{"paper_id":"d16abcbd-e85d-4307-93c2-3757cc3375eb","body_text":"Parenting or partnership? 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Corpus-assisted analysis of institution-people dynamics in university sustainability reporting Yingnian Tao, Samuel Finnerty, Seth Robinson, Richard Philpot, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9518900/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Higher education institutions are increasingly required to produce formal reports on their sustainability practices. How these reports are written can tell us much about the way higher education leadership prioritises the contributions of different parts of the institution to sustainability goals. In this paper we investigate how key actors — institutions, staff, and students — are represented within these formal documents. We employ corpus-assisted discourse analysis, combining concordance and collocation analysis, to examine sustainability reports produced by UK universities included in the 2024 QS Sustainability Ranking. Findings show that universities, staff and students are the most frequently mentioned actors, but there are clear asymmetries in how they are represented. Universities are consistently portrayed as ethically, socially, and environmentally responsible leaders who provide facilities, inclusion programmes, services, and sustainability initiatives. In contrast, staff and students are more often positioned as passive recipients and beneficiaries of university affordances, often referenced in role-based terms or as components of carbon reporting rather than as agents in their own right. The findings point to a hierarchical “parenting” representational pattern that diminishes collective agency and undermines more participatory understandings of sustainability governance. Such representations are consequential because the discursive marginalisation of staff and student agency raises questions about the extent to which university sustainability governance is genuinely participatory or democratic. This study makes an original contribution to scholarship on sustainability discourse, governance and legitimacy in higher education, and demonstrates the value of corpus-assisted discourse analysis for identifying ideological patterns in institutional reporting. Higher education sustainability reporting Sustainability governance Corpus linguistics Discursive marginalisation Agency Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 1. Introduction Universities are increasingly positioned as central actors in the sustainability agenda. In the UK, climate emergency declarations, institutional sustainability strategies, commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals, and inclusion in external rankings have formalised expectations that universities will lead on environmental sustainability across research, teaching, and operations (Latter & Capstick, 2021 ). These developments have intensified how UK universities articulate sustainability commitments and, crucially, how responsibility for delivering them is distributed across actors. Delivering sustainability commitments requires coordinated action across multiple levels. Universities establish frameworks, targets, and infrastructures, while academic and professional staff enact, interpret, and adapt these commitments in their day-to-day work. Yet, evidence shows a tension between motivation and capacity: despite strong desire among staff to contribute to sustainability initiatives, many report feeling overworked and disempowered within existing structures (Latter et al., 2024 ). This is compounded by rising workloads, precarious employment, and limited influence over decision-making (Black, 2024 ). Nevertheless, environmental advocacy has intensified among both staff and students, highlighting their role as drivers of change. Researchers are increasingly vocal in demanding climate action, both within universities and through participation in protest and wider public engagement (Dablander et al., 2024 ; Finnerty, 2026 ). Students likewise express strong climate concern and have played a prominent role in initiatives such as fossil fuel divestment, plant-based campus campaigns, and climate strikes (People & Planet, 2026 ; Planet-Based Universities, 2026 ; SOS-UK, 2024a , 2024b ). These dynamics raise important questions about how sustainability action is understood and organised at the institutional level. In large, complex organisations such as universities, text and narratives shape how organisations understand themselves and how change is imagined or enacted (Boje et al., 2004 ; Cooren, 2004 ). Sustainability reporting is a key site in this process. Such reports are both descriptive and constitutive: through language, universities construct institutional identities, attribute responsibility, and signal which forms of action are valued. Reporting practices can therefore contribute to embedding sustainability within organisational practice, or alternatively, to reproducing more symbolic forms of commitment (Narayanan & Adams, 2017 ). Within higher education, sustainability reports are a prominent means of communicating environmental performance, priorities, and values to both internal and external audiences. Examining their language offers a window into how higher education institutes construct themselves as sustainable organisations and how agency is attributed across institutional actors. Critically, whether, and how, universities’ actions and the agency of staff and students is reflected within institutional sustainability discourse remains an open question. Taken together, these considerations motivate the present study, which asks: 1. Who are the main actors represented in university sustainability reports and how the mentions change over time in the studied period? 2. How are these main actors represented in these reports? 3. And how do these representations contribute to the broader discourse of sustainability within UK higher education? 2. Literature review 2.1. Sustainability reporting and governance in higher education Historically, sustainability reporting emerged within the corporate sector as a response to stakeholder concern over environmental and social impacts (Cho et al., 2015 ), adopting the widely used Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard (Lakhno, 2024 ). Early forms of disclosure focused on demonstrating responsibility, managing reputational risk, and maintaining organisational legitimacy facing public scrutiny rather than ensuring compliance with binding regulatory requirements (Cho et al., 2015 ). Over time, however, sustainability reporting became increasingly formalised as environmental risks were reframed as financial, operational, and governance concerns, prompting regulators, investors, and auditors to demand more systematic disclosure (Lozano, 2006 ). This shift occurred as sustainability concerns became increasingly integrated into risk management, financial oversight, and regulatory governance, transforming disclosure from a reputational exercise into a standardised tool of institutional accountability. Today, universities use sustainability reporting as a tool to assess the current state of progress towards sustainable development, and as a way to communicate progress with stakeholders (Lozano, 2011 ). Institutions are also increasingly relying on sustainability reporting to indirectly maintain compliance and keep pace with evolving regulatory frameworks, using this disclosure to demonstrate alignment with existing and anticipated obligations (Larrán Jorge et al., 2019 ; Lozano et al., 2015 ). Through these reports, institutions show alignment with binding commitments, such as national net-zero goals and other climate commitments, additionally they become useful mechanisms for achieving these goals (Amran & Keat Ooi, 2014 ; Lozano et al., 2015 ). There reports often cover sustainability aspects including greenhouse gas emissions (scopes 1 & 2 minimum), energy use, targets and plans, methodology, governance, progress, and barriers (Lakhno, 2024 ; Sassen et al., 2018 ). Reporting is oriented toward translating institutional activities into Sustainable Development Goal aligned narratives for multiple stakeholder audiences, including funders, regulators, researchers, and students. Funders are increasingly including environmental sustainability expectations into research governance and funding frameworks. For example, UKRI publishes an environmental sustainability strategy and is a signatory to the Environmental Sustainability Concordat for Research & Innovation Practice (UKRI, 2024), and funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research England require some degree of commitment to sustainable research practice (Cancer Research UK, 2025 ; Wellcome Trust, 2025 ). Similarly, many Horizon Europe funding programmes prioritise projects that address climate and sustainability challenges. In parallel, prospective students are exposed to university sustainability performance through global ranking systems such as QS, which incorporate environmental and social indicators into comparative assessments (Hazelkorn, 2015b ; Irungu & Liu, 2024 ). Research suggests that rankings influence university choice for students (Hazelkorn, 2015b ), while institutional leaders themselves frequently regard ranking performance as a key driver of recruitment strategy (Estrada-Real & Cantu-Ortiz, 2022 ; Irungu & Liu, 2024 ). 2.2. Participation and agency in sustainability reports in higher education To date, limited attention has been paid to the representational agency in university sustainability reporting practice. Existing literature more frequently positions students and staff as change agents within sustainability process rather than as social actors represented within the sustainability reports themselves (Bohunovsky et al., 2023 ; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., 2018 ; Kay et al., 2010 ; Nelson et al., 2025 ; Rutar & Krmac, 2025 ). Kay et al. ( 2010 ), for example, discussed how students at the University of Exeter were engaged in bringing about institutional change; they are integrated in university governance as the change agents, evaluators, participants, and partners across different projects. Student involvement has also been discussed in relation to curriculum design where participation is argued to influence educational process and quality (Bohunovsky et al., 2023 ; Rutar & Krmac, 2025 ). In a case study of the University of California, Nelson et al. ( 2025 ) examined three grassroots climate movements led by students and staff — decarbonisation, cutting ties with fossil investment, and education for all. These movements led to tangible changes, including pressure on the university to terminate a lease agreement that allowed JP Morgan Chase to rent campus space. At the same time, research also highlights that students and staff acting as change agents may encounter multiple tensions and challenges at individual, organisational and systemic level, including the need to juggle multiple roles and identifies, limited time and motivation, and a lack of sustained institutional commitment and support (Bohunovsky et al., 2023 ; Latter et al., 2024 ). Another strand of research focuses on how universities communicate sustainability through their public-facing platforms and across different communication channels (Carrillo-Durán et al., 2024 ; Zhou, 2025 ), or on how internal stakeholders are engaged in producing sustainability reports themselves (Ceulemans et al., 2015 ; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., 2018 ). While these studies provide valuable insights into participation, engagement, and communication practices, they do not address how students and staff are represented within the sustainability reporting narratives, nor how their roles are positioned in relation to the institution. Numerous studies of sustainability reporting have focused on corporate context, using natural language processing-based methods (Kang & Kim, 2022 ; Smeuninx et al., 2020 ), discourse analysis (Higgins & Coffey, 2016 ), or corpus linguistics (Fuoli & Beelitz, 2023 , 2025 ). To our best knowledge, no study has explicitly examined the representation of agency in sustainability reporting in the higher education context using corpus linguistics methods, particularly in terms of comparing the role of institution with the role of students and staff. Corpus linguistics offers a range of analytical tools for examining how social actors are construed through language, which makes it possible to identify linguistic patterns associated with different entities. For this reason, this study employs a corpus linguistic approach to explore how agency is discursively constructed in university sustainability reporting. 3. Data and methods 3.1. Data and data collection We collected sustainability annual reports published by all UK universities included in the 2024 QS World Sustainability ranking, comprising 91 institutions. For each institution, we first located its official website and searched for relevant documents using the search terms “sustainability/ESG/SDG/environmental annual report”. Where this did not yield results, we conducted a broader web search via Google search combining the university name with the same search terms (e.g., “Lancaster University sustainability annual report”). Data collection was conducted from February 2025 to May 2025, covering documents from 2019 onwards. This starting point reflects the wave of climate emergency declarations across the UK, representing a shift towards more ambitious action (BBC, 2019 ; Latter & Capstick, 2021 ). Correspondingly, both the number of university generated documents and total number of words dedicated to sustainability increased from 2019 onwards, reflecting this development. To ensure consistency and relevance, we applied inclusion and exclusion criteria. Only publicly available, stand-alone sustainability reports were included; internal documents and broader annual or financial reports with only partial sustainability content were excluded. We also excluded documents focused on a single sustainability dimension (e.g., food or procurement), ensuring sustainability was treated comprehensively. The presence of a dedicated report was taken to indicate institutional commitment to sustainability as a strategic priority (Lakhno, 2024 ). We included reports documenting completed actions and outcomes, excluding forward-looking materials such as strategies, policies, and plans. Reports were accepted in both PDF and webpage forms, reflecting the shift toward digital-first reporting (Kosta, 2018 )[i] . Some universities did not meet the criteria or lack publicly available materials. The final dataset comprised 207 reports from 64 universities. Link to the list of universities can be found at Data Availability. 3.2. Corpus building All the reports were transformed from .pdf to .txt formats. The documents were cleaned by removing unwanted symbols, checking typos. The cleaned txt files were submitted to Sketch Engine to compile the corpus. Each document was annotated with the name of the university (e.g., Lancaster University) and the year it stands for (e.g., 2024). Table 1 gives a breakdown of the corpus by year. From 2019 onwards, there was a steady increase in the number of documents, total number of words, and mean article length dedicated to sustainability reporting, likely reflecting the increased prioritisation of sustainability (Latter & Capstick, 2021 ). 3.3. Data analysis We conducted a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the collected reports using Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al., 2014 ), an established and widely used corpus analysis platform. The analysis focused on the collocation and concordance patterns (e.g., Gablasova et al., 2017 ; Tao & Ryan, 2025a ) associated with the social actors under examination. First, we conducted collocation analysis using the Word Sketch functionality to identify the typical lexical and grammatical relations surrounding each actor. We focused on four main grammatical relations: 1) Modifiers of x. Each word/actor could be modified by a noun or adjective to describe its attributes and its typical usage in the sustainability report context. 