The University of California, Davis, continues to be the “greenest” campus in the United States — for the eighth year in a row — according to the 2023 UI GreenMetric World University rankings.

The rankings from the University of Indonesia also place UC Davis as the world’s fifth most sustainable university, the 10th consecutive year the campus has been in the world’s top five.

With the publication of the rankings Thursday, UI GreenMetric said it “aims to increase university awareness towards sustainability.”

The annual rankings consider universities’ commitments and actions toward sustainability in the categories of setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste treatment and recycling, water, transportation, and education and research. 

This year, 1,183 universities from 84 countries participated in the rankings.

UC Davis is a global leader in sustainability and climate change research on campus, in the classroom and abroad. From the arboretum to the numerous farms and greenhouses located throughout campus, the university is a living laboratory dedicated to teaching, developing, testing and providing solutions to address the world’s most pressing issues.

UC Davis and rankings

A world-class university, UC Davis is highly ranked for how it transforms students’ lives, the impact of its research, the excellence of its academic programs, sustainability and more. The university performs self-evaluations and also appreciates the value of third-party assessments. However, ranking methods vary, change over time and can be subjective. UC Davis focuses on those rankings that most closely align with its mission and values — including serving the public good, inclusiveness and equity, and social mobility — and in national rankings looks most closely at its standing among public universities. UC Davis encourages prospective students and their families to weigh rankings among other factors in their college decision, talk with counselors and UC Davis admissions advisors, and, if possible, visit the campus.