Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Evaluating UI GreenMetric as a tool to support green universities

development: assessment of the year 2011 ranking
Nyoman Suwartha a, *, Riri Fitri Sari b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus Baru UI, Depok 16424, Indonesia
b
Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Kampus Baru UI, Depok 16424, Indonesia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Over the last two decades, the university ranking has become a global phenomenon. Universitas
Received 29 July 2012 Indonesia, in 2010 has developed an online world universities ranking, aimed to offer the portrait of the
Received in revised form current conditions and policies related to green campus and sustainability in the universities all around
25 February 2013
the world. The aims of this paper are to introduce the development and improvement of UI GreenMetric
Accepted 26 February 2013
Available online 14 March 2013
and evaluate the implementation and result of the year 2011 ranking. The evaluation method used for
the ranking performance was a descriptive and qualitative approach, and the Berlin Principles was
employed to assess the conformity and quality of UI GreenMetric. The 2011 ranking results show an
Keywords:
Campus sustainability
increment of the number of participating countries. There are more than 25 universities from the United
Energy and climate change States participated in this ranking. The main prevailing criterion achieved by many universities is the
Green campus energy and climate change (about 2500 of 2800 maximum score). Most of the indicators in UI Green-
UI GreenMetric Metric are in compliance with the Berlin Principles. The UI GreenMetric ranking provides opportunities
Universitas Indonesia for each university to examine their strength and weakness in promoting green university and sus-
tainable development. Further comments and positive feedback from the participating universities will
advance the UI GreenMetric ranking system.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction discussed intensely. Many universities are working on sustainable

Over the last two decades, the university ranking table has
become a global phenomenon (UNESCO-CEPES, 2006). It continues
to be widely spread around the globes; it has emerged from pro-
fessional and governments to private and media-based sectors
(UNESCO-CEPES, 2004); and it deals with various issues ranging
from research and academic reputation, education, to environ-
mental performance. Of these three perspectives, most of the uni-
versity ranking designers often stress the importance of research
and academic reputation, followed by educational indicators,
whereas environmental issues has received little or no attention
(Lukman et al., 2010; Baboulet and Lenzen, 2010).
Nowadays, climate change mitigation and campus sustainability
has become a major issue of global concern for university leaders. A
number of top world universities have been taking steps to combat
climate change by reducing their carbon footprint, and thus man-
aging and improving their sustainability. This topic has also been
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ62 217270029; fax: þ62 217270028.
E-mail addresses: nsuwartha@eng.ui.ac.id, nsuwartha@yahoo.com
(N. Suwartha).
development and green university topics (Lukman et al., 2010;
Alshuwaikat and Abubakar, 2008; Green Report Card, 2009;
Grindsted, 2011; Grindsted and Hol, 2012; Heinz, 1995). However,
only a few institutions have measured their effort and rated the
universities’ worldwide performance. Green League 2007, Envi-
ronmental and Social Responsibility (ESR) Index 2009 are examples
of ranking systems of campus operations’ environmental impact
(Grindsted, 2011). The Green League tables have shown the envi-
ronmental performance of British universities based on eight
different environmental criteria, both in terms of policy and per-
formance related measures. It incorporates data never before pub-
lished in the public domain and was obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act; including the percentage of energy purchased from
renewable sources, percentage of waste recycled, and CO2 emissions
for each institution (Green League, 2007). The ESR index covered five
keys of corporate strategy; integration of environmental concerns;
environmental management; environmental performance and
impact and assurance that the data gathered for the index was ac-
curate (De Montfort University, 2009). Despite its contribution to
environmentally ranking systems, those rankings are practically
used in narrow areas and in small scale applicability.

