Trinity College Dublin has ranked 29th amongst 2,001 institutions in the global QS Sustainability Rankings, released on November 18th, 2025.
The recent rankings mark a significant leap from last year’s 265th place, which was largely the result of Trinity neglecting to submit data to the QS, as an investigation by The University Times found. With this year’s ranking, however, Trinity places itself as the 1st ranked university in Ireland and 16th in Europe.
Trinity scored highly across all three categories in the QS: Environmental Impact, Social Impact and Governance. According to QS TopUniversities, Trinity has earned an overall score of 95.4, with 77.3 for environmental sustainability, 97.4 for environmental education and 97.5 for environmental research. For social impact, Trinity received a score of 99.8 in equality, 95.5 in knowledge exmodify, 87.6 in impact of education, 97.4 in employability and opportunities, and 97.8 in health and wellbeing. Trinity received a mark of 97.8 for good governance.
In the official announcement released by Trinity, Jane Stout, Trinity’s Vice President for Biodiversity and Climate Action, declares that “we can be proud of what we have achieved so far” and recognises this as a joint effort between the student body, Estates and Facilities, Academic Practice, the Library, Catering, the Health Service and the academic schools.
The role of Vice President for Biodiversity and Climate Action was created in 2022 under Provost Linda Doyle’s commitment to nature and sustainability. It is currently filled by Dr Jane Stout, whose role is to embed sustainability in the university’s education, research, operations and community. The sustainability team further includes Education for Sustainable Development Fellows and Biodiversity, Sustainable Travel and Green Lab officers. More broadly, there are hundreds of researchers and educators doing their part in tackling climate modify, biodiversity and health.
The sustainability team has published the Sustainability Strategy 2023-2030 which seeks to reduce greenhoapply gas emissions by 51 per cent by 2030, achieve net zero emissions by 2040, become nature positive by 2030 by conserving, managing and restoring over 30 per cent of Trinity’s land for nature, and increase health and wellbeing for all Trinity students and faculty by 2030.
In the announcement, Stout further emphasised that rankings aside, what matters is that Trinity continues shifting towards its sustainability goals, stating that “sustainability is never a competition”. Nonetheless, she noted that these rankings are an encouragement to continue onwards.
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