Exploring the sustainable reporting practices of universities in relation to the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development

Abstract Universities are aware of the imperative of sustainability and are focusing on promoting the aims and principles of sustainable development, such as greening their curriculum, enhancing the environmental performance of their campus and using sustainable criteria in their investment and purchasing behavior. Also, the scope of sustainable development was broadened by the introduction of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by the United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda which stipulates new directions for sustainability at a global level. Given this background, this paper examines the level of alignment of universities with the 17 SDGs through an analysis of sustainability reports prepared by universities, in order to highlight the issues which are mostly discussed by universities in relation to SDGs. To do so, an empirical analysis was carried out on a sample of 37 sustainability reports using a methodological framework based on scoring techniques to analyze their content. The findings show that the universities have disclosed more information about climate change mitigation and adaptation practices and less about SDGs regarding quality of education and peace, democracy and strong institutions

Cooperative Segmental Motions in Ethyl Acrylate/Triethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate Copolymer Networks Studied by Dielectric Techniques

The molecular dynamics of ethyl acrylate/triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EA/TrEGDMA) copolymer networks on the overall composition range were investigated thoroughly by employing dielectric techniques: thermally stimulated depolarization currents (TSDC) and dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS). Furthermore, di¿erential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was performed in order to investigate the thermal glass transition of these copolymers. The results show that, for low content of the TrEGDMA component, the overall dielectric behavior of the copolymers is dictated by the dynamics of PEA component, exhibiting the ¿cop relaxation process which is strongly a¿ected by the TrEGDMA moieties becoming broader and shifting to higher temperatures with increasing cross-linker (TrEGDMA) content. For the copolymer networks rich in TrEGDMA (w TE g 40 wt %), the overall dielectric behavior indicates that the dynamics of the dimethacrylate component dominates, resembling that of poly(n-alkyl methacrylates) in the sense that the temperature dependence of molecular relaxation processes presents a merging region where the local relaxation process of TrEGDMA,ßPTE, merges with the more cooperative¿cop process of the copolymers into an¿ßcop locally cooperative relaxation process. By increasing the EA content, the strength of ¿cop relaxation process enhances and simultaneously the merging region shifts to lower temperatures. The cooperative motions are signi¿cantly suppressed in the copolymers with TrEGDMA contents higher that 80 wt %. The copolymers present enhanced spatial heterogeneity the more TrEGDMA content, whereas no dynamic heterogeneity was detected.A.T.S. thanks the Department of Physics, National Technical University of Athens, for the financial support of this work.Stathopoulos, AT.; Kyritsis, A.; Gallego Ferrer, G.; Gómez Ribelles, JL.; Christodoulides, C.; Pissis, P. (2011). Cooperative Segmental Motions in Ethyl Acrylate/Triethylene Glycol Dimethacrylate Copolymer Networks Studied by Dielectric Techniques. Macromolecules. 44:8233-8244. doi:10.1021/ma201755yS823382444