0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.034
 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53
Universitas Indonesia, as an emerging world-class university, in
2010 has developed an online “green” ranking for world universities,
aimed to offer the portrait of the current conditions and policies
related to Green Campus and Sustainability in the universities all
over the world. Instead of using research and educational indicators,
it mostly embraced the environmental ones. With respect to this
specific issue in sustainability and green campus, UI GreenMetric
Ranking has played a different role among other sustainability sur-
veys, scorecards, and rating systems (Hazelkorn, 2011). The ranking
was based on the premise that there is room for a global ranking that
will enforce measuring tools, which can be used for both developed
and developing countries (Sari, 2012).
The UI GreenMetric Ranking of World Universities is the first
attempt to make a global ranking of universities’ sustainable
behavior (Grindsted, 2011). As a new world university ranking
where mostly managed by using an online and open access system,
many universities have enthusiastically been participated to try the
ranking performance and assess their place. Although it was
designed to be suitable for universities in both developed and
developing countries, some important indicators and criteria might
have not been sufficiently included or clearly described in the
ranking. Therefore, an evaluation on the performance of both in-
ternal (data collection, method, and result) and external (feedback
and comments from the user) factors are required for its
improvement and sustainability.
The aims and novelties of this paper are twofold: First, we
introduce the development and improvement of UI GreenMetric
which is a specific ranking system in terms of sustainability and
green campus. Second, we assess the implementation and result of
the year 2011 ranking which has not been done before. The eval-
uation method used for the ranking performance and result was a
descriptive and qualitative approach (number of participating
countries, universities, total score, and the most prevailing criteria),
while the Berlin Principles was employed to assess the conformity
and quality of UI GreenMetric.
The paper sheds more light on the development of UI Green-
Metric in Section 2. Then the improvements of the ranking system
are highlighted in Section 3. The results and evaluation are then
discussed in Section 4. In Section 5, the paper presents some
feedback, comments and suggestions to the UI GreenMetric sus-
tainability, and finally some conclusions are drawn in Section 6.
2. The development of UI GreenMetric University Ranking
2.1. Methodology and approach
During the past 30 years, sustainable universities have been an
important issue. Grinsted (2011) examined sustainability in higher
education (SHE), specifically in respect to warn about deterioration
of the environment, resource scarcity and the need of for sustain-
ability. He found that nowadays more than 1400 universities
worldwide have signed a SHE declaration. The concept of SHE was
then widely been used to figure out the existing situation of the
university in terms of sustainability, not only in western univer-
sities but also in Asia (Saadatin et al., 2009). Furthermore, Saadatin
et al. (2012) conducted investigation to identify SHE assessment
indicators in community aspect for Malaysian campuses. On the
other hand, economy as another pillar of the sustainable develop-
ment has also been widely developed. The globalization of the
knowledge economy has been respond by East Asian universities.
To ensure their sustainability in the global innovation race, local
universities in late-comer economies may need to be reformed
toward an “entrepreneurial university” (Wong et al., 2007).
Considering the important of the sustainable development
concept, thus in developing the ranking we based our instrument
47
on a broad philosophy that encompasses the three Es: Environ-
ment, Economics and (Social) Equity as shown in Fig. 1.
Referring to the concept of sustainable development (Adams,
2006), we linked the three mutual reinforcing pillars which are
Environmental, Economical, and Social Equity with development at
university scale into the ranking system. This is because the uni-
versity’s performance aspects (research, education, and environ-
mental protection) are interconnected and multidimensional
(Lukman et al., 2010).
In order to develop the ranking table, a conceptual flowchart as
presented in Fig. 2 has been implemented. Basically, it can be
divided into three stages; preparation, design, and implementation
(Sari, 2012).
2.1.1. The criteria
We selected criteria that are generally thought to be of impor-
tance by universities concerned with sustainability. These include
the collection of a basic profile of the size of the university and its
zoning profile, whether urban, suburban, or rural, etc. Beyond this
we evaluated the degree of green space. The next category of in-
formation concerns electricity consumption because of its link to
the carbon footprint. Then we assessed the transport, water usage,
waste management. Beyond these indicators, we wanted to get a
picture about how the university is responding to or dealing with
the issue of sustainability through policies, actions, and
communication.
Five main criteria of UI GreenMetric World University Ranking
were determined based on information provided by respective
universities that demonstrates commitment to going green and
being sustainable, namely environmental settings and infrastruc-
ture, energy and climate change, waste, water, and transportation
(Fig. 3).
2.1.2. The weighting of criteria and scoring
Each of the criteria will be categorized in a general class of in-
formation and when we process the results, the raw scores will be
weighted to give a final calculation. Scoring for each item will be
numeric so that our data can be processed statistically. Scores will
be simple, such as counts of things, or responses on a scale of some
sort.
2.1.3. Data collection and initial results
Data will be collected between July and October each year from
