UCC is world’s fourth most ‘sustainable university’

University College Cork (UCC) has been ranked fourth in the world in a list of the most sustainable universities, achieving the highest result in Ireland.

Universitas Indonesia (UI) released its GreenMetric Rankings of World Universities 2015 having measured the commitment made by over 400 universities across the globe in developing an "environmentally-friendly" infrastructure.

UCC ranked the highest among Irish universities, including DCU (58th), University of Limerick (16th), UCD (111th) and Maynooth University (93rd).

Mark Poland, director of buildings and estates said: "We are pleased to retain such a high ranking in these metrics... Our Green Campus Forum continues to work on all aspects of sustainability under our 'Student-led, Research-informed and Practice-focused' principles."

He said UCC strives to reduce its environmental impact through reduced energy use, waste management and sustainable commuting.

“The engagement of all members of the university community including students, staff, suppliers and our subsidiary companies is important. The Mardyke Arena recently achieved energy, environmental and safety ISO accreditation and we are working closely with Kylemore on local vegetable production for our restaurants.”

He said UCC was on its way to achieving targets of a 33 per cent energy reduction by 2020.

UCC is fully committed to being a world leader in the green sustainability area, according to Prof John O’Halloran, vice president for teaching and learning and co-chair of the University Green Forum.

"Last week we launched a United Nations Gems Water Centre to support sustainable water in Africa and across the globe and today we launched a new campus-wide module on sustainability, which is available to all students, staff and members of the public," Prof O'Halloran said.

The measurement is related to environmental setting, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation, and education. This year, UI has added a Carbon Footprint evaluation, to encourage universities to look into this issue.

The ranking has five indicators: setting and infrastructure; energy and climate change; waste management; water management; eco-friendly transportation facility and education.