A Proposal For Sustainable Universities’ Governance-Strategy and Communication Studies by a Comparative-Based Approach

Sustainability has become a prominent aspect in universities and many universities are using tools to declare their commitment to being a sustainable university. Sustainability ranking systems have started to be developed for universities in order to be a guide in this area. This study aims to determine the basic indicators that a sustainable university should prioritize within the framework of governance, strategy and communication. To achieve this goal, a comparative analysis has done and a proposal is developed based on governance and strategy aspects of three commonly used global methods of ranking and reporting, i.e. THE Impact, UI GreenMetric and GRI. In this context; It is aimed to reveal the scope in which the strategy and governance studies of a sustainable university should be structured that highlight the issue of sustainability, and to examine the tools required for sustainability communication. The comparative analysis yield four main headings of the proposed approach, as; ‘Fundamental Strategy and Policies/Management Structure’, ‘Ethics’, ‘Social Aspects’ (Gender Equality, Equality and Diversity, Human Rights) and finally ‘Environmental Impact Policies’. Furthermore, the comparison of relevant indicators and discussion of further insight to future actions is presented.