the invited universities who are willing to provide information. The
preliminary result of the metrics is expected to be released in
Fig. 1. Scheme of sustainable development model (Lukman et al., 2010).
48 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53
Preparation
Literature Conference Expert
survey attendance advice
Design Decision on principles, data collection, etc.
Category and criteria definition
Decision on weighting
Questionnaire development
Testing
Set up of website and web-based questionnaire
Implementation Invitation to universities to participate
Processing correspondence
Collection of data submitted online
Processing of data to produce rankings
Publication of rankings
Fig. 2. Stages in the development of the UI GreenMetric University Ranking.
November, and the final complete result will be shown in
December of the year.
The year 2010 ranking result received an overwhelming amount
of attention. Many universities enthusiastically participated and
responded positively to the ranking by sending suggestions, com-
ments, and inquiries such as those based on the methodology, the
reliability of the data, the scoring and criteria, etc. Urgently, based
on suggestions from participating universities and an internal re-
view, we conducted revisions and improvements of the first version
for use in 2011.
3. Improvement of the UI GreenMetric
3.1. Number of indicators
In the revised version of 2011, the UI GreenMetric employed 42
indicators divided into five categories to determine the ranking
scores. There were 21 additional indicators compared to the first
version (only 23 indicators), that mainly focused on setting and
infrastructure, energy and climate, and transportation in order to
take comprehensive data into account (Table 1).
For example, in setting and infrastructure category, we added 16
indicators to be considered, mainly on research and academic/ed-
ucation aspect related to environment. This is significant to balance
the three pillars in sustainable development concept. Since we
considered sustainability of university, all of the university’s per-
formance aspects (research, education, and environmental pro-
tection) should be evaluated (Lukman et al., 2010) and taken into
account, as much as possible.
The weighting for each category remained at the same per-
centage, while the point allocation for indicators in each category
was amended to a higher level to gain better results and a wider
range of scoring.
Fig. 3. The five categories used in the ranking and their weighting.
3.2. Indicative performance measures
Guideline
development
Considering some constructive feedback from the keenness of
participating universities, several questions in each category of the
questionnaire were revised by providing more options for the re-
spondents to select from a number of choices. Examples of the
modified indicative performance measures in each category are
shown in Table 2.
For example, in sub-category campus setting, we modified op-
tion “[4] other” to be “[4] in center/high rise building “ in order to
make it clear for the participants to express their campus situations.
In the other 3 sub-categories (2.6, 4.1, and 5.1), additional “options
[4] and [5]” were included so that all of possible present policies of
each respective university can be filled in properly.
3.3. Data collection and analyzes
It is obvious that the success and reliability of an online ranking
system is greatly dependent on both the quantity and quality of the
data collection. To ensure that the data were collected from a
reliable institution, the UI GreenMetric website provides a pass-
word to each participating university in order to access the website
and to allow for sending a detailed questionnaire. Prior to sub-
mission, they were asked to be as accurate as possible in giving the
data. In calculating any score, some data indicators were not used.
Instead, they provided information about the university landscape,
such as campus setting (rural, suburban, city center/high rise
building) or the type of higher education institution (comprehen-
sive, specialized higher education institution). By using this basic
information, it would allow us to compare and group universities
by methodically ranking their scores.
3.4. Data validation
One of the critical point in conducting a world online ranking is the
reliability of the data given by the participating university. To cope
with this problem, it is important to check the data validity, though
the data was given by an authorized institution. We used two verifi-
cation methods; the first is by using technology approach, and the
second is by direct observation. In technological approach, email
correspondence has been conducted for data verification purposes.
Moreover, Google Map and Google Earth’s facilities were utilized to
collect and ensure the validity of each participating university data,
especially about open space area and campus area. In direct approach,
occasionally, we conducted site visit based on the invitation from
universities. Generally, institutional visit has been carried out
randomly according to the chances to visit the university in formal or
informal ways. Since it would be very costly and counterproductive to
visiting all the participating universities, the online survey is prefer-
able with a sampling of selected universities for site visit.
3.5. Refining the research instrument
While we have put every effort into the design and imple-
mentation of the questionnaire, we realize that the first version was
bound to have shortcomings. Therefore, some criteria and
weightings are continuously being reviewed to reflect input from
participants and state of the art developments in the field. Overall,
the revised version UI GreenMetric 2011 accommodates valuable
feedback from users in every possible effort so that improving the
ranking and more user friendly interface for the participating in-
stitutions. Such developing attempts include a revision of the
wording of some questions in the questionnaire to be as clear and
unambiguous as possible, as well as the methodology’s validity,
reliability and usefulness.
 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53 49

