Corporate Sustainability Reporting Framework and Implications for University Governance Transformation

Abstract

Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has become an urgent call for action by all countries in partnership. Business and Education play crucial roles in addressing sustainability challenges more than ever. Over the past twenty years, a number of corporate sustainability reporting and disclosure frameworks have been developed to guide data collection and increasingly been adopted by pioneering international businesses which aim to combine economic benefits with social justice and environmental sustainability. By focusing on the context, content, and function of corporate reporting and disclosure frameworks, this paper provides an overview of the evolution of corporate sustainability reporting and compares the most widely adopted reporting frameworks. It finally discusses how universities, in managing campus sustainability, can learn from the corporate sustainability reporting practice and make governance transformation accordingly. Establishing sustainability reporting initiatives at higher education institutions offers a platform to measure impacts and progress towards sustainability-oriented goals, qualitatively and/or quantitatively; it also helps accelerate the governance transformation by sharing progress and engaging with key stakeholders.