Sustainability Rankings: What they are About and How to make them Meaningful

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have long embraced a path towards sustainability and engaged in supporting sustainable development. The adoption of the sustainability development goals has forced HEIs to assess how they engage with these goals and how they address societal challenges head on. However, the emergence of sustainability rankings is when HEIs began to focus on promoting these institutional efforts in earnest. The aim of this article is to put in perspective the various sustainability rankings which have emerged over the past fifteen years, discuss some of the methodological nuances of these, and highlight the disparity in performance of HEIs across world regions. This article also suggests some ways in which these rankings can be improved and ways in which the administrative burden of supplying and analysing data can be strengthened.