The Quacquarelli-Symonds (QS) World Sustainability List was released on December 10th, and Trinity has been ranked 265th out of more than 1,000 universities, with an overall score of 74.8.
The QS methodology scores universities on sustainability via three categories: Environmental Impact, Social Impact, and Governance. Those categories are further divided into lenses, which are scored based on key metrics. Lenses in which Trinity scored highest included Employability & Opportunities and Impact of Education, which received scores of 94 and 88.2 respectively.
However, College received much lower scores on lenses like Good Governance (39.1) and Environmental Sustainability (43.8). Metrics for the Good Governance lens include transparent financial reporting, ethics culture, and staff perception, among others.
Environmental Sustainability lens scores are made up of metrics like net zero commitments, emissions efficiency, policy on climate strategy, and staff perception of climate change commitment.
College has recently implemented high-visibility sustainability efforts into the day-to-day life of the university, with mandatory modules like Sustainable Development being provided to first-year students in the Business School as well as the college’s annual Green Week and Sustainability Leadership Awards.
University College Dublin (UCD) ranked 49th on the Sustainable Universities list, a more than 200 space jump above Trinity. UCD received an overall score of 92, with high-scoring metrics in Good Governance (93.6) and Environmental Sustainability (73.7).
The QS World University Rankings, which were released earlier this year, placed Trinity at 87th overall in the world. Notably, Trinity suffered in its sustainability scores when that ranking was released – at the time of publication, the World University Ranking scored the college’s sustainability at 57.7 However, Trinity still remained the best-ranked university in Ireland, with UCD at 126th and University College Cork (UCC) at 273rd.
When asked about the low ranking, a College spokesperson stated that “Trinity did not submit any data for the sustainability rankings: we were included automatically because of our participation in the World University Rankings. We are tracking our sustainability progress in other ways.”
