Communicating Sustainability: Institutional Discourses on Universities Websites
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5944/reec.49.2026.45646Keywords:
sustainability, equity, university, digital ethnography, communication, institutional identityAbstract
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a global call to action to eradicate poverty, protect the environment, and ensure dignified living conditions. Target 4.3 promotes equitable access to quality higher education, positioning universities as strategic actors in the construction of more just and sustainable societies. In this context, sustainability emerges as a principle inseparable from equity, shaping an expanded notion of justice in the university sphere.
This exploratory study adopts a qualitative methodology combining digital ethnography and critical discourse analysis to examine how universities communicate their positioning on sustainability and equity through their institutional websites. These websites are approached as sociotechnical spaces in which institutional identities are performed and meanings are negotiated. The corpus comprises the websites of seven universities: three selected for their leading positions in the QS Sustainability Ranking 2025, and three chosen for their contextual relevance to the study. The study offers an analysis of the University of Buenos Aires, which in 2023 launched an institutional mapping process that led to the creation of the UBA Sustainable Observatory and a faculty development program.
The findings identify common discursive strategies—such as the appropriation of SDG-related language, thematic prioritization, and the creation of dedicated sites—as well as significant differences in the degree of institutional integration of sustainability and equity principles.
The study concludes that universities construct differentiated discourses on sustainability that reflect not only their internal values and structures, but also broader global tensions, imaginaries, and constraints. In doing so, they respond to the Agenda 2030 from within their own histories, institutional cultures, and national contexts.
Keywords: sustainability; equity; university; digital ethnography; communication; institutional identity
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