Ahmad Bin Aamir
Everyone knows about the QS World University Rankings and how universities strive hard to achieve better rankings every year. However, generally speaking not many people know about the “Sustainability Rankings” of universities. Sustainability rankings were introduced for the first time in 2022 and rank universities based on their commitment to have a more sustainable existence. KAIST, a pioneer research university of South Korea, ranked highly in Asia as well as globally, struggles with sustainability ranking. Other Korean universities, despite their low ranking globally, scored better on sustainability scale when compared to KAIST. Let us explore how the sustainability rankings work and why KAIST is underperforming on the sustainability scale.
Introduction
The single most defining factor which everyone, the universities, the students, the professors, the industries and the governments are concerned about, regarding education is University Rankings. To measure these rankings, there are numerous platforms, websites, and newspapers which explicitly try to rank universities based on various factors and methodologies. Some of the most well-known websites which appear when people search university rankings are QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education, and Shanghai Rankings. All such sites are very distinct from each other.
The QS World University Rankings, which will be the focus of the talk, started publishing its reports in 2004 and is now the most widely referred site for the rankings. The main rationale behind developing this ranking system was to provide students with an independent and data-driven understanding to choose the right university which matches their interests and eliminates their concerns. As per their report of 2021, QS Rankings uses six indicators focusing on four broad categories (QS Staff Writer 2021). The methodology will be discussed in detail in the later part of the paper.
KAIST is underperforming on the QS Sustainability Scale in comparison with other South Korean Universities…
Recently, in 2022, QS Rankings introduced a new ranking called the QS Sustainability Rankings which rates universities on account of how committed universities are towards sustainable existence. KAIST, a pioneer research institute in South Korea, having an outstanding history of making it to the rankings list, is facing trouble with maintaining its position post COVID. Out of several factors which have led to the decline of KAIST, Sustainability Rankings is one area where KAIST underperforms significantly. In this paper, a detailed overview of QS rankings, Sustainability, and KAIST will be given.
QS World Universities Rankings
As an undergraduate, when looking for the best possible options available to pursue my master’s degree, I remember comparing different universities based on QS rankings to see which one is the perfect fit for me. This practice is common amongst most of the students (probably every student) who are in search of a potential university.
Similar was the case with Nunzio Quacquarelli, who after completing his bachelor’s degree wanted to pursue MBA. However, he could not find any data or information to compare different business schools and therefore, founded the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) – after his name in 1990. Even after three decades, the motivation behind making a consultancy company remains the same which is to “to enable motivated people anywhere in the world to fulfill their potential through educational achievement, international mobility and career development” (Foster 2024).
Originally a consultancy, QS decided to release their first QS World University Rankings in October 2024. QS has been partnering with Top Universities Website to publish universities rankings annually. As previously discussed, four key missions are in focus which are excellence in research, producing truly employable graduates, a commitment to high-quality teaching and a focus on internationalization. Initially there were six indicators, however recently QS decided to include three new indicators. The complete list of the indicators and their respective weightages is as follows,
Commenting on the scale and impact of QS Rankings, statistics published on the website of Top Universities show that approximately 60 million unique visitors consult the website every year in search of the best fitted university for them.
QS Sustainability Rankings
Among the three newly introduced indicators, sustainability rankings are the talk of the town. It is worthwhile to mention here that Times Higher Education has also started to publish their annual Impact Rankings which show how much universities are committed towards SDGs. This shift of focus towards sustainability shows how people look for universities which prioritize sustainability and commitment towards SDGs. QS started publishing its annual QS Sustainability Rankings (QS-SR) in 2022. The purpose of these rankings is to showcase how various universities are tackling environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues faced by the World in present times (Calderon 2023).
