Graphical Assessment of Sustainability in Universities (GASU)

In many higher education institutions there has been strong progress in incorporating sustainability into their systems (including curricula, research, operations, and outreach).

Objectives

• provide an analysis of current sustainability efforts in the university with respect to: profile; economic dimension; environmental dimension; and social dimension, based on the GRI G3 Sustainability Guidelines.
• help universities on their road towards sustainability by making recommendations as to where the university should effect the changes needed to make its system more sustainability orientated, and thus be better aligned with the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.
• facilitate comparisons of the university’s efforts and achievements towards sustainability in different years, as well as benchmarking against other universities.

Main Activities

GASU results are presented in charts:

A general chart which presents the performance of economic, environmental, social and educational dimensions

Dedicated charts which present:

• Economic dimension;
• Environmental dimension;
• Social dimension (overall, labour practices and decent work, human rights, society, and product responsibility);
• Educational dimension;
• Inter-linked issues and dimensions.

Results

The previous version of GASU (2007) has been used to analyse 12 universities that published GRI sustainability reports in 2009. Current plans include using GASU 2010 to analyse more recent university sustainability reports and to help universities that have not yet published sustainability reports to develop them in a more holistic way than current GRI reports. 

Website

GASU