Table 1
Indicators used in the ranking by category.

Categories Indicators No Point allocation Total %

1 Setting and Campus setting, Type of higher education institution, 20 2400 24
Infrastructure Number of campus sites, Total campus area, Total
ground floor area of buildings, Electricity usage per
year, Number of vehicles owned by your institution,
Number of cars entering the university daily, Number
of bicycles that are found on campus on average in
a day, Number of students, Number of academic and
administrative staff, Number of courses related to
environment and sustainability offered, Total number
of courses offered, Total research funds dedicated to
environmental and sustainability research, Total
research funds, Percentage of university budget for
sustainability effort, Number of scholarly publications
on environment and sustainability published, Number
of scholarly events related to environment and
sustainability, Number of student organizations related
to environment and sustainability, Existence of a
university-run sustainability website
2 Energy and Energy efficient appliances usage, Renewable energy 10 2800 28
Climate Change usage policy, Energy conservation program, Green
building element, Climate change adaptation and
mitigation program, Greenhouse gas emissions
reduction policy, Percentage of area on campus
covered in vegetation in the form of forest, Percentage
area on campus covered in planted vegetation, Policy
to reduce the use of paper and plastic in campus,
Policy for a smoke-free and drug-free campus
environment
3 Waste Recycling program for university waste, Toxic waste 5 1500 15
recycling, Organic waste treatment, Inorganic waste
treatment, Sewerage disposal
4 Water Water conservation program, Retention: non-retentive 3 1500 15
surfaces on campus as percentage of total area,
piped water
5 Transportation Transportation policy designed to limit the number 4 1800 18
of motor vehicles used on campus, Transportation
policy designed to limit or decrease the parking area
on campus, Campus buses, Bicycles and pedestrians
on campus
Total 42 10,000 100%

4. Results and evaluation
4.1. Evaluation to the 2011 ranking result
By the end of 2011 there were 178 out of 2000 invited univer-
sities from 42 countries, thus contributing valuable data for UI
GreenMetric. Table 3 presents the result of UI GreenMetric ranking
2011 for the top twenty ranked universities. The University of
Nottingham, UK stands in the first place with the total score out of
the five categories of 8033 followed by Northeastern University,
USA (7981) in second place and in third place, the University of
Connecticut, USA (7708). Compared to other universities, the Uni-
versity of Nottingham was leading on the effort to be deeply con-
cerned about energy and climate change (score 2534), and
transportation (1675) aspects.
Fig. 4 shows the number of participating universities from 42
countries. We can see that the number of participating universities
in each country tends to increase after the first launch of the
ranking in 2010. In the year 2011 ranking results, obviously, United
States shows a significant increase in the number of participating
universities; about three times higher than in year 2010. More than
25 universities in United States participated in this 2011 ranking.

Table 2
Examples of the improving questions for each category.

No Categories Indicative performance measure

1.1 Campus setting [1] Rural [2] Suburban [3] Urban [4] in city center/high rise building
2.6 Greenhouse gas emissions reduction policy [1] No policy [2] Policy preparation [3] Policy in initial implementation
[4] Policy implemented with some problems [5] Policy in full implementation
3.3 Organic waste treatment (garbage, discarded [1] Taken off campus to a dump site [2] Dump in open [3] Partly composted
vegetable and plant matter): select the option [4] Fully composted
that best describes your overall treatment of
the bulk of your organic waste
4.1 Water conservation program (systematic, [1] No program [2] Program preparation [3] Program in initial implementation
formalized program) [4] Program implemented with some problems [5] Program in full implementation
5.1 Transportation policy designed to limit the [1] No policy [2] Policy preparation [3] Policy in initial implementation
number of motor vehicles used on campus [4] Policy implemented with some problems [5] Policy in full implementation
(expressed as staged implementation of that policy)
50 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53

Table 3
Top twenty ranked universities of the UI GreenMetric ranking 2011.

