Mapping sustainability in higher education institutions: co-creating a spatial dashboard for monitoring and engaged action

Purpose Several certified frameworks exist for ranking sustainability credentials of higher education institutions (HEIs), but few institutions regularly register efforts in a geographically-specific way. Mapping sustainable infrastructure, services and activities within HEIs can improve both awareness and decision-making, enhancing the evidence-base for informed action. This paper aims to present and discuss the co-creation of a novel online mapping dashboard that captures sustainability efforts in University College Dublin, Ireland. Design/methodology/approach Systematic review of sustainability policies and resources, and a campus-wide student, faculty and staff survey helped identify ongoing activities, information needs and availability. Through a systematic data gathering process and consultation with key stakeholders, sustainability-driven initiatives were compiled, and a comprehensive set of spatial data for each sustainable development goal (SDG) was created. These were subsequently integrated into a bespoke interactive dashboard. Findings The dashboard establishes a baseline of sustainability efforts across the university, provides a teaching and learning tool and gives the academic community the opportunity to identify areas for research and targeted action. The data collection and dashboard creation process revealed SDG priorities and data limitations to be addressed for strengthening sustainability implementation and reporting mechanisms. Originality/value The dashboard was co-created by students, faculty and staff. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it provides the first transferable template to support geographically-specific SDG monitoring within HEIs and, therefore, can be of value to other institutions. This paper contributes to debates on the need for spatial reporting of actions towards sustainability, to meaningfully recognise local SDG implementation progress.