Reporting University Performance through the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda: Lessons Learned from Italian Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Great - interesting niche examined of a growing and exciting field.

I urge at least one more citation near the introductory material - because producing sustainability reports by universities has also been adopted as a student experiential learning exercise:

Sulkowski, A. J., Kowalczyk, W., Ahrendsen, B. L., Kowalski, R., & Majewski, E. (2020). Enhancing sustainability education through experiential learning of sustainability reporting. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(6), 1233-1247.

I would suggest pointing this out just after the following text:

Social reporting, which translates into preparing and releasing documents
describing an institution’s fulfilment of its social responsibilities, can
serve to reflect a university’s performance in quantitative and qualitative
terms (Litten and Newport, 2004). In addition, such documents may describe the activities an institution conducts in pursuit of the triple academic mission (Etzkowitz, 2002) and to assess the impact generated in
terms of sustainable development (Godemann et al., 2014; Velazquez et al.,
2006). Some universities have also engaged students, creating an experiential learning exercise within the process of collecting data and producing sustainability reports. (Cite to Sulkowski, A. J., Kowalczyk, W., Ahrendsen, B. L., Kowalski, R., & Majewski, E. (2020). Enhancing sustainability education through experiential learning of sustainability reporting. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(6), 1233-1247.)

Author Response

Thank you for your review and suggestions. We have included the indicated citation in the Introduction Section, p. 2, and References, p. 24.

Reviewer 2 Report

Although I found the paper easy to read, I am not entirely convinced regarding the original contribution of this paper. There is a body of prior literature which has looked at sustainability reporting in the context  of Italian universities. See for example: Siboni, B., Del Sordo, C. and Pazzi, S., 2013. Sustainability reporting in state universities: An investigation of Italian pioneering practices. International Journal of Social Ecology and Sustainable Development (IJSESD), 4(2), pp.1-15.

Nicolò, G., Aversano, N., Sannino, G. and Tartaglia Polcini, P., 2021. Investigating web-based sustainability reporting in Italian public universities in the era of Covid-19. Sustainability, 13(6), p.3468.

Mauro, S.G., Cinquini, L., Simonini, E. and Tenucci, A., 2020. Moving from social and sustainability reporting to integrated reporting: Exploring the potential of Italian public-funded universities’ reports. Sustainability, 12(8), p.3172.

In addition, analysis is very basic and there is no theoretical framework which could have potentially added value.

Author Response

Thank you for your review. The paper aims to summarize the state of the art of sustainability reporting in Italian state universities and to assess the compliance of these reports with global sustainability trends by determining the extent to which the 2030 Agenda’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are integrated into the substantive indicators used in the preparation of sustainability reports. However, the formalization of the 17 goals in September 2015 has not yet allowed, for obvious reasons of timing, the publication of scientific research in the field aimed at investigating how universities have chosen to approach reporting on the SDGs. For this reason, the paper can provide a foundation for the development of further literature on finding ways to improve the sustainable performances reporting system. Moreover, it can indicate to universities specific approaches for integrating the SDGs within sustainability reporting documents.

Additions suggested by the other reviewers were also made to the contribution.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this interesting article. After reading it, I found the following aspects related to:

1. Abstract. The abstract clearly states the main purpose of the authors' research, but does not specify the results and conclusions obtained. I suggest the authors do this.

2. Introduction. The authors give an overview of the development of sustainability and focus on the research proposed by the goal launched by them.

3. Theoretical bakcground. I suggest the authors replace Theoretical background with Literature review. Through the two subsections, the authors present the influencing factors of sustainability reporting and the high degree of its respect at European and global level, insisting mainly on the Italian side, as it appears from the title of the article. There are other countries that are not mentioned in the implementation of sustainability reporting. I suggest the authors do this.

4. Research aims and methid. I suggest the authors replace Researh aims and tmethod with Research Methodology. The authors conduct a qualitative research starting from two research questions.

5. Results. The authors explain the results obtained by analyzing the documents of 68 universities in Italy, the stage of adoption and sustainability reporting, the types of standards used and the reporting tools for the analyzed period 2015-2019. Why wasn't the data from 2020 or 2021 used, for example ?

5. Discussion and conclusions. The few discussions and conclusions presented explain the current state of research. The authors do not emphasize the importance of their research in the context of the 2030 agenda. I suggest that the authors do this.

Author Response

Thank you for your review. We have supplemented the text with suggestions as follows:

- conclusions have been included in the abstract;

- Sections 2 and 3 were renamed to “Literature review” and “Research Methodology” respectively;

- the literature was supplemented by citing additional scientific contributions on the implementation of sustainability reporting in universities;

- the results were updated with 2020 data. The 2021 data were not considered as most of the sample had not yet published their report and the analysis could have been affected by this limitation;

- in the Section “Discussion and Conclusions” the importance of the research in the context of the 2030 agenda was emphasised.

Finally, English proofreading services (scribbr and grammarly premium) were used.

Reviewer 4 Report

This paper analyses a relevant topic and has the potential to contribute to previous literature about sustainability in universities. However, I have some comments/suggestions to improve the current version of the paper:

• Title: in the paper is not clear the difference between "reporting" and "communicating". My question is: when universities report information about SDG, aren't they communicating that information? Maybe the authors can think about using only "reporting" in the title.
• Theoretical background: I think the first research question is not well-formulated. The authors don't analyze the level of maturity of social reporting. They don't define what it is "maturity". Additionally, the difference between a sustainability report and a social report must be clear throughout the paper.
• Results: the description of the four specific approaches (p. 13) should be included in section 3 (methodology). Also, it is not clear the distinction between these four approaches, especially the difference between approaches 3 and 4. Maybe introducing some examples will make it clearer. Since this classification has some subjectivity, this fact should be described as a limitation.

Author Response

Thank you for your review. We have supplemented the text with suggestions as follows:

- the title has been renamed “Reporting universities’ performance through the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 Agenda: Lessons learned from Italian case study”

- RQ1 was reworded in order to investigate the level of adoption of sustainability reporting in Italian state universities;

- approaches 3 and 4 were supplemented with additional explanations. Some examples of integrative and transformative approaches have been included in the footnotes. The description of the four approaches has been included in section 4.4 in order to provide continuity with the results indicated;

- the use of the dual form social and sustainability reports/reporting has been limited to the theoretical context, in analogy with the cited literature.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for undertaking the revisions. Please include justification for why Italian higher education institutions.

Also, please highlight broader implications of your research.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. We have supplemented the text with suggestions as follows:

- the choice of the sample has been indicated in the “Methodology” section, p.7

- the practical implications of the research have been included in the “Discussion and Conclusions” section