The first report compared about 700 universities on grounds of efforts being made to resolve ESG issues. The sustainability reports rank universities on an outward impact. Which means that yes there will be emphasis on on-campus initiatives such as renewable energy sources and recycling, more focus will be given to research impact and alumni outcomes (are graduates going on to work in sustainable careers?) (OCallaghan 2023). To be eligible for QS-SR, universities need to demonstrate research on sustainability as well as have a clear climate strategy.
Initially there were two categories i.e. Social Impact and Environmental Impact. In the latest QS-SR, where 1395 universities are ranked, “governance” as the third category is introduced. There are multiple performance lenses for each category. The overall weightages of the categories are distributed in the following manner,
These categories have multiple indicators. Environmental Impact — Comprised of three indicators: Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Education and Environmental Research. Social Impact — Aggregating five indicators: Equality, Knowledge Exchange, Impact of Education, Employability & Outcomes and Health & Wellbeing. Governance —Underpinned by indicators related to good governance such as ethics, hiring practices, transparency and decision making (QS Insights 2023).
Contrasting Global and Sustainability Rankings of Top Universities
It is interesting to mention here that the universities which topped the global rankings are nowhere to be seen in the top ranks when compared on the sustainability scale.
From figures 3 and 4 it is clearly seen that the universities which topped the global ranks were not able to top the sustainability ranks. This leads to multiple interesting hypotheses. Are universities less concerned about sustainability? Is sustainability not an important topic in academia? Is sustainability given less weightage to create an impact on global rankings?
Student Perspectives on Sustainability Rankings
As per a survey conducted by the QS, 79% of students believed that it is important for universities to reduce their environmental impact (Leigh Kamolins 2024). This survey showed that with rising awareness on the topic of sustainability, there is a growing expectation that universities act in an environmentally friendly manner. In addition to this, students are getting more and more interested in the QS-SR. This trend was observed through the page views comparing 2024 and 2023 rankings.
The Case of KAIST
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) was founded in 1971 and is a leading science and technology research institute of not only South Korea but also Asia. Over the years, KAIST has strived hard to become the best research university in the world and this could be seen in the rankings. KAIST has been ranked in the top 50 and top 100 universities as per QS rankings for over a decade and is ranked top 1-3 in South Korea.
KAIST achieved its career best rankings in 2021 where it stood at 39th rank worldwide. However, post covid, KAIST has struggled with maintaining its rankings. Currently, as per QS World Universities Rankings of 2025, KAIST is ranked at 53. It is still the second-best ranked university of South Korea, with Seoul National University (SNU) on top with a rank of 31.
KAIST lost points on a few indicators. When it comes to the reputation of the institute or the number of citations of faculty, KAIST is way ahead. However, it faces challenges with Sustainability, International Students Ratio. International Faculty Ratio, and Employment Outcomes. The figure below shows the score of each indicator in the case of KAIST.
Since we will be discussing QS-SR in this paper, let us delve deeper into how KAIST is performing on the sustainability rankings. KAIST scored a total of 70 points on sustainability report as per 2024 sustainability report. KAIST has shown a growth on sustainability rankings and is ranked 269 globally on sustainability rankings. Amongst the three indicators, KAIST is doing well on the Social Impact indicator. However, it struggles with Governance. Talking about Environment Impact, this indicator has three sub-indicators i.e. Environmental Sustainability, Environmental Education and Environmental Research. KAIST performed well on Environmental Education and Research. The sub-indicator where KAIST is lacking significantly is Environmental Sustainability.
Why is Environmental Sustainability Important?
Environmental Sustainability is used to look at the strategies of institutions and the kind activities they are doing to have an environmentally sustainable future. It has various weights of metrics which are listed below in the table.
As seen in the table, environmental sustainability is a determinant of how sustainable campuses are and how they are deploying policies to become sustainable to have a better future. This makes environmental sustainability a core concept for students and campuses wishing a sustainable future.
