IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i6p3442-d771732.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mainstreaming Standardized Sustainability Reporting: Comparing Fortune 50 Corporations’ and U.S. News & World Report’s Top 50 Global Universities’ Sustainability Reports

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen N. Hamilton

    (School of Management, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA)

  • Richard D. Waters

    (School of Management, University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94117, USA)

Abstract

Research has shown that sustainability reporting can positively influence organizational accountability and transparency. However, little research has been done to compare how sectors present their sustainability efforts. This research uses content analysis to examine how the two sectors leading reporting efforts detail their work. Specifically, sustainability reports published in 2020 were sought from the Fortune 50 and the top 50 institutions from U.S. News & World Report (USNWR)’s Best Global University rankings to examine compliance with the standard reporting frameworks and how the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were presented. Results suggest Fortune 500 companies and educational institutions did not report sustainability in the same fashion, nor did either grouping follow a standardized reporting framework. For-profit corporations were more likely to publish a stand-alone sustainability report and more likely to address more of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen N. Hamilton & Richard D. Waters, 2022. "Mainstreaming Standardized Sustainability Reporting: Comparing Fortune 50 Corporations’ and U.S. News & World Report’s Top 50 Global Universities’ Sustainability Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-17, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:6:p:3442-:d:771732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3442/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/6/3442/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manuel Larrán Jorge & Francisco Javier Andrades Peña & Jesús Herrera Madueño, 2019. "An analysis of university sustainability reports from the GRI database: an examination of influential variables," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(6), pages 1019-1044, May.
    2. Nikolaos S. Trevlopoulos & Thomas A. Tsalis & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2021. "A Framework to Identify Influences of Environmental Legislation on Corporate Green Intellectual Capital, Innovation, and Environmental Performance: A New Way to Test Porter Hypothesis," International Journal of Operations Research and Information Systems (IJORIS), IGI Global, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, January.
    3. Isabel-María García-Sánchez & Nicola Raimo & Arcangelo Marrone & Filippo Vitolla, 2020. "How Does Integrated Reporting Change in Light of COVID-19? A Revisiting of the Content of the Integrated Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-11, September.
    4. Hans B. Christensen & Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2021. "Mandatory CSR and sustainability reporting: economic analysis and literature review," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 1176-1248, September.
    5. Matthias S. Fifka & Maria Drabble, 2012. "Focus and Standardization of Sustainability Reporting – A Comparative Study of the United Kingdom and Finland," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(7), pages 455-474, November.
    6. Nikolaos S. Trevlopoulos & Thomas A. Tsalis & Konstantinos I. Evangelinos & Konstantinos P. Tsagarakis & Konstantinos I. Vatalis & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2021. "The influence of environmental regulations on business innovation, intellectual capital, environmental and economic performance," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 163-178, March.
    7. Md Moazzem Hossain, 2018. "Sustainability reporting by Australian local government authorities," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(4), pages 577-600, July.
    8. John Dumay & James Guthrie & Federica Farneti, 2010. "Gri Sustainability Reporting Guidelines For Public And Third Sector Organizations," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 531-548, July.
    9. Fabio Caputo & Lorenzo Ligorio & Simone Pizzi, 2021. "The Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to the SDGs—An Evaluation of Sustainability Reporting Practices," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-13, September.
    10. Aurelio Tommasetti & Riccardo Mussari & Gennaro Maione & Daniela Sorrentino, 2020. "Sustainability Accounting and Reporting in the Public Sector: Towards Public Value Co-Creation?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-19, March.
    11. Barbier, Edward B. & Burgess, Joanne C., 2017. "The sustainable development goals and the systems approach to sustainability," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-23.
    12. Thomas A. Tsalis & Kyveli E. Malamateniou & Dimitrios Koulouriotis & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2020. "New challenges for corporate sustainability reporting: United Nations' 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the sustainable development goals," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1617-1629, July.
    13. Andrea Cardoni & Evgeniia Kiseleva & Rosa Lombardi, 2020. "A sustainable governance model to prevent corporate corruption: Integrating anticorruption practices, corporate strategy and business processes," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 1173-1185, March.
    14. Colin Higgins & Wendy Stubbs & Markus Milne, 2018. "Is Sustainability Reporting Becoming Institutionalised? The Role of an Issues-Based Field," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(2), pages 309-326, January.
    15. Isabel Ruiz-Mallén & María Heras, 2020. "What Sustainability? Higher Education Institutions’ Pathways to Reach the Agenda 2030 Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-18, February.
