UMinho’s seven guiding principles for sustainability strategies - a critical assessment

Abstract

The University of Minho, in 2009, published her first sustainability report. It was, at the time, the first Portuguese University to do so. This publication grew out of a voluntary and informal group of faculty members from diverse scientific areas. The commitment with sustainability reporting, and most fundamentally to the sustainability quest, was constant until 2017. During these 9 years UMinho’s public report on sustainability, based on the Global Report Initiative, was deepened, translating a wider perspective on sustainability, and the development of institutional procedures for information provision. Since there was a change in the methodology for sustainability reporting in 2016, the questions that arises are “how did the seven guiding principles, based on the 2009–2017 period, evolved in UMinho’s sustainability policies” and “whether or not these same principles were included in other sustainability strategies case studies”.