Universitas Esa Unggul (UEU), a Cintana Alliance partner institution powered by Arizona State University, has posted one of its strongest sustainability results yet in the UI GreenMetric World University Rankings 2026, a jump that reflects years of steady, data-driven investment in campus sustainability.

In this year's rankings, UEU placed 1st among private universities in Jakarta, 3rd among private universities nationally in Indonesia, and 17th overall among both public and private institutions across the country. It's a result the Cintana Alliance is proud to celebrate alongside our partner.

A significant year-over-year leap

The scale of the improvement stands out. In the 2025 rankings, UEU held the 2nd spot among universities in DKI Jakarta, ranked 29th nationally, and placed 203rd globally, while also earning 12th place worldwide in the small campus category. Moving from 29th to 17th nationally in a single year is a meaningful climb, and it signals that UEU's sustainability programs are not just running, but  performing and being measured with increasing rigor.

What UI GreenMetric measures

UI GreenMetric is a global ranking system that evaluates university sustainability performance through numerical indicators and scores. For 2026, the assessment framework expanded to seven pillars: infrastructure planning, energy and climate change, waste management, water management, transportation, education and research, and governance and digitalization, a newly added pillar this year. The expanded framework pushes universities beyond simply having environmental programs in place, toward demonstrating measurable implementation and outcomes. This year's rankings drew participation from more than 2,000 universities and higher education institutions across over 100 countries, including 219 institutions in Indonesia alone.

A result built on collective effort

Helmi Geisfarad, Chair of the UEU GreenMetric Team, attributed the rise to coordinated work across the institution, spanning energy, waste, water, and transportation management, space and infrastructure development, and education and research. "This rise is the result of collective work," he said, noting that the next challenge is maintaining consistency and improving data quality so every achievement can be academically accounted for.

UEU Rector Dr. Ir. Arief Kusuma Among Praja framed the achievement as part of a broader institutional commitment rather than an endpoint in itself. "We are grateful for Universitas Esa Unggul's improved position in UI GreenMetric 2026," he said. "But for us, ranking is not the end goal. It is a reflection that our efforts to build a culture of sustainability at UEU continue to move forward and must be carried out consistently." He added that a sustainable campus needs to be embedded in institutional culture, not treated as an add-on program, and pledged continued integration of environmental, social, educational, research, technological, and governance priorities across UEU's development.

Why this matters for the Alliance

As a Cintana Alliance partner institution working alongside Arizona State University, UEU's progress here reflects the kind of measurable, evidence-based institutional development the Alliance exists to support: access to world-class higher education practice, digital learning innovation, global curriculum development, and international research collaboration. Sustainability performance, increasingly judged on hard data rather than stated intentions, is becoming a real marker of institutional maturity, and UEU's climb up the UI GreenMetric rankings is a strong signal of that maturity in action.

Founded in 1993, UEU now serves more than 19,000 students from 37 Indonesian provinces and 8 countries across 11 faculties and 44 study programs, and holds BAN-PT's highest "Unggul" institutional accreditation. The university's continued investment in its Global Innovation Hub in South Jakarta further underscores a broader push toward research, innovation, and industry collaboration alongside its sustainability agenda.

Congratulations to the entire UEU community on this achievement, and on the consistent, data-backed work behind it.