2) Nouns modified by x. The nouns that are modified by the actor provide the contextual anchors for the actor, revealing what kind of things the actor relates to. 3) verbs with x as subject. Verbs with the actor as subject provide insight into the typical actions, behaviours, occurrences that the actor is commonly associated with. It identifies whether the actor takes the role of doer or sometimes experiencer. 4) Verbs with x as object. The verbs with the actor as object provide insights into how the actor is acted upon, used, or affected by agents in the sustainability report context. Second, we used concordance analysis to examine the context in which collocates occurred. Concordance analysis allows researchers to examine the search word (or term) in more detail by displaying it in the centre of a line, with surrounding words displayed to the left and right (Brookes & Collins, 2024 ). By closely examining the context of the collocates (e.g., university offer , university complete ), we were able to analyse the salient linguistic patterns and interpret the main themes that emerged. This allowed us to uncover the image construction of these major actors. 4. Findings This section examines how three key actor groups – universities as institutions, staff and students as stakeholders – are represented across the corpus of sustainability reports. First we report the top 50 most frequent words in the self-built corpus; by doing so, we were able to identify three major actor groups. Next, we examine the frequency of mentions of each actor across the period of 2019–2024. Then, we conduct the collocation and concordance analysis to interpret and uncover the image construction of the three main actors. 4.1. Social actors and change over time: university, students, staff Figure 1 illustrates the top 50 most frequent words in the corpus, excluding grammar words that do not contain lexical meanings (e.g., for , with , and ). The wordlist demonstrates the main areas of sustainability on campus: carbon emission (e.g., carbon , energy , emissions , environmental ), waste and water management (e.g., waste , water , campus ), research (e.g., research ), curriculum ( students , education ) and community engagement (e.g., community ). This is in line with previous research on the main areas of sustainability reporting in the university context: campus engagement, sustainability in research, education and community engagement (Lakhno, 2024). Beyond the main areas of sustainability reporting, these are social actors who are participants of climate programmes and drivers of climate actions. They fall into two categories: institution (e.g., our , university , we ) and people (e.g., students , student , staff ). Also, institutions are mentioned more frequently, with university ranked 3rd, compared to students (12th ) and staff (24th ). The analysis next examined patterns in the frequency with which the social actors (university, student and staff) were mentioned over the years from 2019 to 2024. UNIVERSITY consistently emerges as the most frequently mentioned social actor, reflecting a reaffirmation of institutional authority and its centrality in institutional sustainability narratives (see Fig. 2). Mentions of UNIVERSITY were generally steady across the period, with the exception of a decline in 2020, which may be attributed to pandemic-related disruptions; overall, the trend was not statistically significant (R² = 0.15, p = 0.446). STUDENT is the second most frequently mentioned social actor. Mentions of students see a generally steady increase despite a dip in 2020 and 2021 (R² = 0.003, p = 0.925). This likely reflects student involvements in environmental initiatives and/or the mention of climate education. STAFF is the least frequently mentioned social actor. Staff representation shows a continuous and significant decline across the entire period (R² = 0.89, p = 0.004). This downward trend may point to a diminished focus on staff roles in sustainability narratives, possibly indicating gaps in inclusive reporting or internal stakeholder engagement strategies. In the following section we move beyond frequencies to detail how the university versus staff and students are presented in the sustainability reporting. 4.2. The representation of social actors Table 2 presents the collocates of each actor by the grammatical relations. The collocational patterns across these four relations suggest that university is characterised as research-intensive, top-tier and as an agent providing facilities and services to its community. Staff and students are associated with activities such as travel, commuting, and training, and are depicted as recipient of support, encouragement, and professional or leaning opportunities. Their collocates also overlap significantly, particularly in verbs (e.g., volunteer, complete, commute, help ), indicating that both groups perform similar actions and are acted upon in similar ways. Accordingly, staff and students are treated as a unified category in the following analysis. 4.2.1. University representation 4.2.1.1. University images constructed We examined all the four grammatical categories associated with UNIVERSITY (Table 2). After close reading of the concordance lines associated with each collocate, we have categorised themes of university image construction, as shown in Table 3. Universities are primarily portrayed as environmentally conscious . They recognise their role in achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (1) as well as role in achieving net zero targets (2). The UN SDGs provides a comprehensive framework spanning environmental, social, and governance dimensions, and this recognition is also evidenced by different sustainability initiatives. (1) The university recognises the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our role in contributing to them and this is highlighted in our new corporate strategy. (Greenwich, 2020-21) (2) We want to embed sustainability in all aspects of the University and to have achieved net zero in our scope 1 and scope 2 carbon emissions by 2030. (Southampton, 2023) Alongside environmental concerns, being socially responsible is equally emphasised, particularly in relation to students, staff, and communities. For students, universities highlight scholarships and wellbeing support, such as the commuter bursary for those from low-income households in (3). University efforts are represented in three main areas: care for students, staff, and communities. For students, different types of scholarships and wellbeing supports are mentioned. For instance, in (3), a commuter bursary is offered to students from low-income households. (3) The university offers a commuter bursary to support our students from low-income households who face challenging travel costs to attend university. (Greenwich, 2022) (4) Flexible Working and the university offers policies such as flexible working, shared parental leave, and childcare support to ensure gender equity in balancing professional and personal responsibilities. (Cardiff, 2023) Similarly, staff are offered flexible working arrangements and EDI programmes, reflecting efforts to foster an inclusive environment, as shown in (4). In addition to social and environmental responsibilities, universities emphasise being an ethical employer , often through initiatives such as Fairtrade accreditation, vegan-friendly food options, fossil fuel divestment, and recognition of union rights. Divestment is particularly prominent: 22 of the 64 universities in our corpus report withdrawing investment from fossil fuel companies, as illustrated in (5). However, indirect financial ties, such as relationship with commercial banks linked to fossil fuels are rarely acknowledge (for a grassroot movement on a US campus to terminate the lease of JP Morgan Chase Bank see Nelson et al., 2025). (5) The university […] fully divested from fossil fuels in 2021 and the policy commits the university to investing 40% of its funds in investments with socially responsible benefits by 2025. (KCL, 2021) For all the three main dimensions — environmental, social and ethical — universities also engage in aspirational talk , outlining future plans and commitments. Alongside this, universities highlight the inclusive community and the experience and culture they offer, often reflected in nouns modified by university (e.g., community , experience , campus ). This shifts the focus from facilities and services to the everyday experience of staff and students. In (6), this experience is framed through provision of green spaces that enable people to connect with nature. (6) Our Marylebone and Harrow growing spaces offer both students and colleagues an opportunity to take a break from busy university life and spend some time in nature. (Westminster, 2023) Apart from providing experience and inclusive campus environment, universities often showcase their leadership in sustainability efforts, most commonly through declaring climate emergencies, as seen in (7). (7) And in 2019, it became the first Scottish university to declare a climate emergency. (Glasgow, 2023) Such leadership is often presented alongside research excellency, highlighting not only sustainability initiatives but also institutional authority in achieving them. Academic excellence often coincides with leadership, as sustainability education and research form part of the broader sustainability agenda. (8) In 2023, the London Student Sustainability partnership expanded from six universities to ten. The participating universities included City, […], University of Westminster. (City University of London, 2023) Interestingly, universities also emphasise collaborative and collective efforts , as seen in (8), signalling their awareness that sustainability requires collective action across the higher education sector. 4.2.1.2. University sustainability efforts Next, we examine the action verbs that indicate university sustainability efforts. The results are shown in Table 4. (9) “The university is working to achieve net-zero carbon emissions through a combination of energy efficiency measures, renewable energy adoption, and sustainable building practices.” (Cardiff, 2023) (10) “Through our engagement programme, the university offers a wide range of projects which focus on raising aspirations of school children, improving the health of the community and transforming spaces across the city.” (De Montfort, 2020) A common theme of these university actions is the presence of active action verbs (e.g., offer , make , promote ). These verbs feature high agency where university provides, leads, and effects changes. For instance, in (9), the university is described as working on a range of energy efficiency measures to reduce carbon emission. Universities are not only portrayed to focus on their own campuses but also play an active role in civic engagement, e.g., servicing local communities, as seen in (10). 4.2.2. Staff and student representation 4.2.2.1. Staff and student images constructed First, we explore the modifiers of staff and students, e.g., professional service staff, PhD students. Figure 3 illustrates strongest modifiers that collocates with the two actors. The modifiers of staff (words in green) include academic , professional , service , university , FTE , and students . These modifiers are role-based , specifying the types of staff that are mentioned in these reports, be it academic staff or professional service staff. Another feature of these modifiers is the report data-related words such as FTE (full time equivalent). Of the 63 instances of “FTE + staff” combination, 21 instances are about waste production/reduction, 18 are about carbon emissions, 10 are about sustainable travel modes (e.g., bus, bike, walk), and 8 are about water consumption and 5 are about the number of staff that university employs. (11) Total Scope 1 & 2 Location-based carbon emissions per FTE staff and student (tCO₂e / FTE): 0.780 (2022-23) 0.822 (2021-22) 0.971 (2018-19) (Queen’s University Belfast, 2022) For instance, in (11) FTE staff appears in the carbon accounting data reporting the amount of carbon emission by staff in different years. This is quite common in most of the sustainability reports where universities have to be transparent about their carbon emission data in Scope 1&2 and Scope 3. The role-based description is also seen in the representation of students. As seen in Fig. 3, students are modified by words depicting their level of study (e.g., undergraduate , PhD ), the subject of study (e.g., law ) or their fee status (e.g., international ). (12) This extension of opportunity applies internationally too, with many of our international students coming from countries classed as low or low-middle income by the World Bank. (Huddersfield, 2021) The role, function-focused descriptors, first and foremost, serve the purpose of showcasing university affordances that are there for its stakeholders, for instance, the fee-reduction policy for international students in (12). For carbon emission data reporting — typically an important part of the sustainability reporting — forms an integral part of the reporting statistics. This indicates that staff and students are often represented as an operational unit within these reporting practices. While all these aspects are essential, there is an observable lack of evaluative terms that are used to modify staff and students, compared to the salient positive terms for university. In the previous section, we have seen “leading university”, “first university” which showcases the university’s prestige and leadership while the equivalent narrative is not there for their stakeholders. We have not seen any evaluative terms like productive , diligent , brilliant , forward-thinking as collocates for staff and students. Instead, what collocates with staff and students are neutral and functional terms to describe their roles. Second, to explore further the image constructed, we examine the nouns modified by staff and students, for instance, staff network , student survey in order to see what aspects of the two actors are being highlighted. Based on the collocates in Table 2, we conducted a more in-depth concordance analysis of each collocate. The findings show that for staff, these collocates have a strong focus on carbon reporting manifested through an emphasis on carbon literacy/sustainability training ( induction , travel ), environmental impact of different travel mode ( survey , travel , student ), as well as the focus on support mechanisms that are in place ( network , member ). For reason of space, we only present one example in (13). (13) We will embed our Carbon Literacy training within our degree programmes and across all staff inductions , and continue to train and support local businesses in carbon literacy education. (Hull, 2023) Different from staff, the emphasis of students is on their overall university experience (experience, volunteer ) and involvement in a range of sustainability events and activities ( engagement , volunteer ), as seen in (14). (14) As well as publishing pieces on a wide range of sustainability issues, they also host events to increase student engagement on issues relating to sustainability, climate action, and the nature crisis. (St Andrews, 2023) Again, the terms student experience and student engagement are often used to showcase the university’s role as a provider of specialised facilities and educational opportunities. 