UN unveils tool to track universities’ SDGs performance

Higher education institutions worldwide are being encouraged to focus on achieving global sustainability targets with the help of a new United Nations-sponsored reporting and measurement resource.

On 15 July 2024, UNESCO unveiled its Sustainability Self-Evaluation Tool for Higher Education Institutions, or SET4HEI.

It is a free, online and open resource for higher education institutions to map their current and potential future contributions to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which cover areas such as the eradication of poverty and hunger; combating climate change; the promotion of good health and wellbeing; clean and affordable energy; and gender equality.

Launched at an international gathering of sustainability-focused academics in New York, alongside the United Nations High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, SET4HEI is the result of a combined effort by three UN bodies – the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean, the United Nations Academic Impact initiative and the UN Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI).

The tool features a collection of online self-assessments, in the form of multiple-choice questionnaires aligned to each of the 17 SDGs, for universities and colleges to complete.

Questions are based on ‘indicators’ of whether the institution is contributing to the achievement of the SDGs it has prioritised – for example, whether an institution that is nominally focused on SDG 1 (ending global poverty) offers courses on poverty alleviation.

Universities and colleges can also apply for SET4HEI certification, which the SET4HEI awarding body says is a “tangible and prestigious mark of excellence in sustainability”, which it hopes will encourage broader engagement with SDGs within higher education.

Higher education institutions in a ‘unique position’

Speaking at the launch of SET4HEI, Dr Victoria Galan-Muros, chief of research and analysis at UNESCO’s International Institute for Higher Education, said higher education institutions are uniquely positioned to contribute to the achievement of UN SDGs.

“They train the human capital with the skills required [to implement the sustainability agenda]; they can also drive research and innovation; work with communities and other stakeholders; [and] have the opportunity to lead by example,” she said.

Galan-Muros told attendees that SET4HEI was developed in response to growing interest in sustainability among universities and colleges.

“We started receiving requests from different university leaders about being supported on this [sustainability impact measurement] process,” Galan-Muros said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have the capacity to individually help, so our thinking was, how can we create something that, by one initiative, could help a lot of university leaders at the same time,” she added.

Galan-Muros explained that the tool uses more than 400 indicators to define sustainability and includes practical guidelines on how to set up and run sustainability initiatives within institutions.

“We by no means expect universities to do all these things [as] we know that there are different pathways to sustainability, and we want to give universities enough choices and enough pathways to get there,” stressed Galan-Muros.

“We tried to make [the tool] as simple as possible and quite transparent in terms of the measurements and the indicators,” she explained, adding that SET4HEI is designed so that any university worldwide can use it.

Galan-Muros said the tool is “non-competitive” in nature, and its metrics are focused on allowing higher education institutions to assess their own sustainability performance. The results of these assessments are evaluated by an external expert to enable UNESCO certification and recognition, as well as to measure the sustainability impacts of initiatives and manage them accordingly.

SET4HEI is available in English and Spanish, with plans to translate the tool into French and potentially more languages, depending on demand.

“There are 250 million university students right now in the world; that’s a huge army of young people we should be doing more with; imagine the potential for change,” said Galan-Muros.

Training and knowledge exchange

Speaking on a panel discussion to accompany the launch of SET4HEI, Professor Aiman Albarakati, director of the Saudi Arabian branch of the Global Network of International Training Centres for Local Actors (CIFAL) – part of a network of centres under the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) – said that training people to implement SDG principles is essential in achieving the goals.

In this way, effective sustainable practices are spread from academia and learning environments into government, industry and the non-profit sector, he said.

Albarakati told University World News that to be successful, training must be practical in nature.

“We focus on real-world applications and ensure that our trainees have the resources and guidance needed to implement what they have learned,” he said.

“The collaboration and exchange of knowledge among participants from different sectors also play a crucial role in the overall success of these programmes,” he continued, adding that CIFAL Saudi Arabia has trained leaders from various sectors, including strategic planners, educational programme designers, social responsibility managers and sustainability professionals.

“A good outcome is when participants not only understand and apply the concepts learned but also become advocates for SDGs, initiating and leading projects that align with the UN's 2030 Agenda” for Sustainable Development, which integrates the SDGs, he said.

Dr Miki Sugimura, professor of comparative and international education at Sophia University in Japan, said that one way to effectively build and spread knowledge about sustainability is to integrate sustainability into academic curricula, breaking down traditional divisions between disciplines.

“I think that one of the key topics is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches,” Sugimura told University World News.

She said some universities focus on education for sustainable development (ESD) and global citizenship education, which address SDG target 4.7 (“Ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development”) under SDG 4 on quality education.

As an example of this approach in practice, Sugimura said her classes at Sophia University follow ESD themes that call for respect and understanding of the different views of her students who come from different international and cultural backgrounds, as part of the university’s focus on working towards SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions).

Risk analysis

Professor Shen Xiaomeng, United Nations University (UNU) vice-rector in Europe and director of the UNU Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), noted that research – and in particular risk analysis – is also vital in measuring the impact of initiatives aimed at achieving the SDGs, and in formulating policy-relevant advice for governments.

Her institute has been contributing to areas including climate risks and climate adaptation and transformation. “Risks, and how you manage them, are an integral part of the SDGs,” she told the panel.

“If you think of zero poverty [SDG1], if you are facing so many natural disasters – or rather man-made disasters – you need to manage them, otherwise you will not be able to reach zero hunger, zero poverty … any of those goals,” added Shen.

She noted that UN research echoed the findings of other, non-partisan international bodies that had indicated a close link between risk reduction and SDG achievement.

Shen also noted that many SDGs are interrelated and cannot meaningfully be addressed in isolation.

For example: “We always have a gender dimension in all our research projects – such as, for instance, our research on human mobility in the context of climate change examines how women could be disadvantaged but also empowered by climate change, if it causes males to leave communities to seek work.”

As an example of the type of academic initiatives SET4HEI has been designed to evaluate, Shen noted that the UNU offers a joint masters programme on the geography of environmental risks and human security with Germany’s University of Bonn.

Graduates’ impact

According to Dr Arturo Condo, president of EARTH University in Costa Rica, one of the most meaningful ways of measuring the success of higher education institution sustainability initiatives is to evaluate the real world impacts of an institution’s graduates against SDGs.

“Obviously, it is our graduates’ impact that counts, and I think there’s a temptation … to measure graduation rates and achievement grades, but that’s not impact – impact is what our graduates do in the world. That’s harder to measure, but we need to figure it out,” he said.

Condo added that the onus is on institutions to keep refining their measurement methodologies and criteria to meaningfully evaluate the social, economic and environmental effects of their graduates, and that these measurements should inform institutions’ educational strategies.

He also agreed with Sugimura that cross-disciplinary, multilateral approaches to academic courses are more successful than narrowly focused educational paths.

“At Earth University, we don't have courses [just on] sustainability – rather [sustainability] cuts across everything,” he said, noting that this ethos is also embodied in the university’s campus, where 100% of waste is processed and less than 10% is sent to landfill.

Condo added that it was important for higher education institutions to equip students with the skills needed to succeed in senior positions and to be able to incorporate sustainable thinking into those roles.

If graduates are going to be leaders for the future, “they need to be prepared to do that – not only to write a great code, or even perform great surgeries – it has to be about the future of our human organisation,” he said.