Viqueira believes that the higher education sector can play a critical role for sustainable development through research, community engagement, and developing knowledge and skills (Viqueira 2023). By doing so, the existing and prospective students will become more aware of the ecological and climate crises. He further comments that an academic workforce which is well equipped with the right skills and knowledge can help in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
From the case of KAIST, referring to figure 7, one can see that in terms of sustainability research and knowledge, KAIST is doing well. However, it lacks environmental sustainability. From figure 8 we understand that this means that KAIST lacks proper policies in promoting and achieving sustainability. ES1 has the highest weight, and it talks about what contribution the alumni of the university make towards sustainability and innovation. ES3 is second on the list and talks about the commitment towards climate change. The rest of the weights have equal weightage.
Since we do not have individual data on how KAIST performed on all these metrics, we cannot comment on individual metrics performance. However, KAIST underperformed on “environmental sustainability” as a whole, which means it could not perform well on these metrics. ES4 and ES10 talk about publicly available policies to combat climate change, and while searching on KAIST website, I could not find any such data. Similarly, ES3 and ES6 talk about commitment towards sustainability goals. Lastly, ES7 and ES8 refer towards the efforts made by the university to reduce on-campus environmental footprints. This shows that the indicator of environmental sustainability gives us a clear picture of what efforts are being made and what policies are in place to have a sustainable campus. Performing poorly on this indicator would indicate that the university proper policy implementation, community engagement, and practical actions towards sustainability.
KAIST vs. SNU
Seoul National University (SNU) and KAIST have been the table toppers in global rankings for universities and have been in the top 5 universities in South Korea for quite some time. I will try to make a comparison between SNU and KAIST here. This is primarily because SNU is ranked number one on sustainability rankings in South Korea and is ranked number 46th globally. SNU is also the number one university in South Korea as per QS rankings. On the other hand, KAIST, which is ranked number two in South Korea, is ranked way behind when compared on sustainability rankings. It is ranked 269 globally and fails to make it to the top 10 sustainability rankings in South Korea. This represents a dire situation.
Comparing SNU and KAIST on ESG scale we see that SNU outperforms KAIST on all three indicators of social impact, environmental sustainability, and governance. Being the number two ranked university countrywide and not being able to make it to even the top 10 universities on sustainability scale means that KAIST is (or has been) ignorant towards sustainability.
Furthermore, talking about awareness towards sustainability rankings, SNU has officially endorsed these rankings. The university published a report on their news section regarding the sustainability rankings, showing that they are aware of such rankings and are committed towards sustainability. Furthermore, SNU took a pioneering step in publishing ESG reports in 2023 and making them public as well (Seoul National University (SNU) n.d.). On the other hand, there has been no endorsement of sustainability rankings by KAIST yet. Whereas KAIST newsletter shows that KAIST has talked about rankings at many instances, celebrating its performance in the past but when it comes to sustainability, there is silence. In addition, KAIST has not made its ESG reports publicly available yet. These findings reveal that KAIST is less committed towards sustainability.
KAIST’s Actions and Initiatives
Being a student, living on the campus of KAIST, one can observe numerous actions and initiatives being taken by KAIST to raise the standards of sustainability and its awareness amongst everyone. Most of the student body lives in KAIST dormitories and over the past semester, the Graduate Student Dormitory Council (GSDC) has been sending regular emails to cut down the usage of Electricity and Water. These emails are sent to increase the awareness amongst the students to reduce the wastage of energy and water by encouraging their voluntary efforts. This is a move to contribute towards sustainable environmental conservation. Overall, as per GSDC, a decrease of approximately 12.7% in electricity usage per person and a slight increase of about 0.2% in water usage per person are the results from the energy conservation campaign.
These emails are sent monthly. I have taken these screenshots from emails sent by GSDC to respective dorms namely, Sejong Hall, Nadl Hall, Hemang Hall, and Dasom Hall. In addition, posters are attached in dorms every month which compare the usage of the previous year’s month with the present month. Figure 10 shows the emails sent by GSDC for the month of April. Figure 11 shows the posters attached by the GSDC for the month of August.
