Environmental sustainability of universities: critical analysis of a green ranking

Today, the principles of sustainability and sustainable development represent key points in policy development and activities of the Higher Education Institutions, both for their impact on the environment and the role they play in society. In the wake of the spread of rankings in Higher Education Institutions over the past decades, Universitas Indonesia in 2010 implemented an environmental sustainability ranking, called UI GreenMetric World University Ranking. The aim of this paper is to carry out a constructive analysis of the GreenMetric Ranking in order to improve and strengthen the ranking method. This analysis is based on the review of the scarce literature, the survey of questionnaire and on an evaluation of the guidelines that have been evolving over time. Despite the improvements made over time by the authors, the critical review of the methodology points out that the GreenMetric Ranking still falls short on some issues. Furthermore, the analysis shows the incomplete compliance with the Berlin Principles. The GreenMetric Ranking though, lays a good foundation for the incorporation of the principle of sustainability within the Higher Education Institutions and reflects the need to quantify the efforts towards sustainability. Therefore, there is the need to make this method more scientific and rigorous, suitable to plan sustainability policies in universities.