4.2.2.2. Sustainability actions by staff and students The previous section revealed that staff and students are often depicted as under the wing of university, i.e., showcasing university performances and affordances. This sentiment is even more salient when examining the action verbs associated with staff and students. They are represented as either conducting passive actions or are portrayed as being empowered by the university. First, the actions represented by staff and students (verbs with x as subject), are shown in Table 5. Both staff and students are represented in travel, training, curriculum and education, and events and initiatives. Travel . Travel is mentioned in the context of carbon reporting as a neccesary part of the sustainability report. In other words, travel as an action verb is used to primarily describe the university’s carbon emission data, rather than highlight the actors’ own sustainability action. Example (15) illustrates the most common use of travel. It describes the emission data per annum associated with staff and students as well as reporting the actual data and benchmarking them against previous years. (15) The emissions per annum for staff and student commuting […] are: Staff 2,609 tCO2, Student 2,372 tCO2 0.275 tCO2 per FTE staff/student – 5% higher than the 2014/15 baseline. (Bath, 2020) Training . Training is discussed mostly in relation to carbon literacy training (mainly for staff) or sustainability related courses/modules (mainly for students). For instance, in (16), staff and students are reported to have taken part in the environmental awareness training; the focus is on unviersities avchievements and their plan to roll out the programme further. Staff and students are positioned as recipients of the opportunity provided by the university, rather than design and develop the traininng. The highlight here is the various types of training that the university is able to provide. (16) In 2020/21, 26 students and staff took part in this [carbon literacy] training which increased their awareness of ways to reduce carbon emissions, and we aim to expand this programme next year. (Middlesex, 2021) Curriculum and education and Research . These are the two categories that both staff and students are portrayed as demonstrating some level of agency. Staff are reported to conduct sustainability-related research or embed sustainability in teaching. However, it should be noted that the number of collocates with staff are small compared to collocates in other categories, for instance, travel and training. For students, the focus is on opportunities to undertake relavant modules, placements, and meet industry partners, for instance (17). (17) Students also learn about the socioeconomic context and human causes of various environmental issues and gain an understanding of the legal frameworks of environmental regulation. (Southampton, 2023) While students are actively undertaking learning and acquiring skills, the emphasis is on how the university is able to provide the range of programmes and modules that not only prepare students to be climate conscious but also equip them with transferrable employment skills. The image of “university as the capable provider” is present in all of these framings. Events and initiatives . Students and staff are reported to participate in a range of sustainability activities, for instance, gardening workshops, and “donate not ditch” (donate unused items). Again, similarly to previous categories, students and staff are backgrounded whereas the university remains the focus. While students and staff share many categories in common, one noteable difference is that students appear to be associated with a wider range of sustainability activities than staff members. This can be seen in the number of collocates in Curriculum and Education as well as Events and Initiatives. There is more presence of students in sustainability, which is also linked to the higher frequency of mentions of students than staff in general, as illustrated previously in Fig. 2. Second, we explore the verbs that take staff/student as their object (e.g., enable staff). Once again, universities are frequently represented as the actors who enable the actions that affect students and staff. Figure 4 visualises these verb collocates. What is salient from Fig. 4 is the extent of shared collocates. As the diagram shows, all but one verb strongly collocates with both staff and student. This suggests a high degree of similarity in the ways student and staff actions are represented. A close reading of the concordance lines of each collocates further indicates that both students and staff are typically positioned as recipients, with the university represented as the provider. More specifically, students and staff are portrayed as being provided with resources and assistance (e.g., support, provide, give, ask, help ), being encouraged to participate (e.g., encourage , engage , involve ), and being enabled or empowered (e.g., allow, enable ). These patterns are further illustrated through the following examples: (18) During 2022–2023 the University integrated several measures across campus to encourage staff and students to use active travel modes when travelling to and from the University. (Queen University of Belfast, 2023) Here in (18), the university is presented as the clear, proactive agent who “integrated several measures”, while staff and students appear only as targets of behavioural change interventions — those who are to be “encouraged” to adopt “active travel modes”. Staff and students are not constructed as agents in shaping the sustainable measures themselves, although travel is so pertinent to their everyday life. At the same time, while university’s proactive and substantive support for sustainable travel is promising, it should not be assumed that sustainable travel practices arise solely from these institutional interventions, as staff and students may also make informed travel decisions independently. (19) Our Sustainable Labs programme aims to support staff and students to improve sustainability in labs, reducing waste, resource and energy use and embedding sustainable behaviour. (Leeds, 2022) At times, staff and students are granted a more active role, but only within a tightly pre-structured programme established by the university. For instance, in (19), staff and students are grammatically positioned as those who “improve sustainability”, but their role is bounded: they are tasked with delivering sustainability change rather than shape what sustainability means in different lab contexts. The focus is to highlight the purpose of this lab programme as designed and facilitated by the institution. 5. Discussion and conlusion Drawing on corpus linguistics methods, this study analysed a large collection of sustainability annual reports published by 64 UK universities over the five years following the UK’s declaration of climate emergency. Our analysis highlights a clear hierarchy of agency and a recurring parenting narrative within these reports: universities are positioned as leading and providing actors, while staff and students appear as secondary participants who are expected to follow and contribute within institutional frameworks. This is important because representations of agency in institutional reporting help guide which actors are recognised as legitimate drivers of sustainability, as well as which forms of engagement are rendered visible or invisible (Cooren, 2004 ; Narayanan & Adams, 2017 ). Universities are discursively constructed as comprehensive, proactive, and morally conscious actors. They are portrayed as capable of delivering sustainability initiatives, attentive to the wellbeing of their communities, and ethically committed to social and environmental responsibility. In this way, sustainability is framed not only as ethical commitment, but also as an organisational achievement that evidences institutional competence. At the same time, universities also project this leadership beyond the campus boundaries, presenting themselves as regional and national leaders in sustainability initiatives while also highlighting collaboration with external partners. In contrast, students and staff are often represented in more limited and instrumental terms. This is particularly evident in the case of “staff”, which was not only the least frequently referenced of the three actors, but also showed a decline in mentions over time. Furthermore, the participation of students and staff is typically framed through top-down encouragement, where institutional initiatives prompt their engagement rather than recognising their independent agency or grassroots organisation. This passive positioning is further cemented in the context of carbon reporting and sustainability training, where their actions are reduced to quantifiable indicators such as travel behaviours or training completion rates. Staff and students thus function less as autonomous sustainability actors that as evidence of institutional performance. Taken together, these discursive patterns of representation point to a hierarchical and arguably parenting narrative in university sustainability reporting, in which the institution assumes the role of a benevolent and caring authority responsible for guiding and managing its community. We argue this narrative is shaped by both external and internal pressures. Externally, this pattern must be understood in a context in which universities are increasingly expected to position themselves as leaders in sustainability, through climate emergency declarations, SDG commitments, and external ranking frameworks (Amran & Keat Ooi, 2014 ; Latter & Capstick, 2021 ; Lozano et al., 2015 ). Sustainability reporting in higher education is increasingly influenced by corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse, where reporting serves to signal legitimacy and social and environmental responsibility (Du et al., 2010 ; Tao & Ryan, 2025b ). Within the context of net-zero pledges, universities face mounting pressure to demonstrate alignment with societal expectations and policy requirements (Latter & Capstick, 2021 ; Lozano et al., 2015 ; Van Coppenolle et al., 2023 ; Zhou, 2025 ), with climate emergency declarations acting as one such signal (O’neill & Sinden, 2021 ). Rankings and league tables (e.g., QS, THE Impact, People & Planet) may further incentivise universities to foreground their initiatives, as organisations tend to adapt their practices and self-presentations to external evaluation (Carrillo-Durán et al., 2024 ; Hazelkorn, 2015a ). Together, these mechanisms may encourage universities to centre themselves as primary agents of change, while rendering other stakeholders secondary and instrumental. Potentially more revealing, however, are the internal institutional dynamics underpinning this hierarchical representation. Universities increasingly operate within governance frameworks developed through neoliberal priorities, including leadership claims, benchmarking, efficiency and technically manageable forms of intervention (O’neill & Sinden, 2021 ). Within this framework, sustainability is framed as something designed and delivered by the institution rather than co-produced with staff and students. The parenting narrative identified in our study aligns with a benevolently managerial mode of governance, where the university is foregrounded as leader and provider, and stakeholders as participants whose involvement is channelled and made visible through institutionally designed programmes. This is particularly significant in reporting context in which sustainability is increasingly framed in terms of measurable performance metrics, benchmarking and institutional achievement (O’neill & Sinden, 2021 ). From this perspective, the discursive marginalisation of staff and student agency raises questions about the extent to which university sustainability governance is genuinely participatory or democratic, and which less metric-driven understanding of sustainability remain unheard. One might ask: if universities are indeed the primary providers of infrastructure and resources, what is problematic about this parenting narrative? Existing research frequently positions staff and students as active contributors to institutional sustainability, whether through curriculum development, research practice, governance participation or grassroots campaigning (Bohunovsky et al., 2023 ; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., 2018 ; Kay et al., 2010 ; Latter et al., 2024 ; Nelson et al., 2025 ; Rutar & Krmac, 2025 ). The issue lies not in institutional leadership per se, but in leadership framed as unilateral rather than relational. Sustainability challenges are complex and collective, requiring not only institutional provision but also shared agency and ownership. For instance, reducing carbon emission from travel depends not simply on university policy, but on staff and students opting for sustainable transport choice in practice. Staff and students' contributions therefore should not be overlooked. Staff advance sustainability through research, teaching, governance participation, and advocacy, demonstrating their role as active agents rather than passive implementers of institutional directives (Finnerty et al., 2024a , 2024b ; Latter et al., 2024 ; Nelson et al., 2025 ). Students likewise exercise agency through campaigns, including People & Planet, Fossil Free Careers, and Plant-Based Universities, mobilising collective action around divestment, ethical procurement, and accountability (Ford, 2023 ; People & Planet, 2024; Student Times, 2025 ; The Canary, 2025 ). These bottom-up activities belie university sustainability strategies’ characterisations of staff and student. Evidence from other contexts reinforces this point: in the US, members of the climate justice organisation UC San Diego Green New Deal played a central role in reorienting climate policy across the University of California system and in achieving concrete climate actions at UC San Diego itself (Nelson et al., 2025 ). Collectively, these examples challenge institutional portrayal of staff and students as secondary actors and highlight the limits of parenting narratives in formal reports. At the same time, this should not be idealised. Staff often face a gap between willingness to contribute and capacity to do so, due to heavy workloads, precarious employment, and limited influence over decision-making (Black, 2024 ; Latter et al., 2024 ). The implication is not to displace institutional leadership, but to enact it more participatory, recognising staff and student agency while addressing the structural constraints they face. This study has limitations. First, it focuses on reports from the five years following the UK’s climate emergency declaration, leaving it unclear whether similar hierarchical representations appear in earlier reports. Second, it does not differentiate between university types. Further research could examine whether discursive patterns vary across institutional categories, between Russell Group and non-Russel Group institutions, or between research-intensive and teaching-focused universities. More broadly, similar patterns of agency and authority could be explored across other university policy domains. This study also opens avenues for empirical testing. Future work could examine whether alternative sustainability framings produce measurable effects, for example, through experiments comparing leadership-centric and distributed agency narratives, assessing outcomes such as perceived legitimacy, trust, and willingness to act. Complementary qualitative research could explore how staff and students interpret these narratives and whether they align with everyday experience. Overall, this study shows that sustainability reporting is not neutral communication, but a site where authority and agency are discursively organised. By foregrounding universities while backgrounding staff and student contributions, these reports risk narrowing more democratic and collaborative visions of sustainability governance. Attention to representations of agency may help align institutional narratives with genuinely participatory practice. Declarations CRediT author statement YT : Conceptualisation, Methodology, Data Curation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing, Visualisation; SF : Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing; SR : Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Visualisation; RP : Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing, Funding acquisition; HS : Conceptualisation, Writing-Review & Editing, Funding acquisition; ML : Conceptualisation, Writing-Review & Editing, Funding acquisition. Data availability A spreadsheet containing a list of the university can be found on Open Science Framework via this link https://osf.io/gu3vb/overview?view_only=89a567cad8dc4cd58e7956755900b9c3 References Amran A, Keat Ooi S (2014) Sustainability reporting: meeting stakeholder demands. Strategic Direction 30(7):38–41 BBC (2019) UK Parliment declares climate change emergency Black D (2024), April 25 Just like football, UK universities need a regulator. 