The Disclosure of SDG Performance: A Comparative Analysis of the Dutch and Italian Higher Education Systems

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) profile themselves by means of emphasising their activities around the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). As part of this, they increasingly share examples with the general public about their efforts and accomplishments in terms of addressing the sustainability challenges. Similar to private companies, they report on their sustainability efforts and performance by means of participating in SDG impact rankings and measurement tools, joining networks of institutions and subscribing to SDG agreement. Based on a document analysis, this chapter aims to critically examine the sustainability information disclosed by HEIs in their annual reports, sustainability reports and official (i.e. publicly available) documents. This chapter analyses the character of the information (e.g. quantitative, qualitative, indicators, narratives) and the actual SDGs themes and dimensions covered. This is done for the HEIs in Italy and the Netherlands, to analyse the differences both between the countries and within the countries and reveal the role of national regulatory frameworks and other coordinated national efforts around sustainability reporting by HEIs. Our chapter will discuss the underlying rationales behind different SDG reporting tools and their adoption by HEIs in recent years. It presents the ‘state of the art’ with respect to sustainability reporting in the Dutch and Italian higher education systems. This chapter fills a gap in the literature on SDGs reporting by HEIs by providing an international comparative perspective, and it contributes to the broader debate regarding the use of managerial tools aimed at measuring, assessing and disclosing SDG results. It also highlights their contribution to supporting HEIs in adopting SDGs. The analysis led to the identification of the peculiarities, the differences and the limits of those systems to provide helpful information to policymakers and higher education governing bodies on how to create a shared framework to measure and share sustainable practices to deliver public value.