The tenth Report on social responsibility of the University of Barcelona is published

The report shows the impact of the University in the three fields of social responsibility: economy, environment and society, and it does so from an internal view (impacts within the organization) and external as well (impacts outside the organization). This year, for the first time, the report has been written after the complete adaptation of the consolidated standard set of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) for the creation of sustainability reports. This has been jointly written by the team of social responsibility of the University of Barcelona and the Pompeu Fabra University to reach proper standards to analyse the impact of a public university (GRI original standards are thought to be applied to any kind of organization but have a bias focused on private sector multinationals). GRI models are the most known in the writing of social responsibility reports, and therefore, the UB opted for writing its own proposal of standards.

So far, the report on social responsibility was approved by the Commission of Social Responsibility, deputy of the Governing Council. But now, these functions have been taken by the new Commission of Sustainable Development, which will have to approve, among other things, the report on social responsibility, but will not gather until September 2019. In order to publish this edition of the report before the summer holidays, like in previous years, the vice-rector for Equal Opportunities and Social Action analyzed its content and validated it temporarily. She also commented on the main content with the Rector. The definite approval of the report will take place when the Commission of Sustainable Develop meets in September 2019.

Regarding the content of the report, most of the actions and services beyond traditional functions of the universities are described in the chapters: “Creació de valor per a la societat mitjançant la responsabilitat amb lʼentorn” (creation of values for society through responsibility with the environment) and “Responsabilitat am bels treballadors” (responsibility with employees). Also, there is a specific chapter dedicated to teaching and research, under the title: “Docència, recerca i responsabilitat amb lʼalumnat” (teaching, research and responsibility with the students). The other chapters gather aspects such as the environmental impact, impact on economy, strategy as social responsibility and university governance, among others.