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Global Policy 14(1):48–60 Wellcome Trust (2025), July 1 Environmental sustainability funding policy . https://wellcome.org/research-funding/guidance/policies-grant-conditions/environmental-sustainability-funding-policy Zhou R (2025) How UK universities approach sustainability: A timely review. J Adult Continuing Educ 31(1):54–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/14779714241240985 Footnotes [i] According to the conversation with sustainability report writing professionals at first author’s institution, developing sustainability reports in webpage format is becoming a legal requirement for accessibility reason. Tables Tables are available in the Supplementary Files section. Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Supplementary Files SARSupplementaryuniversitylist.xlsx Tables.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. 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13:00:04\",\"extension\":\"png\",\"order_by\":3,\"title\":\"Figure 3\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"figure\",\"size\":94706,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eModifiers of \\u003cem\\u003estaff\\u003c/em\\u003e and \\u003cem\\u003estudent \\u003c/em\\u003e(e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eacademic\\u003c/em\\u003e staff, \\u003cem\\u003ePhD\\u003c/em\\u003e student). (Circle size shows the raw frequency of the collocate, the larger the size, the more frequent the collocate. Circles located closer to either end of the spectrum indicate stronger collocation associations. Collocation strength is measured by LogDice. Collocates appearing in the middle of the spectrum have roughly equal LogDice scores for both items. Collocates marked with a single colour occur exclusively in one sub-corpus, e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eacademic\\u003c/em\\u003e only collocates with \\u003cem\\u003estaff\\u003c/em\\u003e and not with \\u003cem\\u003estudent\\u003c/em\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"SARFig3.png\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9518900/v1/398d6acdcf4465c88d46801e.png\"},{\"id\":107925061,\"identity\":\"90bbf935-1c16-45b0-8650-731fb9928a01\",\"added_by\":\"auto\",\"created_at\":\"2026-04-27 15:27:49\",\"extension\":\"png\",\"order_by\":4,\"title\":\"Figure 4\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"figure\",\"size\":106566,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eVerb collocates with staff/student as object (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eemploy\\u003c/em\\u003e staff, \\u003cem\\u003einvolve\\u003c/em\\u003estudents)\\u003c/p\\u003e\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"SARFig4.png\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9518900/v1/e85dbabe398670b1f2a01a64.png\"},{\"id\":108008729,\"identity\":\"cb12ebde-f463-4d90-a1de-0d1ffb56d256\",\"added_by\":\"auto\",\"created_at\":\"2026-04-28 13:08:13\",\"extension\":\"pdf\",\"order_by\":0,\"title\":\"\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"manuscript-pdf\",\"size\":891092,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"manuscript.pdf\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9518900/v1/212ff192-7bcf-4e03-87ff-8d080f7482ca.pdf\"},{\"id\":107925049,\"identity\":\"ce0cf71a-3d5d-4c38-9d8b-6d37c6e0e5ea\",\"added_by\":\"auto\",\"created_at\":\"2026-04-27 15:27:49\",\"extension\":\"xlsx\",\"order_by\":1,\"title\":\"\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"supplement\",\"size\":11783,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"SARSupplementaryuniversitylist.xlsx\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9518900/v1/a05c3282480724a594d2fa90.xlsx\"},{\"id\":107925060,\"identity\":\"84129545-68c2-4a52-a857-9b089f885c73\",\"added_by\":\"auto\",\"created_at\":\"2026-04-27 15:27:49\",\"extension\":\"docx\",\"order_by\":2,\"title\":\"\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"supplement\",\"size\":1160167,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"Tables.docx\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9518900/v1/c8e2fad6766a07677414c808.docx\"}],\"financialInterests\":\"The authors declare no competing interests.\",\"formattedTitle\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eParenting or partnership? Corpus-assisted analysis of institution-people dynamics in university sustainability reporting\\u003c/p\\u003e\",\"fulltext\":[{\"header\":\"1. Introduction\",\"content\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eUniversities are increasingly positioned as central actors in the sustainability agenda. In the UK, climate emergency declarations, institutional sustainability strategies, commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goals, and inclusion in external rankings have formalised expectations that universities will lead on environmental sustainability across research, teaching, and operations (Latter \\u0026amp; Capstick, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e). These developments have intensified how UK universities articulate sustainability commitments and, crucially, how responsibility for delivering them is distributed across actors.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eDelivering sustainability commitments requires coordinated action across multiple levels. Universities establish frameworks, targets, and infrastructures, while academic and professional staff enact, interpret, and adapt these commitments in their day-to-day work. Yet, evidence shows a tension between motivation and capacity: despite strong desire among staff to contribute to sustainability initiatives, many report feeling overworked and disempowered within existing structures (Latter et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). This is compounded by rising workloads, precarious employment, and limited influence over decision-making (Black, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). Nevertheless, environmental advocacy has intensified among both staff and students, highlighting their role as drivers of change. Researchers are increasingly vocal in demanding climate action, both within universities and through participation in protest and wider public engagement (Dablander et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Finnerty, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2026\\u003c/span\\u003e). Students likewise express strong climate concern and have played a prominent role in initiatives such as fossil fuel divestment, plant-based campus campaigns, and climate strikes (People \\u0026amp; Planet, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2026\\u003c/span\\u003e; Planet-Based Universities, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2026\\u003c/span\\u003e; SOS-UK, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024a\\u003c/span\\u003e, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024b\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eThese dynamics raise important questions about how sustainability action is understood and organised at the institutional level. In large, complex organisations such as universities, text and narratives shape how organisations understand themselves and how change is imagined or enacted (Boje et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2004\\u003c/span\\u003e; Cooren, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2004\\u003c/span\\u003e). Sustainability reporting is a key site in this process. Such reports are both descriptive and constitutive: through language, universities construct institutional identities, attribute responsibility, and signal which forms of action are valued. Reporting practices can therefore contribute to embedding sustainability within organisational practice, or alternatively, to reproducing more symbolic forms of commitment (Narayanan \\u0026amp; Adams, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2017\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eWithin higher education, sustainability reports are a prominent means of communicating environmental performance, priorities, and values to both internal and external audiences. Examining their language offers a window into how higher education institutes construct themselves as sustainable organisations and how agency is attributed across institutional actors. Critically, whether, and how, universities’ actions and the agency of staff and students is reflected within institutional sustainability discourse remains an open question.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eTaken together, these considerations motivate the present study, which asks:\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e1. Who are the main actors represented in university sustainability reports and how the mentions change over time in the studied period?\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e2. How are these main actors represented in these reports?\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e3. And how do these representations contribute to the broader discourse of sustainability within UK higher education?\\u003c/p\\u003e \"},{\"header\":\"2. Literature review\",\"content\":\"\\u003ch2\\u003e2.1. Sustainability reporting and governance in higher education\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eHistorically, sustainability reporting emerged within the corporate sector as a response to stakeholder concern over environmental and social impacts (Cho et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e), adopting the widely used Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard (Lakhno, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). Early forms of disclosure focused on demonstrating responsibility, managing reputational risk, and maintaining organisational legitimacy facing public scrutiny rather than ensuring compliance with binding regulatory requirements (Cho et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e). Over time, however, sustainability reporting became increasingly formalised as environmental risks were reframed as financial, operational, and governance concerns, prompting regulators, investors, and auditors to demand more systematic disclosure (Lozano, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2006\\u003c/span\\u003e). This shift occurred as sustainability concerns became increasingly integrated into risk management, financial oversight, and regulatory governance, transforming disclosure from a reputational exercise into a standardised tool of institutional accountability.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eToday, universities use sustainability reporting as a tool to assess the current state of progress towards sustainable development, and as a way to communicate progress with stakeholders (Lozano, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2011\\u003c/span\\u003e). Institutions are also increasingly relying on sustainability reporting to indirectly maintain compliance and keep pace with evolving regulatory frameworks, using this disclosure to demonstrate alignment with existing and anticipated obligations (Larrán Jorge et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2019\\u003c/span\\u003e; Lozano et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e). Through these reports, institutions show alignment with binding commitments, such as national net-zero goals and other climate commitments, additionally they become useful mechanisms for achieving these goals (Amran \\u0026amp; Keat Ooi, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2014\\u003c/span\\u003e; Lozano et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e). There reports often cover sustainability aspects including greenhouse gas emissions (scopes 1 \\u0026amp; 2 minimum), energy use, targets and plans, methodology, governance, progress, and barriers (Lakhno, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Sassen et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2018\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eReporting is oriented toward translating institutional activities into Sustainable Development Goal aligned narratives for multiple stakeholder audiences, including funders, regulators, researchers, and students. Funders are increasingly including environmental sustainability expectations into research governance and funding frameworks. For example, UKRI publishes an environmental sustainability strategy and is a signatory to the Environmental Sustainability Concordat for Research \\u0026amp; Innovation Practice (UKRI, 2024), and funding bodies such as the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research England require some degree of commitment to sustainable research practice (Cancer Research UK, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e; Wellcome Trust, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). Similarly, many Horizon Europe funding programmes prioritise projects that address climate and sustainability challenges. In parallel, prospective students are exposed to university sustainability performance through global ranking systems such as QS, which incorporate environmental and social indicators into comparative assessments (Hazelkorn, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015b\\u003c/span\\u003e; Irungu \\u0026amp; Liu, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). Research suggests that rankings influence university choice for students (Hazelkorn, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015b\\u003c/span\\u003e), while institutional leaders themselves frequently regard ranking performance as a key driver of recruitment strategy (Estrada-Real \\u0026amp; Cantu-Ortiz, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2022\\u003c/span\\u003e; Irungu \\u0026amp; Liu, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003ch2\\u003e2.2. Participation and agency in sustainability reports in higher education\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eTo date, limited attention has been paid to the representational agency in university sustainability reporting practice. Existing literature more frequently positions students and staff as \\u003cem\\u003echange agents\\u003c/em\\u003e within sustainability process rather than as social actors represented within the sustainability reports themselves (Bohunovsky et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2018\\u003c/span\\u003e; Kay et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2010\\u003c/span\\u003e; Nelson et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e; Rutar \\u0026amp; Krmac, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). Kay et al. (\\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2010\\u003c/span\\u003e), for example, discussed how students at the University of Exeter were engaged in bringing about institutional change; they are integrated in university governance as the change agents, evaluators, participants, and partners across different projects. Student involvement has also been discussed in relation to curriculum design where participation is argued to influence educational process and quality (Bohunovsky et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; Rutar \\u0026amp; Krmac, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). In a case study of the University of California, Nelson et al. (\\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e) examined three grassroots climate movements led by students and staff — decarbonisation, cutting ties with fossil investment, and education for all. These movements led to tangible changes, including pressure on the university to terminate a lease agreement that allowed JP Morgan Chase to rent campus space. At the same time, research also highlights that students and staff acting as change agents may encounter multiple tensions and challenges at individual, organisational and systemic level, including the need to juggle multiple roles and identifies, limited time and motivation, and a lack of sustained institutional commitment and support (Bohunovsky et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eAnother strand of research focuses on how universities communicate sustainability through their public-facing platforms and across different communication channels (Carrillo-Durán et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Zhou, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e), or on how internal stakeholders are engaged in producing sustainability reports themselves (Ceulemans et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2018\\u003c/span\\u003e). While these studies provide valuable insights into participation, engagement, and communication practices, they do not address how students and staff are \\u003cem\\u003erepresented\\u003c/em\\u003e within the sustainability reporting narratives, nor how their roles are positioned in relation to the institution.