Wageningen University & Research is the greenest and most sustainable university in the world, according to the latest GreenMetric ranking by Universitas Indonesia (UI), where Wageningen takes the top spot. WUR appeared on the ranking for the first time three years ago at 36th place.
Every year the University of Indonesia ranks how universities around the world deal with for example CO2 emissions, chemical waste and water recycling, on the basis of questionnaires and a panel of experts. The university scoring the best in all the categories is permitted to call itself the world’s greenest and most sustainable in the world for one year.
Wageningen scored most points in the category Waste. The maximum points were scored in this category. The least points were achieved in the category Transport.
Wageningen has leaped up the rankings looking at the past three years, with first place this year as the highpoint. According to Erna Maters, member of staff responsible for corporate social responsibility (CSR), first place was achieved primarily as a result of the evidence. “This year we have simply had to submit a lot of evidence to back up our claims. We were able to do this in a very sound way, and that I believe is an important reason for our top position.”
This year, a total of 619 universities from 76 countries participated in the UI GreenMetric ranking.