Universitas Indonesia (UI) released the results of its GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities on 14^th December 2011. This is the second year of this ranking system which allows universities in both the developed and developing world to compare their efforts towards campus sustainability and environment friendly university management.

UI’s initiative can be seen as leading and innovative because it is part of the trend for global competition among higher education institutions and because it is the first sustainability ranking that makes it possible for universities in developing countries to match how green they are against universities in developed countries.

The initiative has been well received both by the academic community and by universities world-wide. In the first year, 95 universities took part. This years results are based on submissions from 178 university in 42 countries. Apart from the US, the UK, Japan, and countries in Europe, the 2011 results include universities as far afield as Palestinian, Chile, Czechoslovakia, Romania and South Africa.

This year, Nottingham University in the UK was ranked first with a score of 8,033.54, followed by Northeastern University in the United States (score 7,981.46) and third by University of Connecticut also in the United States (score 7,708.02). Universitas Indonesia was ranked 22^nd and was the only university in Indonesia to make it into the top 50. The results were announced by the university rector, Prof. Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri on December 14, 2011 at the UI Central Library, Depok.

The results are computed from information provided by universities online. This year, 178 universities who had submitted complete information for all of the categories were accepted for the ranking. The ranking methodology requires universities to submit details on a number of indicators of sustainability. These are organized under five main categories. These categories, and their weightings, are: Green Statistics (24%), Energy and Climate Change (28%), Waste management (15%), Water usage (15%) and Transportation (18%). The weightings are used to calculate the relative importance of the indicator scores in each category. The methodology is based on a widely accepted principle that measuring sustainability should involve three things: Environment, Economics and Equity (the 3 Es). Economics is included because developing a green business or economy or campus requires funding. Equity refers to the need to make society benefit not only the rich but be fair to everyone.

Prof. Gumilar Rusliwa Somantri pointed out that the ranking is unique because it uses a methodology and standards that make it possible for universities in developing countries to see how they measure up against the world’s best, yet also is set at a standard that ‘beginners’ can attain. This user-friendly approach is now being seen as ‘the’ yardstick for universities around the world who want to show that they are doing something useful for the environment. “Through the results of UI GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities 2011, UI is helping to raise awareness in society of the issue of sustainable development and environmental protection. It focuses on such things as saving energy, the wise use of water, waste management, and environmental friendly transport systems.”

The UI GreenMetric Ranking is innovative in that it is the first world-wide college-based commitment to the development of sustainable infrastructure, education, and research. Not only will the ranking help to raise awareness about these issues, but also it is already proving to be a catalyst to action in putting in place ‘green’ campus management policies around the world.

The ranking system, now only in its second year, is already generating discussion among the world university ranking community. It can be compared to academic world ranking systems like the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking and the Webometrics rankings.

The reputation and status of Universitas Indonesia was also boosted among the global academic ranking community when the Chairperson of the UI GreenMetric ranking was accepted as a member of the prestigious International Ranked Expert Group (IREG) Observatory based in Belgium. IREG has set itself the task of setting agreed on standards, auditing and certification for measuring sustainability performance in universities world-wide.

UI’s efforts and participation at the highest levels of the world wide ranking community are being referred to in such publications and organization sites as the US News Ranking, the HEEACT ranking Taiwan, and IHEP Washington DC. GreenMetric is also getting a lot of discussion and support in such forums as UNESCO, and in a number of academic journals concerned with ranking and sustainability in Europe and America.

In future, GreenMetric has the goal of continuing to improve its methodology, to take part in further international level discussion about ranking and sustainability and to expand the number and balance of universities around the world taking part. These efforts, it is hoped, will make a real contribution a to addressing the threat of global climate change.

In 2010, Universitas Indonesia has spearheaded an initiative to create an online ‘green’ ranking for world universities which received outstanding responses from universities in 35 countries in the world. The first year was a great success with close to a hundred universities taking part in this ranking. The ranking, UI GreenMetric World University Ranking, was based on information provided by universities around the world on criteria that demonstrate commitment to going green and sustainability, such as space, energy efficiency, water use, and transport and so on.

UI GreenMetric 2011, our new, revised and improved ranking system that measures campus sustainability has been launched. We have made some improvements due to some comments, suggestions and support from others last year. As a result, we have established an independent multi-disciplinary committee of experts to critically review the methodology and provide suggestions to make the ranking more useful to more people.

This year, we would like to invite you to join with us as a partner in this endeavor by submitting some numerical information related to ‘greenness’ and sustainability for your university. The information you provide will be used to create a numerical ‘greenness’ score for your institution that can be used to compare it with other universities around the world.