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eNumerous studies of sustainability reporting have focused on corporate context, using natural language processing-based methods (Kang \\u0026amp; Kim, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2022\\u003c/span\\u003e; Smeuninx et al., \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2020\\u003c/span\\u003e), discourse analysis (Higgins \\u0026amp; Coffey, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2016\\u003c/span\\u003e), or corpus linguistics (Fuoli \\u0026amp; Beelitz, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e, \\u003cspan class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). To our best knowledge, no study has explicitly examined the representation of agency in sustainability reporting in the higher education context using corpus linguistics methods, particularly in terms of comparing the role of institution with the role of students and staff. Corpus linguistics offers a range of analytical tools for examining how social actors are construed through language, which makes it possible to identify linguistic patterns associated with different entities. For this reason, this study employs a corpus linguistic approach to explore how agency is discursively constructed in university sustainability reporting.\\u003c/p\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"3. Data and methods\",\"content\":\"\\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec5\\\" class=\\\"Section2\\\"\\u003e \\u003ch2\\u003e3.1. Data and data collection\\u003c/h2\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eWe collected sustainability annual reports published by all UK universities included in the 2024 QS World Sustainability ranking, comprising 91 institutions. For each institution, we first located its official website and searched for relevant documents using the search terms \\u0026ldquo;sustainability/ESG/SDG/environmental annual report\\u0026rdquo;. Where this did not yield results, we conducted a broader web search via Google search combining the university name with the same search terms (e.g., \\u0026ldquo;Lancaster University sustainability annual report\\u0026rdquo;).\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eData collection was conducted from February 2025 to May 2025, covering documents from 2019 onwards. This starting point reflects the wave of climate emergency declarations across the UK, representing a shift towards more ambitious action (BBC, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR2\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2019\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter \\u0026amp; Capstick, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR34\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e). Correspondingly, both the number of university generated documents and total number of words dedicated to sustainability increased from 2019 onwards, reflecting this development.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eTo ensure consistency and relevance, we applied inclusion and exclusion criteria. Only publicly available, stand-alone sustainability reports were included; internal documents and broader annual or financial reports with only partial sustainability content were excluded. We also excluded documents focused on a single sustainability dimension (e.g., food or procurement), ensuring sustainability was treated comprehensively. The presence of a dedicated report was taken to indicate institutional commitment to sustainability as a strategic priority (Lakhno, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR32\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). We included reports documenting completed actions and outcomes, excluding forward-looking materials such as strategies, policies, and plans. Reports were accepted in both PDF and webpage forms, reflecting the shift toward digital-first reporting (Kosta, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR31\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2018\\u003c/span\\u003e)[i]\\u003ca class=\\\"FNLink\\\" href=\\\"#Fn1\\\" id=\\\"#FNLinkFn1\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/a\\u003e.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eSome universities did not meet the criteria or lack publicly available materials. The final dataset comprised 207 reports from 64 universities. Link to the list of universities can be found at Data Availability.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003c/div\\u003e \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec6\\\" class=\\\"Section2\\\"\\u003e \\u003ch2\\u003e3.2. Corpus building\\u003c/h2\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eAll the reports were transformed from .pdf to .txt formats. The documents were cleaned by removing unwanted symbols, checking typos. The cleaned txt files were submitted to Sketch Engine to compile the corpus. Each document was annotated with the name of the university (e.g., Lancaster University) and the year it stands for (e.g., 2024). Table\\u0026nbsp;1 gives a breakdown of the corpus by year.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e \\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eFrom 2019 onwards, there was a steady increase in the number of documents, total number of words, and mean article length dedicated to sustainability reporting, likely reflecting the increased prioritisation of sustainability (Latter \\u0026amp; Capstick, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR34\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003c/div\\u003e \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec7\\\" class=\\\"Section2\\\"\\u003e \\u003ch2\\u003e3.3. Data analysis\\u003c/h2\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eWe conducted a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the collected reports using Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR30\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2014\\u003c/span\\u003e), an established and widely used corpus analysis platform. The analysis focused on the collocation and concordance patterns (e.g., Gablasova et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR23\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2017\\u003c/span\\u003e; Tao \\u0026amp; Ryan, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR51\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025a\\u003c/span\\u003e) associated with the social actors under examination.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eFirst, we conducted collocation analysis using the Word Sketch functionality to identify the typical lexical and grammatical relations surrounding each actor. We focused on four main grammatical relations:\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e1) Modifiers of x. Each word/actor could be modified by a noun or adjective to describe its attributes and its typical usage in the sustainability report context.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e2) Nouns modified by x. The nouns that are modified by the actor provide the contextual anchors for the actor, revealing what kind of things the actor relates to.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e3) verbs with x as subject. Verbs with the actor as subject provide insight into the typical actions, behaviours, occurrences that the actor is commonly associated with. It identifies whether the actor takes the role of doer or sometimes experiencer.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e4) Verbs with x as object. The verbs with the actor as object provide insights into how the actor is acted upon, used, or affected by agents in the sustainability report context.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eSecond, we used concordance analysis to examine the context in which collocates occurred. Concordance analysis allows researchers to examine the search word (or term) in more detail by displaying it in the centre of a line, with surrounding words displayed to the left and right (Brookes \\u0026amp; Collins, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR6\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). By closely examining the context of the collocates (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003euniversity offer\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003euniversity complete\\u003c/em\\u003e), we were able to analyse the salient linguistic patterns and interpret the main themes that emerged. This allowed us to uncover the image construction of these major actors.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003c/div\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"4. Findings\",\"content\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eThis section examines how three key actor groups – universities as institutions, staff and students as stakeholders – are represented across the corpus of sustainability reports. First we report the top 50 most frequent words in the self-built corpus; by doing so, we were able to identify three major actor groups. Next, we examine the frequency of mentions of each actor across the period of 2019–2024. Then, we conduct the collocation and concordance analysis to interpret and uncover the image construction of the three main actors.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n\\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec9\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.1. Social actors and change over time: university, students, staff\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFigure 1 illustrates the top 50 most frequent words in the corpus, excluding grammar words that do not contain lexical meanings (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003efor\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ewith\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eand\\u003c/em\\u003e). The wordlist demonstrates the main areas of sustainability on campus: carbon emission (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003ecarbon\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eenergy\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eemissions\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eenvironmental\\u003c/em\\u003e), waste and water management (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003ewaste\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ewater\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ecampus\\u003c/em\\u003e), research (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eresearch\\u003c/em\\u003e), curriculum (\\u003cem\\u003estudents\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eeducation\\u003c/em\\u003e) and community engagement (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003ecommunity\\u003c/em\\u003e). This is in line with previous research on the main areas of sustainability reporting in the university context: campus engagement, sustainability in research, education and community engagement (Lakhno, 2024).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eBeyond the main areas of sustainability reporting, these are social actors who are participants of climate programmes and drivers of climate actions. They fall into two categories: \\u003cstrong\\u003einstitution\\u003c/strong\\u003e (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eour\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003euniversity\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ewe\\u003c/em\\u003e) and \\u003cstrong\\u003epeople\\u003c/strong\\u003e (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003estudents\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003estudent\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003estaff\\u003c/em\\u003e). Also, institutions are mentioned more frequently, with \\u003cem\\u003euniversity\\u003c/em\\u003e ranked 3rd, compared to \\u003cem\\u003estudents\\u003c/em\\u003e (12th ) and \\u003cem\\u003estaff\\u003c/em\\u003e (24th ).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe analysis next examined patterns in the frequency with which the social actors (university, student and staff) were mentioned over the years from 2019 to 2024. UNIVERSITY consistently emerges as the most frequently mentioned social actor, reflecting a reaffirmation of institutional authority and its centrality in institutional sustainability narratives (see Fig.\\u0026nbsp;2). Mentions of UNIVERSITY were generally steady across the period, with the exception of a decline in 2020, which may be attributed to pandemic-related disruptions; overall, the trend was not statistically significant (R² = 0.15, p = 0.446). STUDENT is the second most frequently mentioned social actor. Mentions of students see a generally steady increase despite a dip in 2020 and 2021 (R² = 0.003, p = 0.925). This likely reflects student involvements in environmental initiatives and/or the mention of climate education.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eSTAFF is the least frequently mentioned social actor. Staff representation shows a continuous and significant decline across the entire period (R² = 0.89, p = 0.004). This downward trend may point to a diminished focus on staff roles in sustainability narratives, possibly indicating gaps in inclusive reporting or internal stakeholder engagement strategies. In the following section we move beyond frequencies to detail \\u003cem\\u003ehow\\u003c/em\\u003e the university versus staff and students are presented in the sustainability reporting.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n\\u003c/div\\u003e\\n\\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec10\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2. The representation of social actors\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003ctable float=\\\"Yes\\\" id=\\\"Tab1\\\" border=\\\"1\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/table\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\u003cp\\u003eTable 2 presents the collocates of each actor by the grammatical relations.\\u0026nbsp;\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe collocational patterns across these four relations suggest that university is characterised as research-intensive, top-tier and as an agent providing facilities and services to its community. Staff and students are associated with activities such as travel, commuting, and training, and are depicted as recipient of support, encouragement, and professional or leaning opportunities. Their collocates also overlap significantly, particularly in verbs (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003evolunteer, complete, commute, help\\u003c/em\\u003e), indicating that both groups perform similar actions and are acted upon in similar ways. Accordingly, staff and students are treated as a unified category in the following analysis.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec11\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.1. University representation\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec12\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.1.1. University images constructed\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWe examined all the four grammatical categories associated with UNIVERSITY (Table\\u0026nbsp;2). After close reading of the concordance lines associated with each collocate, we have categorised themes of university image construction, as shown in Table\\u0026nbsp;3.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eUniversities are primarily portrayed as \\u003cstrong\\u003eenvironmentally conscious\\u003c/strong\\u003e. They recognise their role in achieving United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (1) as well as role in achieving net zero targets (2). The UN SDGs provides a comprehensive framework spanning environmental, social, and governance dimensions, and this recognition is also evidenced by different sustainability initiatives.