Do sustainability reports at universities really matter? Ask to their stakeholders

International scholars have underlined the importance of discussing how SRs could be ap- plied in the higher education (HE) context to increase awareness of sustainability issues and their related reporting, given universities’ important influence on future generations. Despite the growing attention surrounding this field, scholars confirm that more is needed to know about the development of these practices on the drivers that steer and hamper the development of SRs. This paper aims to explore how and why stakeholders can shape the role of sustainability reports at universities over time according to the changing level of their salience attrib- utes (power, legitimacy and urgency). Data was collected from several sources from Italian universities through a longitudinal field study of ten years (2013-2023). The data collection embeds semi-structured interviews, a focus group, participant observation, sustainability reports, and additional documents. Data analysis was carried out to identify which stakeholders are influencing and how they can steer the development of sustainability reporting within Italian universities, a context where sustainable issues are increasingly gathering attention. The study shows that, as the attributes of each stakeholder can change over time, the influence of the most powerful stakeholder (definitive) shapes the sustainability report’s role in continuous dynamism, and it decides about its development or decline. The paper contributes to the public sector accounting literature by investigating how the most powerful stakeholders can lead the development of sustainability reports. Accountability to these subjects is influenced by the dynamism of their attributes, and knowing how these forces can steer the process over time becomes pivotal for providing a report useful for achieving stakeholders’ accountability claims.