When asked, GSDC said that such initiatives are taken by KAIST to promote sustainable living on campus. GSDC also conducts surveys to get insights from the students on how to improve such initiatives in the future. However, when asked about what policies there from the end of KAIST administration are, GSDC said that they are not sure what are the actual policies, showing a lack of collaboration amongst the policy making wing and other departments.
Like GSDC’s efforts, there is another initiative by the Facilities Management Team to hire students to work as “Energy Savers/Guardians”. The job description of these people is to look for places on the campus where the electricity is being wasted in a way that air conditioners, heaters, lights, etc. are working when there is nobody using them. To conserve energy, these recruits are asked to turn off all such appliances which are wasting energy. This is interesting, as it shows that there is a relation between this work and that of GSDC, which is to conserve electricity. This shows that the KAIST administration is committed towards conserving energy on the campus.
Furthermore, there are also efforts to shift towards renewable energy sources. Solar panels can be seen on department roofs and parking lots. KAIST is committed towards becoming a self-sustainable campus (KAIST 2013). E-vehicles such as buses can be seen operating on campus.
I also inquired about the reason behind carrying out activities to conserve energy from the Management Evaluation Team of KAIST. To which they replied that alongside GSDC’s vision to promote sustainable living and environmental conservation, these activities were carried out to alleviate the financial burden of dormitories. Furthermore, when asked about whether KAIST is aware about the QS University Sustainability Rankings, the team replied that the university administration is aware of such rankings and is working to improve them. They believe that these rankings have made KAIST interested in ESG management and has recognized the need for related policies. Lastly, KAIST is also planning to publish its first ESG report in September this year.
It is noteworthy that all the initiatives which I have talked about are those which we see on the campus or the ones I inquired from different departments of KAIST. There may be more initiatives or plans, but these are not visible to the public. The issue of lack of policy clarity was there in 2019 and can be understood from the article published in KAIST herald showing how KAIST is shying away from endorsing sustainability at the policy level (Carpenter 2021). After 5 years, the situation remains the same.
What KAIST Students Think About Sustainability Initiatives
To understand what KAIST students think about QS Sustainability Rankings and KAIST’s sustainability initiatives, I conducted a survey among 33 KAIST students, with an equal representation of 11 participants each from the undergraduate, master’s, and PhD programs. The findings revealed that 66.7% of the students are aware of the QS Sustainability Rankings and a large proportion of them believe that it is essential for a university to be ranked highly on sustainability scale. However, the students believe that these rankings did not influence their decision to join KAIST.
75% of the participants are aware of various initiatives being taken by KAIST to promote sustainability. A significant proportion of the survey participants expressed that KAIST is not doing enough in terms of sustainable practices on campus, with many providing either neutral or dissatisfied responses. Similarly, they believe that KAIST is not doing enough to promote sustainability on campus. In answer to how often students participate in sustainability related activities, a major proportion of them participate rarely or never. Despite this, a majority of 60% students are willing to participate in such activities in the future. This shows that KAIST is not doing much to promote sustainability and if in the future they make related policies and conduct activities, students will support it.
The students offered several suggestions to improve sustainability on campus. The students believe that there is a lack of knowledge regarding sustainability and there is room for awareness. KAIST should carry out routine-based activities that are fun and interesting. University policies should be clearer and accessible. Furthermore, more focus on renewable energy and reducing waste is needed. Lastly, some students believe that a mandatory course on sustainability or even seminars can be beneficial.
Recommendations
After examining the sustainability efforts being made by KAIST and the response from the student body, it Is evident there are multiple grounds where the university needs to improve itself. Based on these insights, I propose the following recommendations to strengthen KAIST’s sustainable practices and align more closely with the expectations of its students and global sustainability standards:
- Establish a Clear Policy Direction: KAIST’s current policies regarding sustainability lack clarity. While there are several ongoing initiatives on campus, there is no unified strategy at the highest level. KAIST should formally endorse sustainability rankings and provide a clear policy framework to guide students and relevant departments.