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(1)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity recognises\\u003c/strong\\u003e the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our role in contributing to them and this is highlighted in our new corporate strategy. (Greenwich, 2020-21)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(2)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWe want to embed sustainability in all aspects of the \\u003cstrong\\u003eUniversity\\u003c/strong\\u003e and to \\u003cstrong\\u003ehave achieved\\u003c/strong\\u003e net zero in our scope 1 and scope 2 carbon emissions by 2030. (Southampton, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eAlongside environmental concerns, being \\u003cstrong\\u003esocially responsible\\u003c/strong\\u003e is equally emphasised, particularly in relation to students, staff, and communities. For students, universities highlight scholarships and wellbeing support, such as the commuter bursary for those from low-income households in (3).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eUniversity efforts are represented in three main areas: care for students, staff, and communities. For students, different types of scholarships and wellbeing supports are mentioned. For instance, in (3), a commuter bursary is offered to students from low-income households.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(3)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity offers\\u003c/strong\\u003e a commuter bursary to support our students from low-income households who face challenging travel costs to attend university. (Greenwich, 2022)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(4)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFlexible Working and the \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity offers\\u003c/strong\\u003e policies such as flexible working, shared parental leave, and childcare support to ensure gender equity in balancing professional and personal responsibilities. (Cardiff, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eSimilarly, staff are offered flexible working arrangements and EDI programmes, reflecting efforts to foster an inclusive environment, as shown in (4).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eIn addition to social and environmental responsibilities, universities emphasise being an \\u003cstrong\\u003eethical employer\\u003c/strong\\u003e, often through initiatives such as Fairtrade accreditation, vegan-friendly food options, fossil fuel divestment, and recognition of union rights. Divestment is particularly prominent: 22 of the 64 universities in our corpus report withdrawing investment from fossil fuel companies, as illustrated in (5).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eHowever, indirect financial ties, such as relationship with commercial banks linked to fossil fuels are rarely acknowledge (for a grassroot movement on a US campus to terminate the lease of JP Morgan Chase Bank see Nelson et al., 2025).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(5)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity\\u003c/strong\\u003e […] fully divested from fossil fuels in 2021 and the policy commits the university to investing 40% of its funds in investments with socially responsible benefits by 2025. (KCL, 2021)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFor all the three main dimensions — environmental, social and ethical — universities also engage in \\u003cstrong\\u003easpirational talk\\u003c/strong\\u003e, outlining future plans and commitments. Alongside this, universities highlight the \\u003cstrong\\u003einclusive community\\u003c/strong\\u003e and \\u003cstrong\\u003ethe experience and culture\\u003c/strong\\u003e they offer, often reflected in nouns modified by \\u003cem\\u003euniversity\\u003c/em\\u003e (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003ecommunity\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eexperience\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ecampus\\u003c/em\\u003e). This shifts the focus from facilities and services to the everyday experience of staff and students.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eIn (6), this experience is framed through provision of green spaces that enable people to connect with nature.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(6)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eOur Marylebone and Harrow growing spaces offer both students and colleagues an opportunity to take a break from busy \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity life\\u003c/strong\\u003e and spend some time in nature. (Westminster, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eApart from providing experience and inclusive campus environment, universities often showcase their \\u003cstrong\\u003eleadership\\u003c/strong\\u003e in sustainability efforts, most commonly through declaring climate emergencies, as seen in (7).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(7)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eAnd in 2019, it became the \\u003cstrong\\u003efirst\\u003c/strong\\u003e Scottish \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity\\u003c/strong\\u003e to declare a climate emergency. (Glasgow, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eSuch leadership is often presented alongside research excellency, highlighting not only sustainability initiatives but also institutional authority in achieving them. Academic excellence often coincides with leadership, as sustainability education and research form part of the broader sustainability agenda.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(8)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eIn 2023, the London Student Sustainability partnership expanded from six universities to ten. The participating \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversities\\u003c/strong\\u003e included City, […], University of Westminster. (City University of London, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eInterestingly, universities also emphasise \\u003cstrong\\u003ecollaborative and collective efforts\\u003c/strong\\u003e, as seen in (8), signalling their awareness that sustainability requires collective action across the higher education sector.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec13\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.1.2. University sustainability efforts\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eNext, we examine the action verbs that indicate university sustainability efforts. The results are shown in Table\\u0026nbsp;4.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(9)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e“The \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity\\u003c/strong\\u003e is working to achieve net-zero carbon emissions through a combination of energy efficiency measures, renewable energy adoption, and sustainable building practices.” (Cardiff, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(10)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e“Through our engagement programme, the \\u003cstrong\\u003euniversity\\u003c/strong\\u003e offers a wide range of projects which focus on raising aspirations of school children, improving the health of the community and transforming spaces across the city.” (De Montfort, 2020)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eA common theme of these university actions is the presence of active action verbs (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eoffer\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003emake\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003epromote\\u003c/em\\u003e). These verbs feature high agency where university provides, leads, and effects changes. For instance, in (9), the university is described as working on a range of energy efficiency measures to reduce carbon emission. Universities are not only portrayed to focus on their own campuses but also play an active role in civic engagement, e.g., servicing local communities, as seen in (10).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec14\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.2. Staff and student representation\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec15\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.2.1. Staff and student images constructed\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFirst, we explore the modifiers of staff and students, e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eprofessional service\\u003c/em\\u003e staff, PhD students. Figure 3 illustrates strongest modifiers that collocates with the two actors.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe modifiers of \\u003cem\\u003estaff\\u003c/em\\u003e (words in green) include \\u003cem\\u003eacademic\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eprofessional\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eservice\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003euniversity\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eFTE\\u003c/em\\u003e, and \\u003cem\\u003estudents\\u003c/em\\u003e. These modifiers are \\u003cstrong\\u003erole-based\\u003c/strong\\u003e, specifying the types of staff that are mentioned in these reports, be it academic staff or professional service staff. Another feature of these modifiers is the report data-related words such as \\u003cem\\u003eFTE\\u003c/em\\u003e (full time equivalent). Of the 63 instances of “FTE + staff” combination, 21 instances are about waste production/reduction, 18 are about carbon emissions, 10 are about sustainable travel modes (e.g., bus, bike, walk), and 8 are about water consumption and 5 are about the number of staff that university employs.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(11)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eTotal Scope 1 \\u0026amp; 2 Location-based carbon emissions per \\u003cstrong\\u003eFTE staff\\u003c/strong\\u003e and student (tCO₂e / FTE): 0.780 (2022-23) 0.822 (2021-22) 0.971 (2018-19) (Queen’s University Belfast, 2022)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFor instance, in (11) \\u003cem\\u003eFTE staff\\u003c/em\\u003e appears in the carbon accounting data reporting the amount of carbon emission by staff in different years. This is quite common in most of the sustainability reports where universities have to be transparent about their carbon emission data in Scope 1\\u0026amp;2 and Scope 3.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe role-based description is also seen in the representation of students. As seen in Fig. 3, students are modified by words depicting their level of study (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eundergraduate\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ePhD\\u003c/em\\u003e), the subject of study (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003elaw\\u003c/em\\u003e) or their fee status (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003einternational\\u003c/em\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(12)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThis extension of opportunity applies internationally too, with many of our \\u003cstrong\\u003einternational students\\u003c/strong\\u003e coming from countries classed as low or low-middle income by the World Bank. (Huddersfield, 2021)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe role, function-focused descriptors, first and foremost, serve the purpose of showcasing university affordances that are there for its stakeholders, for instance, the fee-reduction policy for international students in (12). For carbon emission data reporting — typically an important part of the sustainability reporting — forms an integral part of the reporting statistics. This indicates that staff and students are often represented as an operational unit within these reporting practices.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWhile all these aspects are essential, there is an observable lack of evaluative terms that are used to modify staff and students, compared to the salient positive terms for university. In the previous section, we have seen “leading university”, “first university” which showcases the university’s prestige and leadership while the equivalent narrative is not there for their stakeholders. We have not seen any evaluative terms like \\u003cem\\u003eproductive\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ediligent\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003ebrilliant\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eforward-thinking\\u003c/em\\u003e as collocates for staff and students. Instead, what collocates with staff and students are neutral and functional terms to describe their roles.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eSecond, to explore further the image constructed, we examine the nouns modified by staff and students, for instance, \\u003cem\\u003estaff network\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003estudent survey\\u003c/em\\u003e in order to see what aspects of the two actors are being highlighted. Based on the collocates in Table 2, we conducted a more in-depth concordance analysis of each collocate. The findings show that for staff, these collocates have a strong focus on carbon reporting manifested through an emphasis on carbon literacy/sustainability training (\\u003cem\\u003einduction\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003etravel\\u003c/em\\u003e), environmental impact of different travel mode (\\u003cem\\u003esurvey\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003etravel\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003estudent\\u003c/em\\u003e), as well as the focus on support mechanisms that are in place (\\u003cem\\u003enetwork\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003emember\\u003c/em\\u003e). For reason of space, we only present one example in (13).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(13)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWe will embed our Carbon Literacy training within our degree programmes and across all \\u003cstrong\\u003estaff inductions\\u003c/strong\\u003e, and continue to train and support local businesses in carbon literacy education. (Hull, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eDifferent from staff, the emphasis of students is on their overall university experience (experience, \\u003cem\\u003evolunteer\\u003c/em\\u003e) and involvement in a range of sustainability events and activities (\\u003cem\\u003eengagement\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003evolunteer\\u003c/em\\u003e), as seen in (14).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(14)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eAs well as publishing pieces on a wide range of sustainability issues, they also host events to increase \\u003cstrong\\u003estudent engagement\\u003c/strong\\u003e on issues relating to sustainability, climate action, and the nature crisis. (St Andrews, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eAgain, the terms \\u003cem\\u003estudent experience\\u003c/em\\u003e and \\u003cem\\u003estudent engagement\\u003c/em\\u003e are often used to showcase the university’s role as a provider of specialised facilities and educational opportunities.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv id=\\\"Sec16\\\"\\u003e\\n \\u003ch2\\u003e4.2.2.2. Sustainability actions by staff and students\\u003c/h2\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe previous section revealed that staff and students are often depicted as under the wing of university, i.e., showcasing university performances and affordances. This sentiment is even more salient when examining the action verbs associated with staff and students. They are represented as either conducting passive actions or are portrayed as being empowered by the university.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eFirst, the actions represented by staff and students (verbs with x as subject), are shown in Table\\u0026nbsp;5. Both staff and students are represented in travel, training, curriculum and education, and events and initiatives.