    16. Kim Ceulemans & Rodrigo Lozano & María Del Mar Alonso-Almeida, 2015. "Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education: Interconnecting the Reporting Process and Organisational Change Management for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(7), pages 1-23, July.
    17. Giorgio Mion & Cristian R. Loza Adaui, 2019. "Mandatory Nonfinancial Disclosure and Its Consequences on the Sustainability Reporting Quality of Italian and German Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-28, August.
    18. Ludger Niemann & Thomas Hoppe, 2018. "Sustainability reporting by local governments: a magic tool? Lessons on use and usefulness from European pioneers," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 201-223, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Monica Bruzzone & Renata Paola Dameri & Paola Demartini, 2021. "Resilience Reporting for Sustainable Development in Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-24, July.
    2. Thomas A. Tsalis & Maria Terzaki & Dimitrios Koulouriotis & Konstantinos P. Tsagarakis & Ioannis E. Nikolaou, 2023. "The nexus of United Nations' 2030 Agenda and corporate sustainability reports," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 784-796, April.
    3. Walter Leal Filho & Alfonso Coronado-Marín & Amanda Lange Salvia & Fernanda Frankenberger Silva & Franziska Wolf & Todd LeVasseur & Maria J. Kirrane & Federica Doni & Arminda Paço & Malgorzata Blichar, 2022. "International Trends and Practices on Sustainability Reporting in Higher Education Institutions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, September.
    4. Cristina Alexandrina Stefanescu, 2021. "Sustainability Reporting in the Public Realm—Trends and Patterns in Knowledge Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-23, April.
    5. Hinrika Droege & Andrea Raggi & Tomás B. Ramos, 2021. "Overcoming Current Challenges for Circular Economy Assessment Implementation in Public Sector Organisations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-22, January.
    6. Francisco J. Alcaraz-Quiles & Andrés Navarro-Galera & David Ortiz-Rodríguez, 2020. "The contribution of the right to information laws in Europe to local government transparency on sustainability," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 161-178, March.
    7. Salvatore Loprevite & Domenico Raucci & Daniela Rupo, 2020. "KPIs Reporting and Financial Performance in the Transition to Mandatory Disclosure: The Case of Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-24, June.
    8. Alamo Alexandre da Silva Batista & Antonio Carlos de Francisco, 2018. "Organizational Sustainability Practices: A Study of the Firms Listed by the Corporate Sustainability Index," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, January.
    9. Giuseppe Nicolò & Natalia Aversano & Giuseppe Sannino & Paolo Tartaglia Polcini, 2021. "Investigating Web-Based Sustainability Reporting in Italian Public Universities in the Era of Covid-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-12, March.
    10. Ioana Dorin & Ioan Rosca & Dana Andreea Costea & Cornel Suciu, 2020. "Integrated Reporting for Public Sector in EU. A case study," Academic Journal of Economic Studies, Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accountancy Bucharest,"Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University Bucharest, vol. 6(1), pages 121-126, March.
    11. Anca Băndoi & Claudiu George Bocean & Mara Del Baldo & Lucian Mandache & Leonardo Geo Mănescu & Cătălina Soriana Sitnikov, 2021. "Including Sustainable Reporting Practices in Corporate Management Reports: Assessing the Impact of Transparency on Economic Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-20, January.
    12. Yannis Politis & Evangelos Grigoroudis, 2022. "Incorporating the Sustainability Concept in the Major Business Excellence Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-20, July.
    13. Lara Tarquinio & Stefanía C. Posadas & Deborah Pedicone, 2020. "Scoring Nonfinancial Information Reporting in Italian Listed Companies: A Comparison of before and after the Legislative Decree 254/2016," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-22, May.
    14. Rodrigo Lozano, 2018. "Proposing a Definition and a Framework of Organisational Sustainability: A Review of Efforts and a Survey of Approaches to Change," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-21, April.
    15. Jintao Lu & Mengshang Liang & Chong Zhang & Dan Rong & Hailing Guan & Kristina Mazeikaite & Justas Streimikis, 2021. "Assessment of corporate social responsibility by addressing sustainable development goals," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 686-703, March.
    16. Simone Pizzi & Francesco Rosati & Andrea Venturelli, 2021. "The determinants of business contribution to the 2030 Agenda: Introducing the SDG Reporting Score," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 404-421, January.
    17. Febrian Kwarto & Nunuy Nurafiah & Harry Suharman & Muhammad Dahlan, 2024. "The potential bias for sustainability reporting of global upstream oil and gas companies: a systematic literature review of the evidence," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 35-64, February.
    18. Rodrigo Lozano, 2023. "Analysing organisations' engagement with and impacts to sustainability," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5721-5733, December.
    19. Giuseppe Nicolò & Gianluca Zanellato & Adriana Tiron-Tudor, 2020. "Integrated Reporting and European State-Owned Enterprises: A Disclosure Analysis Pre and Post 2014/95/EU," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-17, March.
    20. Elena Nechita & Cristina Lidia Manea & Elena-Mirela Nichita & Alina-Mihaela Irimescu & Diana Manea, 2020. "Is Financial Information Influencing the Reporting on SDGs? Empirical Evidence from Central and Eastern European Chemical Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-34, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:6:p:3442-:d:771732. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.