University sustainability rankings: a critical literature review on the UI GreenMetric ranking system

Abstract In recent years, societies all over the world have been confronted with new challenges, such as the increasing pace of climate change, stimulating a growing debate about the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) to help tackle these grand challenges. Consequently, this impacts how technology transfer is pursued and what societies want it to produce, making the third mission in the higher education context also a green mission. Thus, excellence in sustainability complements excellence in research and teaching, resulting in a demand for new metrics to rank and position HEIs globally in terms of their sustainability efforts. A widely accepted and prominent ranking has been established by the University of Indonesia, the UI GreenMetric ranking. Since its founding a decade ago, substantial literature has been published about this ranking to examine and evaluate it from multiple perspectives and with various methodologies. This paper summarizes the body of literature on the UI GreenMetric and provides a critical analysis, indicating a tendency towards a self-selection reporting bias of the participating universities and countries, which demonstrates a potential use of the ranking as a means of greenwashing.