Nova School of Business & Economics: Sustainability report

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

This work project consists of a sustainability report proposal for NovaSBE, consolidating its strategic goals of preparing students for sustainable development challenges of today’s organizations and communication towards stakeholders. This proposal arouses from the partnership with the Consultancy firm for Sustainable Development Sair da Casca. The first assignment given by the company consisted of building a sustainability observatorium that included the top 25 Portuguese companies’ sustainability practices. However, during the process, the company realized such a benchmarking tool already existed so that it did not make sense to develop it. It was then that from the alignment of interests between the company and the Field Lab purpose emerged the idea of a sustainability report for the school. To conduct a Sustainability Report Proposal for NovaSBE, the previous experience of collecting data on the top 25 companies’ sustainability practices allowed for a deeper knowledge on sustainability reporting.The Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting standards were chosen to carry this project out considering that its wider acceptance applies for NovaSBE’s internationalization ambitions. Nonetheless, the standard framework was adjusted to NovaSBE’s specificities in what sustainability is concerned. Overall, the results from this report’s proposal show that although NovaSBE has already taken several sustainability related measures they lack on strategic orientation and coordination, so that their full potential is not being achieved. Taking into consideration the conclusions, several recommendations for future sustainability reports are presented.