Ranking University Total score (100) Setting and Energy and Waste (15) Water (15) Transportation (18)
infrastructure (24) climate change (28)
1 University of Nottingham 8033 1394 2534 1275 1155 1675
2 Northeastern University 7981 1396 2370 1350 1440 1425
3 University of Connecticut 7708 1458 2100 1125 1450 1575
4 University College Cork 7682 1336 2126 1275 1270 1675
5 Linkoping University 7661 1406 2104 1275 1200 1675
6 University of California, Berkeley 7601 1279 2220 1425 1127 1550
7 University of California, Los Angeles 7498 1155 2012 1275 1380 1675
8 Washington University In St. Louis 7359 1218 2226 1200 1040 1675
9 University of California Merced 7347 1364 2348 1125 960 1550
10 University of Bath 7341 1366 2200 1125 1350 1300
11 University of California, Davis 7302 1615 2242 1125 1020 1300
12 University of North Carolina, 7266 1120 2041 1275 1280 1550
Chapel Hill
13 Cornell University 7257 1287 2115 1275 1190 1390
14 York University 7245 1220 2025 1275 1050 1675
15 Grand Valley State University 7224 1438 2125 1125 985 1550
16 Da Yeh University 7210 1282 1964 1275 1263 1425
17 Universiti Putra Malaysia 7204 1443 1870 1125 1340 1425
18 National Taipei University 7191 1398 1950 1200 1252 1390
of Technology
19 University of Ottawa 7191 1206 1959 1275 1075 1675
20 Universite de Sherbooke 7139 1193 1885 1275 1110 1675

The number is even higher than the participating universities in
Indonesia. From the participating country’s point of view, there is
also enrichment in terms of the number of countries; from 35
countries in 2010 up to 42 countries in 2011. It suggests that UI
GreenMetric ranking has become widely known and is appreciated
by both developed and developing countries.
One of the advanced features of UI GreenMetric is that the
ranking can be sorted by campus setting (rural, semi-urban, urban,
overall ranking) or by type of higher education institutions
(comprehensive, specialized higher education institutions) in the
overall ranking. By using this feature, each institution or end user
can make a fair comparison and group universities by their scores.
The overall performance demonstrates that the most prevailing
criteria achieved by many universities are in the energy and climate
change sector (averaged is about 2500 of 2800 maximum score).
This result indicates that universities are very concerned about
environmental issues and tried their best in implementing proper
policies for mitigating climate change. Fig. 5 shows an example of
how the strengths and weaknesses of a university can be analyzed
by comparing the points they have accumulated for each indicator
in the categories compared to the overall best practice expected to
be reached by the university. In this case, it seems that University of
Nottingham has applied their best practice. This is shown by the
scores of each category which is close to the maximum scores.
In a more detailed outlook, the results of the university rankings
can be classified for each category in a rose-chart diagram, as
shown in Fig. 6.
Based on the figure above, we can see that there are only 15
universities who have scored greater than 2000 for the energy and
climate change category. It means, of the 178 participating uni-
versities, about 8.4% of universities keenly work for conserving
energy and mitigating climate change.
4.2. Assessment of the ranking against the Berlin Principles
During the two-year development of the GreenMetric ranking,
several improvements on methodology, data collection and pre-
sentation were carried out, based on constructive feedback from

Fig. 4. Number of participating universities by country.

