Evaluation of Environmental Sustainability Higher in Education Ranking Systems: Towards a Flat Intraranking System

Abstract

This paper reviews different ranking criteria for universities practicing environmental sustainability – named here as “Environmental Sustainability Higher Education ranking systems (ESHERSs)”. The purpose is to evaluate the degree of such criteria in supporting the higher education institutions (HEIs) in achieving environmentally sustainable development goals (SDGs). In this paper, the potential metrics for ranking systems are identified to promote environmentally sustainable development practices within HEIs and support their home countries in achieving SDGs. Three ESHERSs - known in focusing on teaching & research, environment and social scope are evaluated and scored according to their compliance with the Berlin Principles (BPs), where the later are used to propose a new framework for an intra- ranking system that contribute to more effective practice in Environment and Education, i.e. developing University of Bahrain Environmental Sustainability Higher Education ranking system ( UoBESHERS).