This study adopts Fonseca et al.’s (2011, 26) sustainability reporting framework in analysing the state of sustainability reporting in Ghanaian universities. Fonseca et al’s framework is a combination of the GRI guidelines and Campus Sustainability Assessment tools. The adoption of the framework is justified on the basis that the GRI guidelines represent a widely recognised sustainability reporting framework, the usefulness of which is acknowledged by many corporations (Leszczynska 2012, 916). Additionally, the GRI guidelines offer core content for reporting what is relevant to all organisations, and indicator protocols that advise on definition, scope, and compilation methods to help organisations do meaningful and comparable reporting on indicators (Fonseca et al. 2011, 27). Also, to cater for the peculiarities imposed by the research context, the Fonseca framework encompasses indicators relating to the incorporation of sustainability in research and curriculum development.
The framework consists of ten categories with 56 indicators. The categories include organisational profile and governance; reporting approach; economic performance; environmental performance; social performance; human rights issues; societal issues; research; curriculum and teaching; green buildings and procurement. The organisational profile and governance dimension relate to disclosures that set the overall context for understanding organisational performance, such as organisational strategy, profile and governance structure (GRI guidelines 2000–2011, 5). Key performance indicators include: a statement from the president; a description of the organisation; the governance structure or processes; commitments to external sustainability initiatives and stakeholder engagement (Fonseca et al. 2011, 29). Reporting approach disclosure considers issues bordering on the reporting period, report scope and boundary reporting standards/guidelines, as well as third-party statements (external assurance). The economic performance disclosure, on the other hand, considers issues like the organisation’s impact on the economic conditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at the local, national and global levels. Key performance indicators include: economic performance, contribution to local economy, and indirect economic impact. The environmental performance disclosure focuses on universities’ impacts on living and non-living natural systems, including ecosystems, land, air and water (GRI guidelines 2000–2011, 27), while social
performance considers issues bordering on the impacts the university has on the social systems within which it operates, such as issues relating to labour practices and decent work, human rights and society.
The research performance disclosure focuses attention on policy issues relating to sustainability as regards research; research centres/laboratories; research programmes and projects; incentives for sustainability research, funding and grants; and academic production. Curriculum and teaching disclosure, on the other hand, focuses on curriculum sustainability-related policy information; courses relating to sustainability; students taking sustainability-related courses; sustainability literacy assessment; sustainability-related degree programmes; non-curricular teaching initiatives relating to sustainability; and scholarships offered to sustainability- related education, while the green buildings and procurement disclosure considers issues like green buildings and renovations; green spaces; food services; recycled paper; green electronics and green furniture. The framework in Figure 1 represents an attempt to meet the expectations of different groups of stakeholders, including employees, students, the community and society in general.
Figure 1: Framework for university sustainability reporting Source: Adopted from Fonseca et al. (2011)
5. METHODOLOGY
This study adopts content analysis of university websites and annual reports to evaluate the level of sustainability reporting among Ghanaian universities.
Despite the fact that newspapers, television, websites, annual reports or stand- alone environmental/sustainability reports were potential avenues for sustainability reporting by the investigated universities (Hinson et al. 2010, 28; Lozano 2011, 68), websites and annual reports were employed in this study. The latter two types of media provide a more readily available and accessible source of information for content analysis compared to newspapers and television, and were especially useful in this study since none of the universities investigated published a stand- alone sustainability or environmental report. As Hsieh and Shannon (2005, 1278) describe it, content analysis is ‘a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns’. Content analysis has also been argued to refer to ‘any qualitative data reduction and sense-making effort that takes a volume of qualitative material and attempts to identify core consistencies and meanings’ (Patton 2002, 453). Content analysis has been employed in various studies, including those of Waters and Tindall (2010, 372) and Hinson et al. (2010, 498), the latter of whom investigated sustainability reportage among banks in Ghana. This study also adopted the cross-sectional sampling technique advocated by Fonseca et al. (2011, 26), which selects the largest companies from particular sectors, nations or regions, according to criteria such as revenue or market capitalisation. In the light of their superior financial resources, large organisations’ reports are believed to indicate best practices and trends within their group; as such, following Fonseca et al. (ibid, 27), this study selected the six largest Ghanaian universities by student enrolment, which provides an indirect indication of campus area, endowment, and intensity of teaching and research.
Data collection took place from March 23, 2012 and April 23, 2012. First, the locations of the websites of the sampled universities were identified. The searches also focused on internal search engines and on web menus relating to university administration, governance, accountability, ethics policies, finance and sustainability offices/projects. In the case of the unavailability of such links, popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo! were used to locate the homepage of the universities. In situations where the annual reports of these universities could not be retrieved via the abovementioned search engines, the researchers contacted their public affairs directorate or related offices for the documents. These approaches are consistent with the methods used in similar studies (cf. Fonseca et al. 2011, 26; Hinson et al. 2010, 504–506).
Following Fonseca et al. (2011, 26), this article also adopted a tick-box framework inspired by the GRI G3 guidelines as well as by campus sustainability assessment tools. In addition to its ease of application, the tick-box framework allows for greater objectivity. The adoption of tick-boxes instead of a more sophisticated rating system is explained by the exploratory nature of this study (ibid.) which is aimed at providing an initial description of current practice, and may lay the foundation for future studies
to eventually refine or elaborate on the findings contained herein. Issues raised on the sustainability reporting posture of the selected universities as regards the ten dimensions of this study’s adopted framework (with its 56 indicators) were analysed separately within each case and then the findings were compared across all the cases, which is referred to as cross-case analysis (Hinson et al. 2010, 506).