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e\\u003cstrong\\u003eTravel\\u003c/strong\\u003e. Travel is mentioned in the context of carbon reporting as a neccesary part of the sustainability report. In other words, travel as an action verb is used to primarily describe the university’s carbon emission data, rather than highlight the actors’ own sustainability action. Example (15) illustrates the most common use of travel. It describes the emission data per annum associated with staff and students as well as reporting the actual data and benchmarking them against previous years.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(15)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eThe emissions per annum for \\u003cstrong\\u003estaff\\u003c/strong\\u003e and \\u003cstrong\\u003estudent commuting\\u003c/strong\\u003e […] are: Staff 2,609 tCO2, Student 2,372 tCO2 0.275 tCO2 per FTE staff/student – 5% higher than the 2014/15 baseline. (Bath, 2020)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e\\u003cstrong\\u003eTraining\\u003c/strong\\u003e. Training is discussed mostly in relation to carbon literacy training (mainly for staff) or sustainability related courses/modules (mainly for students). For instance, in (16), staff and students are reported to have taken part in the environmental awareness training; the focus is on unviersities avchievements and their plan to roll out the programme further. Staff and students are positioned as recipients of the opportunity provided by the university, rather than design and develop the traininng. The highlight here is the various types of training that the university is able to provide.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(16)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eIn 2020/21, 26 \\u003cstrong\\u003estudents\\u003c/strong\\u003e and \\u003cstrong\\u003estaff\\u003c/strong\\u003e took part in this [carbon literacy] training which increased their awareness of ways to reduce carbon emissions, and we aim to expand this programme next year. (Middlesex, 2021)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e\\u003cstrong\\u003eCurriculum and education and Research\\u003c/strong\\u003e. These are the two categories that both staff and students are portrayed as demonstrating some level of agency. Staff are reported to conduct sustainability-related research or embed sustainability in teaching. However, it should be noted that the number of collocates with staff are small compared to collocates in other categories, for instance, travel and training. For students, the focus is on opportunities to undertake relavant modules, placements, and meet industry partners, for instance (17).\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(17)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e\\u003cstrong\\u003eStudents\\u003c/strong\\u003e also learn about the socioeconomic context and human causes of various environmental issues and gain an understanding of the legal frameworks of environmental regulation. (Southampton, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWhile students are actively undertaking learning and acquiring skills, the emphasis is on how the university is able to provide the range of programmes and modules that not only prepare students to be climate conscious but also equip them with transferrable employment skills. The image of “university as the capable provider” is present in all of these framings.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e\\u003cstrong\\u003eEvents and initiatives\\u003c/strong\\u003e. Students and staff are reported to participate in a range of sustainability activities, for instance, gardening workshops, and “donate not ditch” (donate unused items). Again, similarly to previous categories, students and staff are backgrounded whereas the university remains the focus.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWhile students and staff share many categories in common, one noteable difference is that students appear to be associated with a wider range of sustainability activities than staff members. This can be seen in the number of collocates in Curriculum and Education as well as Events and Initiatives. There is more presence of students in sustainability, which is also linked to the higher frequency of mentions of students than staff in general, as illustrated previously in Fig.\\u0026nbsp;2.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eSecond, we explore the verbs that take staff/student as their object (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eenable\\u003c/em\\u003e staff). Once again, universities are frequently represented as the actors who enable the actions that affect students and staff. Figure 4 visualises these verb collocates.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eWhat is salient from Fig. 4 is the extent of shared collocates. As the diagram shows, all but one verb strongly collocates with both staff and student. This suggests a high degree of similarity in the ways student and staff actions are represented. A close reading of the concordance lines of each collocates further indicates that both students and staff are typically positioned as recipients, with the university represented as the provider. More specifically, students and staff are portrayed as \\u003cstrong\\u003ebeing provided with\\u003c/strong\\u003e resources and assistance (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003esupport, provide, give, ask, help\\u003c/em\\u003e), \\u003cstrong\\u003ebeing encouraged\\u003c/strong\\u003e to participate (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eencourage\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003eengage\\u003c/em\\u003e, \\u003cem\\u003einvolve\\u003c/em\\u003e), and \\u003cstrong\\u003ebeing enabled or empowered\\u003c/strong\\u003e (e.g., \\u003cem\\u003eallow, enable\\u003c/em\\u003e). These patterns are further illustrated through the following examples:\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(18)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eDuring 2022–2023 the University integrated several measures across campus to \\u003cstrong\\u003eencourage staff\\u003c/strong\\u003e and \\u003cstrong\\u003estudents\\u003c/strong\\u003e to use active travel modes when travelling to and from the University. (Queen University of Belfast, 2023)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eHere in (18), the university is presented as the clear, proactive agent who “integrated several measures”, while staff and students appear only as targets of behavioural change interventions — those who are to be “encouraged” to adopt “active travel modes”. Staff and students are not constructed as agents in shaping the sustainable measures themselves, although travel is so pertinent to their everyday life. At the same time, while university’s proactive and substantive support for sustainable travel is promising, it should not be assumed that sustainable travel practices arise solely from these institutional interventions, as staff and students may also make informed travel decisions independently.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003e(19)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003cdiv\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eOur Sustainable Labs programme aims to \\u003cstrong\\u003esupport staff\\u003c/strong\\u003e and \\u003cstrong\\u003estudents\\u003c/strong\\u003e to improve sustainability in labs, reducing waste, resource and energy use and embedding sustainable behaviour. (Leeds, 2022)\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003cp\\u003eAt times, staff and students are granted a more active role, but only within a tightly pre-structured programme established by the university. For instance, in (19), staff and students are grammatically positioned as those who “improve sustainability”, but their role is bounded: they are tasked with delivering sustainability change rather than shape what sustainability means in different lab contexts. The focus is to highlight the purpose of this lab programme as designed and facilitated by the institution.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n \\u003c/div\\u003e\\n\\u003c/div\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"5. Discussion and conlusion\",\"content\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eDrawing on corpus linguistics methods, this study analysed a large collection of sustainability annual reports published by 64 UK universities over the five years following the UK\\u0026rsquo;s declaration of climate emergency. Our analysis highlights a clear hierarchy of agency and a recurring parenting narrative within these reports: universities are positioned as leading and providing actors, while staff and students appear as secondary participants who are expected to follow and contribute within institutional frameworks. This is important because representations of agency in institutional reporting help guide which actors are recognised as legitimate drivers of sustainability, as well as which forms of engagement are rendered visible or invisible (Cooren, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR11\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2004\\u003c/span\\u003e; Narayanan \\u0026amp; Adams, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR39\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2017\\u003c/span\\u003e).\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eUniversities are discursively constructed as comprehensive, proactive, and morally conscious actors. They are portrayed as \\u003cem\\u003ecapable\\u003c/em\\u003e of delivering sustainability initiatives, attentive to the wellbeing of their communities, and ethically committed to social and environmental responsibility. In this way, sustainability is framed not only as ethical commitment, but also as an organisational achievement that evidences institutional competence. At the same time, universities also project this leadership beyond the campus boundaries, presenting themselves as regional and national leaders in sustainability initiatives while also highlighting collaboration with external partners.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eIn contrast, students and staff are often represented in more limited and instrumental terms. This is particularly evident in the case of \\u0026ldquo;staff\\u0026rdquo;, which was not only the least frequently referenced of the three actors, but also showed a decline in mentions over time. Furthermore, the participation of students and staff is typically framed through top-down encouragement, where institutional initiatives prompt their engagement rather than recognising their independent agency or grassroots organisation. This passive positioning is further cemented in the context of carbon reporting and sustainability training, where their actions are reduced to quantifiable indicators such as travel behaviours or training completion rates. Staff and students thus function less as autonomous sustainability actors that as evidence of institutional performance. Taken together, these discursive patterns of representation point to a hierarchical and arguably \\u003cem\\u003eparenting\\u003c/em\\u003e narrative in university sustainability reporting, in which the institution assumes the role of a benevolent and caring authority responsible for guiding and managing its community. We argue this narrative is shaped by both external and internal pressures.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eExternally, this pattern must be understood in a context in which universities are increasingly expected to position themselves as leaders in sustainability, through climate emergency declarations, SDG commitments, and external ranking frameworks (Amran \\u0026amp; Keat Ooi, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR1\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2014\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter \\u0026amp; Capstick, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR34\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e; Lozano et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR38\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e). Sustainability reporting in higher education is increasingly influenced by corporate social responsibility (CSR) discourse, where reporting serves to signal legitimacy and social and environmental responsibility (Du et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR13\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2010\\u003c/span\\u003e; Tao \\u0026amp; Ryan, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR52\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025b\\u003c/span\\u003e). Within the context of net-zero pledges, universities face mounting pressure to demonstrate alignment with societal expectations and policy requirements (Latter \\u0026amp; Capstick, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR34\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e; Lozano et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR38\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015\\u003c/span\\u003e; Van Coppenolle et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR55\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; Zhou, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR57\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e), with climate emergency declarations acting as one such signal (O\\u0026rsquo;neill \\u0026amp; Sinden, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR41\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e). Rankings and league tables (e.g., QS, THE Impact, People \\u0026amp; Planet) may further incentivise universities to foreground their initiatives, as organisations tend to adapt their practices and self-presentations to external evaluation (Carrillo-Dur\\u0026aacute;n et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR8\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Hazelkorn, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR24\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2015a\\u003c/span\\u003e). Together, these mechanisms may encourage universities to centre themselves as primary agents of change, while rendering other stakeholders secondary and instrumental.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003ePotentially more revealing, however, are the \\u003cem\\u003einternal\\u003c/em\\u003e institutional dynamics underpinning this hierarchical representation. Universities increasingly operate within governance frameworks developed through neoliberal priorities, including leadership claims, benchmarking, efficiency and technically manageable forms of intervention (O\\u0026rsquo;neill \\u0026amp; Sinden, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR41\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e). Within this framework, sustainability is framed as something designed and delivered \\u003cem\\u003eby\\u003c/em\\u003e the institution rather than co-produced \\u003cem\\u003ewith\\u003c/em\\u003e staff and students. The parenting narrative identified in our study aligns with a benevolently managerial mode of governance, where the university is foregrounded as leader and provider, and stakeholders as participants whose involvement is channelled and made visible through institutionally designed programmes. This is particularly significant in reporting context in which sustainability is increasingly framed in terms of measurable performance metrics, benchmarking and institutional achievement (O\\u0026rsquo;neill \\u0026amp; Sinden, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR41\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2021\\u003c/span\\u003e). From this perspective, the discursive marginalisation of staff and student agency raises questions about the extent to which university sustainability governance is genuinely participatory or democratic, and which less metric-driven understanding of sustainability remain unheard.