 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53
Fig. 5. A university condition compared to the highest score in each category (current
best practice).
the participating universities. In order to evaluate the performance
and quality of UI GreenMetric ranking, we used the Berlin Princi-
ples which are “a set of principles of quality and good practice in
HEI rankings” (UNESCO-CEPES, 2006), such as benchmarking. The
UI GreenMetric conformity to the Berlin Principles is summarized
in Table 4. We tried to make sure that the methodology used in the
UI GreenMetric follows the Berlin principles.
We can see from the table that most of the indicators in UI
GreenMetric are already in conformance with the Berlin Principles.
Some other indicators are in the process of conforming to the
principles. For example, related to section number D15, in the first
version we only provided one single list of all universities together
in the ranking. In the new version of 2011, we have provided con-
sumers a choice in how rankings are displayed. In section number
C13, the GreenMetric ranking is currently undergoing a quality
assurance process (validation) to thoroughly ensure that it meets
the highest standards.
5. Feedbacks, comments and suggestions
Up to present, many university leaders already proudly
announced their university’s position in the GreenMetric ranking,
Fig. 6. Rose-chart diagram of each university in the ranking position versus their
points for energy and climate change.
51
which has been considered as an acknowledgment of their uni-
versity’s achievement in green and sustainability efforts. The
following are comments taken from different universities websites
from around the world, which shows the perspective of university
leaders and other stakeholders to UI GreenMetric:
“As an education establishment, we place a strong emphasis on
sustainability. This ethos is embedded across the entire university
through our research, teaching and practice of environmental
sustainability.” e Professor John O’Halloran, Head, School of
School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences (BEES),
University College Cork, Ireland.
“I am delighted by this news. Here at Nottingham we have worked
hard in recent years at putting sustainability at the heart of this
University’s ethos. This accomplishment will spur us on to further
improving our performance in sustainability.” e Professor David
Greenaway, The Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Nottingham.
“This international recognition will I hope be a stimulus for further
improvement in the coming years. Our plans to provide substantial
electricity generation through our own wind turbines will, if
agreed, provide another significant step forward.” e Professor
Alan Dodson, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Infrastructure and Envi-
ronment at Nottingham University.
“This is testament to the excellent work of students, faculty and
staff on sustainability issues here at York” e Professor Ilan Kapoor,
chair of the President’s Sustainability Council, York University,
Canada.
“Although Green Metric is not yet an established ranking, I think we
can all be proud of our strong showing in this international
benchmarking exercise. The challenges of sustainability for an
institution with a STEM-rich portfolio and physical infrastructure
with major legacy energy issues are significant. However, as a
community we are having a real impact and I would like to thank
colleagues and students for their ongoing commitment. I would also
like to encourage everyone to think about recycling more in 2012 as
this is still one of our weaker performance measures.” e Professor
Kevin Edge, Deputy Vice Chancellor of University of Bath.
“This new recognition can be a platform for many new discussions,
such as our partnerships with international universities where our
students travel to study.” e Norman Christopher, Director of the
Sustainable Community Development Initiative, Grand Valley
University, USA.
“It is (a pleasure) for our university because the university has
aimed to become a green university including occupation health
and safety system to meet standards matching with the university.”
e- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sakkarin Phummirat, The Dean of King
Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand.
“To me, it’s really inspiring when we sit here in Canada and we see
that overall there’s this inaction on environmental issues. And here
we stand as an institution at the university that has exceeded
environmental standards. Next year, we’d love to see how we can
move up. We can study the competitors. We can look at all the best
practices from other universities.” e Kira Lamont, volunteer at the
Sustainability Office of the University of Toronto.
The campus of Manipal University in Udupi has earned the
distinction of making it to the list of green universities in the world.
The UI GreenMetric World Universities Ranking is the first world-
wide college-based commitment to the development of sustain-
able infrastructure, education and research (Manipal University,
India).
52 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53

Table 4
The conformity of UI GreenMetric ranking to Berlin principles.

Section Number Principles Yes On-going No

A. Purposes and Goals of Rankings A1 Be one of a number of diverse approaches to the assessment of higher U
education inputs, processes, and outputs
A2 Be clear about their purpose and their target groups U
A3 Recognize the diversity of institutions and take the different missions U
and goals of institutions into account
A4 Provide clarity about the range of information sources for rankings and U
the messages each source generates
A5 Specify the linguistic, cultural, economic, and historical contexts of the U
educational systems being ranked
B. Design and Weighting of Indicators B6 Be transparent regarding the methodology used for creating the rankings U
B7 Choose indicators according to their relevance and validity U
B8 Measure outcomes in preference to inputs whenever possible U
B9 Make the weights assigned to different indicators (if used) prominent U
and limit changes to them
C. Collection and Processing of Data C10 Pay due attention to ethical standards and the good practice U
recommendations articulated in these Principles
C11 Use audited and verifiable data whenever possible U
C12 Include data that are collected with proper procedures for scientific U
data collection
C13 Apply measures of quality assurance to ranking processes themselves U
C14 Apply organizational measures that enhance the credibility of rankings U
D. Presentation of Ranking Results D15 Provide consumers with a clear understanding of all of the factors used U
to develop a ranking, and offer them a choice in how rankings are displayed
D16 Be compiled in a way that eliminates or reduces errors in original data, U
and be organized and published in a way that errors and faults can be corrected

