Top spot for SLU in Climate Students’ 2021 ranking

Higher education institutions were awarded points in four areas:

• emissions from air travel per employee (full-time equivalent);
• total emissions;
• reduction of emissions from air travel;
• objectives and action plans.

The higher education institutions were ranked based partly on actual emissions and reduction in emissions, partly on plans for future climate efforts.

The ranking is largely based on the annual figures reported  by the higher education institutions to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

“We can only congratulate the higher education institutions that did better than us this year. This is a ‘competition’ where everyone benefits from the success of others, and where we inspire each other to continually improve. SLU got 52 of 100 points in the 2020 ranking, and this year we were awarded 81 points. We’ve moved forward considerably this last year, not least because of our updated environmental objectives” says Johanna Sennmark, environmental manager at SLU. 

The 1.5C target

In 2019, 37 Swedish higher education institutions – including SLU – joined the Climate Framework for Higher Education Institutions, thereby pledging to contribute to meeting the 1.5C target by 2030. Climate Students then launched an initiative placing additional pressure on higher education institutions and their work with climate change.

All higher education institutions in Sweden were asked to participate and a majority, 25 of them, responded in 2021; the ranking is based on these figures.