This year, the University of Pécs ranked 59th among the 912 universities of the registered 84 countries on the list of world environmentally conscious higher education institutions published on Monday. This also means that the UP is now the most environmentally conscious institution among Hungarian universities.
The idea of a "Green University" is a complex system, encompassing the built environment, environmentally conscious operation, the development of attitudes and the creation of an educational and research environment. The "Green Ranking" of the world's universities has been compiled annually since 2010 by the University of Indonesia to promote and support sustainable environmental development. How much green space universities have on their campuses, their efforts to reduce the impact of climate change, whether they collect waste separately, use water-saving equipment or have other measures in place that reflect an environmentally conscious attitude are the main criteria in the Green Metric Ranking of World Universities. While in the first year only 95 institutions from 35 countries submitted data for the survey, last year 780 higher education institutions took part, and this year the number has reached nearly 1,000, representing 84 countries.
Attila Miseta, Rector of the University of Pécs, assessed the recent result as follows: "The continuous development of our university is clearly visible in the system based on objective indicators, as the UP has significantly improved its ranking year by year.While in 2016 it was 355th on the list, last year our institution entered the top 100, and even compared to this we were able to improve and move forward. The 59th place is truly a world leader, and we are particularly proud that this result makes us the greenest university in Hungary. It shows that we have made great strides towards sustainable development in recent years and I believe we can go even further." - said the Rector of the UP.
The world's "greenest" university, retaining last year's top spot, is Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, followed by the University of Oxford in the UK and Nottingham University in the UK.
The newly released ranking is available on the website http://greenmetric.ui.ac.id/overall-rankings-2020/
