Sustainability reporting and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Higher Education: a Portuguese university case

The year 2015 represented a historic mark for sustainable development, with the approval of the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations (UN) summit, which defined 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The UN 2030 Agenda provides a universal framework to which each country, region and community can prioritize its needs and address them locally. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can and must provide a holistic approach to the 2030 Agenda and advance it, since the SDGs are a key aspect of their social responsibility (Vilalta, Betts and Gomez, 2018). The UN Agenda 2030 represents an opportunity for the improvement of university management, the relationship with stakeholders and the community, and the articulation and consolidation of education policies with the SDGs. Sustainability education can provide students with the in-depth competence to incorporate sustainability into the consciousness of the future, as citizens and professionals. Thus, HEIs will need to be able to plan, evaluate and monitor their contributions to the SDGs and review their strategies accordingly. Therefore, reports can play a key role, informing HEIs' progress towards sustainability in 4 main areas (learning and teaching, research, organizational governance and external leadership) and shaping future commitments and actions. This article aims to develop a longitudinal study regarding the evolution of the sustainability report in a Portuguese Public University – the University of Minho - seeking to analyse how this University includes it’s contributions toward the SDG of the 2030 Agenda in its disclosures. The study methodology is based on content analysis of the information disclosed in the Sustainability Reports published until 2016, referring to the period 2010-2015. The results indicate that the University adopted the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The alignment with the UN goals was made for the first time in the last sustainability report.This work is financed by national funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of multi-annual funding UIDB/04043/2020