Manchester ranked amongst worst universities for environmental sustainability

In a recent league table published by People and Planet, the University of Manchester was ranked at 110 of 150 and as a third class university for environmental sustainability.

Universities were scored on a variety of sustainability factors, including commitment to reducing carbon footprint and their receipt of funding from the fossil fuel industry. While only 25 per cent of universities featured were on track to reach the targeted 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, University of Manchester was found to be one of the worst.

The university also scored poorly in its connections with the fossil fuel industry and are said to receive in excess of £27 million worth of funding from oil companies such as BP and Shell.

In comparison, Manchester Metropolitan University was ranked at an impressive third place in the table with multiple measures such as LED lighting, self-cleaning glass and recycling schemes being put in place since 2007.

Of their result, Manchester Metropolitan’s Vice-Chancellor Malcolm Press described their success as, “a wonderful affirmation of the hard work that goes into ensuring that we embed sustainability across everything we do”.

However the findings in the league table have been highly criticised with a spokesperson from the University of Manchester stating that many of them are either “out of date, incorrect or measure issues with questionable validity”.

They also claimed that the university successfully reduced both gas and water consumption by 20 per cent between 2012 and 2015, with many more strategies in place to improve both social responsibility and environmental sustainability university-wide.