ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Tuesday organised a meeting of representatives from 15 universities to lay out the framework for introducing the concept of “Green Campus” in Pakistani educational institutes.

The committee met on the World Environment Day celebrated every year on June 5 to discuss the GreenMetric World University Rankings.

The aim of the conference was to invite universities and colleges throughout the country to gauge their policies and progress against benchmarks of international standards on battling climate change.

Under a ranking, educational institutes will know how ‘green’ they are

The GreenMetric ranking is an initiative of the Universitas Indonesia (UI) - one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Indonesia - to score educational institutes on how ‘green’ they are. Several leading universities in the world have taken great strides in reducing their carbon footprints, making the institutions more sustainable in the process.

The HEC recognises the importance of climate change - especially in the context of Pakistan - and seeks to ensure institutions are ranked higher on the GreenMetric list in the future. In collaboration with the UI GreenMetric, the HEC also organises a national workshop on July 9 which will be attended by representatives of universities from all over the country.

Speaking at the meeting, HEC Executive Director Dr Arshad Ali appreciated the innovative idea to rank institutions on their efforts to counter the impacts of climate change.

He announced that the HEC would set up a Green Office which would serve as the coordinating unit between the higher education institutions. Dr Arshad said working on the green campus initiative may help sort out a solution to the water crisis prevailing in the country besides providing a platform to deliberate on other pressing climate change issues.

Dr Raza Bhatti, a member of the HEC, highlighted the significance of the theme of the World Environment Day 2018: “Beat the plastic pollution.” He said the hazards of using plastic must be publicised so that the younger generation not only refused to use the material but also influenced others to follow suit.

Earlier, Naveed Shah, Director Monitoring and Evaluation HEC, in a presentation on the GreenMetric ranking system said it was based on broad indicators: setting and infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transportation and education.

According to the HEC statement, in the face of global challenges such as climate change, shortage of water and energy, excessive pollution, population growth and spread of infectious diseases the GreenMetric World University Ranking had brought together hundreds of universities across the world in implementing eco-friendly policies.

During the initial phase of setting up the policies in Pakistan, a working group of 15 universities was constituted from all over the country.

Representatives from the University of Karachi, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Bahauddin Zakaria University Multan, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi, University of Lahore and IBA University Sukkur - all universities ranked in the report - gave presentations highlighting the efforts of their respective institutes in implementing the Green Campus Framework.

Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2018