This article tries to approach the concept of university social accountability and carries out a brief description of the methodologies that have been implemented in order to draw up sustainability reports, and particularly the Global Reporting Initiative (gri). Afterwards the author provides, by means of a contextual analysis of the gri and the practical experience of a higher education institution, empirical evidence about this subject. The results show that amongst 7,650 institutions only 90 are universities; besides, implementing a case study for the Bío-Bío University in Chile, we can find out that the gri allows to give account of the social responsibility actions reaching the A level. This is why it is possible to state that the sustainability reports show the activities carried out by the institutions through a certification framework and their commitment for social accountability as well.