Times Higher Education today released The Green League Table, ranking the colleges and universities of the UK in their efforts in sustainability.

The league table is calculated based on data submitted by the institutions to the campaigning group People & Planet. The institutions were ranked for their efforts in various categories including environmental policy, carbon management, fair trade status, energy sources, waste and carbon emissions per head.  The full league table is available on the People & Planet website.

Nottingham Trent University came out on top, having climbed 18 places since last year. The University has invested £1million in carbon management this year including an automatic PC shutdown system for 6,000 computers.

Nottingham Trent University’s Environment Officer, Grant Anderson, said: “It’s fantastic that we’ve been named as the number one green university, but we’ve got lots more ideas to put in place that will make us even greener!”

20 institutions were granted the first class award, the runners up included London School of Economics and Political Science in second place and Oxford Brookes University in third place.

“Brookes has been at the forefront of developments which have now been adopted at many other institutions, including being recognised as the world’s first fair trade university and prioritising environmental issues” said Janet Beer, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University.

The release of the league table coincides with this weeks ‘Green Gown’ awards to be held at Imperial College London on Wednesday 23rd June.  The Gala dinner and award ceremony held by the Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges commends sustainability efforts in universities and colleges across the UK. Tickets for the event are still available on the website.