“Northeastern’s long-standing commitment to energy efficiency,
conservation and sustainability precedes the more recent focus on
‘greening’ and sustainability,” e Carol Rosskam, Northeastern’s
sustainability program manager Northeastern University, USA.
The “UI Green Metric Ranking of World Universities” for 2010 was
based on information provided by universities around the world on
their commitment towards going green and the development of
sustainability initiatives. UI factored in the location, amount of
green space, electrical consumption, waste management, as well as
policies, actions, and communication related to sustainability (UC
Berkeley, 2011).
Based on those comments mentioned above, we can see that
most of the university leaders were surprised, delighted and proud
to be listed in the GreenMetric ranking; knowing their position
relatively to other university, especially that their works hard in
years at putting sustainability and environmental policy at their
respective institution has been rated and acknowledged. It suggests
that UI GreenMetric University Ranking does not merely provide
important information about their characteristics, but also allows
each user to recognize their development and encourages their
improvement in the future.
In addition, Grindsted (2011) has also stated that UI Greenmetric
has become one of the “sustainable campus performance rankings”
measuring the competitiveness of sustainable campus operation
performance in the form of a ranking system. It should be noted
that the UI GreenMetric University Ranking is an attempt to eval-
uate universities from more objective perspectives. Clearly, further
studies are needed to improve this ranking, such as to use field
normalized data, and to cover all research areas on an equal basis
(Rauhvargers, 2011).
Evaluation results to the UI GreenMetric 2011 performance
shown some improvements in the methodology; more indicators
number were added specifically focused on setting and infra-
structure, energy and climate, and transportation. More options in
indicative performance measure were added for several categories.
Verification methods were included to check the validity of the data
through an institutional visit based on the invitation of universities,
as well as via email correspondence as well as Google Map to
evaluate university campus image. Most of the indicators in UI
GreenMetric were already in conformance with the Berlin Princi-
ples. The 2011 ranking results shows an increment in terms of the
number of participating countries (about 20%) compared to the
2010 ranking. It can be found that from the United States there are
more than 25 universities participated in the 2011 ranking. The
energy and climate change criteria is the most prevailing criteria
achieved by many universities. Reflecting on the ranking result,
each participating university can examine their strength and
weakness in promoting green university and sustainable
development.
The UI GreenMetric ranking provides opportunities for each
university to conduct some actions in order to accumulate better
results and therefore achieve a better ranking in next year’s eval-
uation. UI GreenMetric can be a framework and a standard guide-
line for constructing a green university, and therefore help
universities to green their overall activities. Obviously, further
comments and positive feedback from the participating univer-
sities will result in important advances in the UI GreenMetric
ranking system and boosting Universitas Indonesia’s contribution
to global sustainable development.
Acknowledgments

6. Conclusion
The UI GreenMetric ranking was developed to provide a profile
for and way of comparing the commitment of universities towards
going green and promoting sustainable operations, with regard to
all three important dimensions: research, educational and
environmental.
The authors would like to thank Prof. Dr. Der Soz Gumilar
Rusliwa Soemantri (Rector of University of Indonesia) for his
brilliant initiative in launching this program. Our appreciation to
Prof. Dr. Gunawan Tjahjono, Mr. Budi Hartono, Dr. Frank Allan
Lauder, Mr. Ronald Silitonga, Mr. Daru Widya, Mr. Muhammad Nur
Fajar, Ms. Dina Mardia, and Ms. Atmadewita for their effort during
developing the tools, collecting and analyzing the data. We thank
 N. Suwartha, R.F. Sari / Journal of Cleaner Production 61 (2013) 46e53
Prof. Widodo, Ms. Diane Wildsmith, Dr. Fu Xie, Dr. Sudarsono, and
Mr. Ari Susilo for their valuable contribution to the ranking
improvement and discussion. We also thank the reviewers for her/
his valuable comments that greatly helped us to improve the
contents of this paper.
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