- Enhance Interdepartmental Collaboration: There appears to be a disconnect among departments engaged in sustainability efforts, with limited understanding of the university’s overall policies. Improved collaboration and communication between departments (such as the case with GSDC) are essential for achieving cohesive and impactful sustainability outcomes.
- Commitment to Annual ESG Reporting: With KAIST set to release its first ESG report this month, the university should establish a commitment to publish these reports annually. Regular ESG reporting will enhance transparency, track progress, and demonstrate KAIST’s dedication to sustainability goals.
- Increase Awareness and Visibility: Student feedback indicates a lack of awareness regarding KAIST’s sustainability efforts. The university should strengthen its communication and marketing strategies to raise awareness of its initiatives. Most students view sustainability and related rankings as crucial for the university, yet many feel that KAIST is not doing enough in this area.
- Introduce Sustainability Seminars and Workshops: KAIST should actively promote sustainability at the university level. Just as mandatory sessions are held on Law and Student Rights issues, KAIST should organize seminars and workshops to educate students, staff, and faculty about the importance of sustainability and the university’s role in advancing these goals.
Conclusion
Sustainability has become a key topic of discussion worldwide, and university rankings are now reflecting this shift with the newly introduced QS University Sustainability Rankings. KAIST, a leading science and technology university in South Korea and Asia, has not performed well in these rankings. Many students believe that the university must take stronger actions to address sustainability challenges. There is an urgent need for KAIST to embrace sustainability as a core value and promote it throughout the campus. As an educational leader, KAIST has the responsibility to pave the way for future generations and set a strong example in sustainability practices.
References
- Viqueira, Peter. 2023. Why Does Sustainability Matter in the Higher Education Sector? May 24. https://www.odgersberndtson.com/en-us/insights/why-does-sustainability-matter-in-the-higher-education-sector/.
- Calderon, Angel. 2023. Global sustainability rankings: what they are and what they could be. August 8. https://www.eaie.org/resource/global-sustainability-rankings.html#:~:text=QS%20Sustainability%20Rankings,and%20governance%20(ESG)%20challenges.
- Carpenter, Ada. 2021. Greening the KAIST Campus. June 03. https://herald.kaist.ac.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=20360.
- Foster, Jen. 2024. 20 years of the QS World University Rankings: An interview with founder and President Nunzio Quacquarelli. March 24. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/20-years-qs-world-university-rankings-interview-founder-president-nunzio-quacquarelli.
- KAIST. 2013. KAIST Takes Steps towards a Self-Sustainable Campus. December 11. https://www.kaist.ac.kr/newsen/html/news/?mode=V&mng_no=4070&skey=keyword&sval=renewable+energy&list_s_date=&list_e_date=&GotoPage=1.
- Leigh Kamolins. 2024. The climate for change: How university sustainability is impacting student decision-making. July 18. https://www.qs.com/how-does-sustainability-impact-student-decision-making/.
- OCallaghan, Craig. 2023. Introducing the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2023. December 7. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/qs-sustainability-ranking/introducing-qs-world-university-rankings-sustainability-2023.
- QS Insights. 2023. Rankings released! QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2024. December 5. https://www.qs.com/qs-world-university-rankings-sustainability-2024-released/.
- QS Staff Writer. 2021. Understanding the Methodology: QS World University Rankings. June 21. https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/understanding-methodology-qs-world-university-rankings.
- Seoul National University (SNU). n.d. SNU Excelled in Sustainability and Knowledge Transfer in the Recent World University Rankings. https://en.snu.ac.kr/snunow/snu_media/news?md=v&bbsidx=145264#:~:text=QS%20introduced%20the%20Sustainability%20Rankings,following%20year’s%20world%20university%20rankings.
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