Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Higher Education Commission (HEC) Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri has said that universities must teach students about climate change threats, water and energy scarcity, food insecurity and waste accumulation.

The chairman made these remarks while addressing a national workshop on GreenMetric World University Ranking 2018. He said that universities must ensure that sustainability was fully incorporated in their teaching and research as well as campus operations.

An initiative of Universitas Indonesia, the GreenMetric World University Ranking has been adopted in several Asian universities. The current year’s ranking is focused on the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The purpose of the workshop was to sensitise representatives of the higher education institutes of Pakistan to emerging environmental challenges and introduce them to the GreenMetric Ranking.

The workshop was also addressed by UI GreenMetric Chairperson Prof Riri Fitri Sari and HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali. Representatives of over 90 universities, including vice chancellors, rectors, registrars, and faculty members attended the event.

Prof Riri Fitri Sari presented an overview of the ranking system, which was the only international ranking on sustainability in universities. In 2017, 619 universities from 76 countries were ranked. The ranking results are compiled on the basis of a number of sustainability indicators, including infrastructure (15%), energy consumption (21%), waste generation (18%), water consumption (10%), transport (18%) and educational programmes (18%).

UI GreenMetric Expert Member Junaidi provided additional details about the UI GreenMetric indicators as well as the data submission process. This was followed by presentations by university representatives on their major sustainability initiatives.

In his welcome note, Dr. Arshad Ali observed that Pakistan was facing acute water scarcity, which would intensify in the coming years. He said that the HEC senior management had a consensus on the need to sensitise university leaders to the emerging threats. “There is no better platform than universities to start this campaign, as by focusing on universities we can sensitise youth,” he underlined.

He said that presence of a large number of university representatives showed their understanding of the sensitivity of this issue. He told the audience that six Pakistani universities participated in the UI GreenMetric World University Ranking 2017.

Universitas Indonesia initiated a world university ranking in 2010, later known as UI GreenMetric World University Rankings, to measure campus sustainability efforts. It was intended to create an online survey to portray sustainability policies and programmes in universities around the world.

Published in Daily Times, July 11^th 2018.