

   In recognition of the wide variety of material that appears in sustainability reports, there have been a number of studies focusing on sustainability reporting practices, including the content, scope and structure of the reports (Beloe et al., 2006). National-level studies have also been carried out in numerous countries over the last 10 years. Differences in sustainability reporting were underlined by Doh and Guay (2006), and they were explained by concluding that social democratic traditions in Europe, compared to those in the USA, have resulted in more external pressures on European companies regarding sustainability reporting issues. Also, in European companies, internal aspects of sustainability reporting (association, vocational education, fair wages, equal opportunities and non-discrimination) are well covered by all countries with the exception of human rights, while external aspects (local safety, suppliers, human rights, child labor, labor standards, ethics, indigenous people, fair trade, stakeholders, education, third parties, reporting) present a more mixed picture within Europe (Welford, 2005). In some countries, universities are very keen to address sustainability issues, which are also used in 'political slogans' (Yang, 2008).

   The majority of studies have focused on assessing the quality of sustainability disclosure by evaluating the sustainability reporting of Stock Exchange listed companies. Authors utilized various methods of analysis: content analysis, benchmarking analysis, case studies and so on. The studies showed that the quality of sustainability reporting depends on qualitative and quantitative information, and on the extent to which the company has managed to improve its economic, environmental and social effectiveness and efficiency in the reporting period (Daub, 2007). Previous studies on sustainability reporting quality reached common conclusions: that their quality is quite far from acceptable levels, and questions remain on the quality of the information, according to the different needs of different stakeholders (Daub, 2007). Moreover, the insufficiency of social disclosures will eventually change due to external media pressure, especially in developing countries (Yang and Yaacob, 2012). Most publications on sustainability performance measurement have focused on the design of sets of indicators (Spangenberg, 2002). Research into indicators and indices has focused on both the individual corporation and sector levels. Searcy (2012) pointed out that previous research has focused on short time horizons in evaluating sustainability indicators and this is a particularly serious oversight, given the explicit long-term focus of sustainability (Lenzen et al., 2004).

   Little research has been conducted on the indicators used to convey quantitative information in sustainability reports, yet, as Daub (2007) explains, indicators represent the concrete data on the corporation's performance with respect to sustainability, and thus are considered at least as important as the qualitative part of sustainability reporting. Other examples of studies into indicators are those of Adams and Frost (2008) who highlighted the importance of including key performance indicators for sustainability reporting, but few studies have explored the specific indicators disclosed.

   In the university sector, sustainability reporting continues to receive little attention either in literature or in practice and most studies are of a normative nature (del Sordo, Pazzi and Siboni, 2010). Research highlights that the practice of sustainability reporting in the university context is not widespread, and the sustainability reports issued are mainly pivotal versions (Frey, Melis and Vagnoni, 2010). Moreover, a lack of quantitative information and little attention to the disclosure of environmental aspects were found (Cassone and Zaccarella, 2009). Nowadays, universities have no legal requirement of disclosure regarding sustainability reporting issues.

   The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) contains the reporting guidelines most commonly used by international companies, even though these guidelines do not make for standardization of reporting (Morhardt, Baird and Freeman, 2002). In fact, GRI guidelines do not require companies to fulfil or handle all topics. The aim of GRI is to mainstream 'disclosure on environmental, social and governance performance' (GRI, 2011a). Thus, companies are free to choose from the guidelines in any way they prefer, and this contributes to the difficulty of assessing social reporting quality.

   The generic indicators developed by GRI have been criticized on several grounds, including for being overly general and too numerous (Moneva et al., 2006; Smith and Lessen, 2009). However, many criticisms derive from the analysis of specific sectors, while comparisons between different countries require standardized indicators, such as those of GRI (Verschoor, 2011).

   In general, previous studies highlight that the most commonly reported source for the content of social and environmental disclosures is the GRI (KPMG, 2013). Newport, Chesnes and Lindner (2003) underlined that if a university wants to benchmark its sustainability performance, it has to compare itself by using GRI indicators, as most other existing instruments suffer from egocentrism and/or lack of comparability. Moreover, no previous studies made a comparison between differences in sustainability reporting quality by assessing GRI indicators in different countries. Given the above, if we want to measure the...