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eOne might ask: if universities are indeed the primary providers of infrastructure and resources, what is problematic about this parenting narrative? Existing research frequently positions staff and students as active contributors to institutional sustainability, whether through curriculum development, research practice, governance participation or grassroots campaigning (Bohunovsky et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR4\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; Ferrero-Ferrero et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR15\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2018\\u003c/span\\u003e; Kay et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR29\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2010\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR35\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Nelson et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR40\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e; Rutar \\u0026amp; Krmac, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR45\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). The issue lies not in institutional leadership per se, but in leadership framed as unilateral rather than relational. Sustainability challenges are complex and collective, requiring not only institutional provision but also shared agency and ownership. For instance, reducing carbon emission from travel depends not simply on university policy, but on staff and students opting for sustainable transport choice in practice.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eStaff and students' contributions therefore should not be overlooked. Staff advance sustainability through research, teaching, governance participation, and advocacy, demonstrating their role as active agents rather than passive implementers of institutional directives (Finnerty et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR18\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024a\\u003c/span\\u003e, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR19\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024b\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR35\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Nelson et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR40\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). Students likewise exercise agency through campaigns, including People \\u0026amp; Planet, Fossil Free Careers, and Plant-Based Universities, mobilising collective action around divestment, ethical procurement, and accountability (Ford, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR20\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2023\\u003c/span\\u003e; People \\u0026amp; Planet, 2024; Student Times, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR50\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e; The Canary, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR53\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). These bottom-up activities belie university sustainability strategies\\u0026rsquo; characterisations of staff and student. Evidence from other contexts reinforces this point: in the US, members of the climate justice organisation UC San Diego Green New Deal played a central role in reorienting climate policy across the University of California system and in achieving concrete climate actions at UC San Diego itself (Nelson et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR40\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2025\\u003c/span\\u003e). Collectively, these examples challenge institutional portrayal of staff and students as secondary actors and highlight the limits of parenting narratives in formal reports.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eAt the same time, this should not be idealised. Staff often face a gap between willingness to contribute and capacity to do so, due to heavy workloads, precarious employment, and limited influence over decision-making (Black, \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR3\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e; Latter et al., \\u003cspan citationid=\\\"CR35\\\" class=\\\"CitationRef\\\"\\u003e2024\\u003c/span\\u003e). The implication is not to displace institutional leadership, but to enact it more participatory, recognising staff and student agency while addressing the structural constraints they face.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eThis study has limitations. First, it focuses on reports from the five years following the UK\\u0026rsquo;s climate emergency declaration, leaving it unclear whether similar hierarchical representations appear in earlier reports. Second, it does not differentiate between university types. Further research could examine whether discursive patterns vary across institutional categories, between Russell Group and non-Russel Group institutions, or between research-intensive and teaching-focused universities. More broadly, similar patterns of agency and authority could be explored across other university policy domains.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eThis study also opens avenues for empirical testing. Future work could examine whether alternative sustainability framings produce measurable effects, for example, through experiments comparing leadership-centric and distributed agency narratives, assessing outcomes such as perceived legitimacy, trust, and willingness to act. Complementary qualitative research could explore how staff and students interpret these narratives and whether they align with everyday experience.\\u003c/p\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eOverall, this study shows that sustainability reporting is not neutral communication, but a site where authority and agency are discursively organised. By foregrounding universities while backgrounding staff and student contributions, these reports risk narrowing more democratic and collaborative visions of sustainability governance. Attention to representations of agency may help align institutional narratives with genuinely participatory practice.\\u003c/p\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"Declarations\",\"content\":\"\\u003ch2\\u003eCRediT author statement\\u003c/h2\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003e \\u003cb\\u003eYT\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Data Curation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review \\u0026amp; Editing, Visualisation; \\u003cb\\u003eSF\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review \\u0026amp; Editing; \\u003cb\\u003eSR\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Visualisation; \\u003cb\\u003eRP\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review \\u0026amp; Editing, Funding acquisition; \\u003cb\\u003eHS\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Writing-Review \\u0026amp; Editing, Funding acquisition; \\u003cb\\u003eML\\u003c/b\\u003e: Conceptualisation, Writing-Review \\u0026amp; Editing, Funding acquisition.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\u003ch2\\u003eData availability\\u003c/h2\\u003e \\u003cp\\u003eA spreadsheet containing a list of the university can be found on Open Science Framework via this link \\u003cspan class=\\\"ExternalRef\\\"\\u003e\\u003cspan class=\\\"RefSource\\\"\\u003ehttps://osf.io/gu3vb/overview?view_only=89a567cad8dc4cd58e7956755900b9c3\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003cspan address=\\\"https://osf.io/gu3vb/overview?view_only=89a567cad8dc4cd58e7956755900b9c3\\\" targettype=\\\"URL\\\" class=\\\"RefTarget\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/p\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"References\",\"content\":\"\\u003col\\u003e\\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eAmran A, Keat Ooi S (2014) Sustainability reporting: meeting stakeholder demands. Strategic Direction 30(7):38\\u0026ndash;41\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eBBC (2019) \\u003cem\\u003eUK Parliment declares climate change emergency\\u003c/em\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eBlack D (2024), April 25 Just like football, UK universities need a regulator. \\u003cem\\u003eBritish Academy\\u003c/em\\u003e. \\u003cspan class=\\\"ExternalRef\\\"\\u003e\\u003cspan class=\\\"RefSource\\\"\\u003ehttps://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/just-like-football-uk-universities-need-a-regulator/\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003cspan address=\\\"https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/just-like-football-uk-universities-need-a-regulator/\\\" targettype=\\\"URL\\\" class=\\\"RefTarget\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eBohunovsky L, Radinger-Peer V, Zint M, Penker M (2023) Change agents under tensions: a paradox approach to strategies for transforming higher education toward sustainability. 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(2024), April 25 \\u003cem\\u003eUKRI welcomes cross-sector environmental sustainability concordat\\u003c/em\\u003e. \\u003cspan class=\\\"ExternalRef\\\"\\u003e\\u003cspan class=\\\"RefSource\\\"\\u003ehttps://www.ukri.org/news/ukri-welcomes-cross-sector-environmental-sustainability-concordat/\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003cspan address=\\\"https://www.ukri.org/news/ukri-welcomes-cross-sector-environmental-sustainability-concordat/\\\" targettype=\\\"URL\\\" class=\\\"RefTarget\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eVan Coppenolle H, Blondeel M, de Graaf T (2023) Reframing the climate debate: The origins and diffusion of net zero pledges. Global Policy 14(1):48\\u0026ndash;60\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eWellcome Trust (2025), July 1 \\u003cem\\u003eEnvironmental sustainability funding policy\\u003c/em\\u003e. \\u003cspan class=\\\"ExternalRef\\\"\\u003e\\u003cspan class=\\\"RefSource\\\"\\u003ehttps://wellcome.org/research-funding/guidance/policies-grant-conditions/environmental-sustainability-funding-policy\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003cspan address=\\\"https://wellcome.org/research-funding/guidance/policies-grant-conditions/environmental-sustainability-funding-policy\\\" targettype=\\\"URL\\\" class=\\\"RefTarget\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e \\u003cli\\u003e\\u003cspan\\u003eZhou R (2025) How UK universities approach sustainability: A timely review. J Adult Continuing Educ 31(1):54\\u0026ndash;73. \\u003cspan class=\\\"ExternalRef\\\"\\u003e\\u003cspan class=\\\"RefSource\\\"\\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.1177/14779714241240985\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003cspan address=\\\"10.1177/14779714241240985\\\" targettype=\\\"DOI\\\" class=\\\"RefTarget\\\"\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/span\\u003e\\u003c/li\\u003e\\u003c/ol\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"Footnotes\",\"content\":\"\\u003cp\\u003e[i] According to the conversation with sustainability report writing professionals at first author\\u0026rsquo;s institution, developing sustainability reports in webpage format is becoming a legal requirement for accessibility reason.\\u0026nbsp;\\u003c/p\\u003e\"},{\"header\":\"Tables \",\"content\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eTables are available in the Supplementary Files section.\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n\"}],\"fulltextSource\":\"\",\"fullText\":\"\",\"funders\":[{\"identity\":\"45caacf2-4839-4ee7-a8da-8c8e9c840033\",\"identifier\":\"10.13039/100010269\",\"name\":\"Wellcome Trust\",\"awardNumber\":\"228123/Z/23/Z\",\"order_by\":0}],\"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow\":false,\"hasManuscriptDocX\":true,\"hasOptedInToPreprint\":true,\"hasPassedJournalQc\":\"\",\"hasAnyPriority\":true,\"hideJournal\":true,\"highlight\":\"\",\"institution\":\"Lancaster University\",\"isAcceptedByJournal\":false,\"isAuthorSuppliedPdf\":false,\"isDeskRejected\":\"\",\"isHiddenFromSearch\":false,\"isInQc\":false,\"isInWorkflow\":false,\"isPdf\":false,\"isPdfUpToDate\":true,\"isWithdrawnOrRetracted\":false,\"journal\":{\"display\":true,\"email\":\"info@researchsquare.com\",\"identity\":\"researchsquare\",\"isNatureJournal\":false,\"hasQc\":true,\"allowDirectSubmit\":true,\"externalIdentity\":\"\",\"sideBox\":\"\",\"snPcode\":\"\",\"submissionUrl\":\"/submission\",\"title\":\"Research Square\",\"twitterHandle\":\"researchsquare\",\"acdcEnabled\":true,\"dfaEnabled\":false,\"editorialSystem\":\"\",\"reportingPortfolio\":\"\",\"inReviewEnabled\":false,\"inReviewRevisionsEnabled\":true},\"keywords\":\"Higher education sustainability reporting, Sustainability governance, Corpus linguistics, Discursive marginalisation, Agency\",\"lastPublishedDoi\":\"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9518900/v1\",\"lastPublishedDoiUrl\":\"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9518900/v1\",\"license\":{\"name\":\"CC BY 4.0\",\"url\":\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/\"},\"manuscriptAbstract\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eHigher education institutions are increasingly required to produce formal reports on their sustainability practices. How these reports are written can tell us much about the way higher education leadership prioritises the contributions of different parts of the institution to sustainability goals. In this paper we investigate how key actors \\u0026mdash; institutions, staff, and students \\u0026mdash; are represented within these formal documents. We employ corpus-assisted discourse analysis, combining concordance and collocation analysis, to examine sustainability reports produced by UK universities included in the 2024 QS Sustainability Ranking. Findings show that universities, staff and students are the most frequently mentioned actors, but there are clear asymmetries in how they are represented. Universities are consistently portrayed as ethically, socially, and environmentally responsible leaders who provide facilities, inclusion programmes, services, and sustainability initiatives. In contrast, staff and students are more often positioned as passive recipients and beneficiaries of university affordances, often referenced in role-based terms or as components of carbon reporting rather than as agents in their own right. The findings point to a hierarchical \\u0026ldquo;parenting\\u0026rdquo; representational pattern that diminishes collective agency and undermines more participatory understandings of sustainability governance. Such representations are consequential because the discursive marginalisation of staff and student agency raises questions about the extent to which university sustainability governance is genuinely participatory or democratic. This study makes an original contribution to scholarship on sustainability discourse, governance and legitimacy in higher education, and demonstrates the value of corpus-assisted discourse analysis for identifying ideological patterns in institutional reporting.\\u003c/p\\u003e\",\"manuscriptTitle\":\"Parenting or partnership? Corpus-assisted analysis of institution-people dynamics in university sustainability reporting\",\"msid\":\"\",\"msnumber\":\"\",\"nonDraftVersions\":[{\"code\":1,\"date\":\"2026-04-27 15:27:15\",\"doi\":\"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9518900/v1\",\"editorialEvents\":[{\"type\":\"communityComments\",\"content\":0}],\"status\":\"published\",\"journal\":{\"display\":true,\"email\":\"info@researchsquare.com\",\"identity\":\"researchsquare\",\"isNatureJournal\":false,\"hasQc\":true,\"allowDirectSubmit\":true,\"externalIdentity\":\"\",\"sideBox\":\"\",\"snPcode\":\"\",\"submissionUrl\":\"/submission\",\"title\":\"Research Square\",\"twitterHandle\":\"researchsquare\",\"acdcEnabled\":true,\"dfaEnabled\":false,\"editorialSystem\":\"\",\"reportingPortfolio\":\"\",\"inReviewEnabled\":false,\"inReviewRevisionsEnabled\":true}}],\"origin\":\"\",\"ownerIdentity\":\"b17d4614-ea2a-4cc0-965d-93421a9ba571\",\"owner\":[],\"postedDate\":\"April 27th, 2026\",\"published\":true,\"recentEditorialEvents\":[],\"rejectedJournal\":[],\"revision\":\"\",\"amendment\":\"\",\"status\":\"posted\",\"subjectAreas\":[],\"tags\":[],\"updatedAt\":\"2026-04-27T15:27:18+00:00\",\"versionOfRecord\":[],\"versionCreatedAt\":\"2026-04-27 15:27:15\",\"video\":\"\",\"vorDoi\":\"\",\"vorDoiUrl\":\"\",\"workflowStages\":[]},\"version\":\"v1\",\"identity\":\"rs-9518900\",\"journalConfig\":\"researchsquare\"},\"__N_SSP\":true},\"page\":\"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]\",\"query\":{\"redirect\":\"/article/rs-9518900\",\"identity\":\"rs-9518900\",\"version\":[\"v1\"]},\"buildId\":\"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd\",\"isFallback\":false,\"isExperimentalCompile\":false,\"dynamicIds\":[84888],\"gssp\":true,\"scriptLoader\":[]}","source_license":"CC-BY-4.0","license_restricted":false}