Shaping sustainable futures: Students, universities and green skills

Contents


Executive summary and key recommendations

Student perspectives and expectations on university sustainability

Building sustainable reputation to drive change

Green talent and the skills needed for a sustainable workforce

QS commitment to sustainability

Appendix

Improve your sustainability with QS

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Sustainability in numbers

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77% of prospective students think it is important that a university takes steps to reduce its environmental impact

(QS International Student Survey 2024)

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48% of students say they would value a sustainable university more than one ranked in the world top 100

(QS Sustainability Student Survey 2024)

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71% of students want to see universities encouraging and facilitating participation in local initiatives

(QS Sustainability Student Survey 2024)

The UK, US, Australia and Canada have the highest number of top-ranked sustainable universities

(QS World University Rankings 2025)

The University of Toronto leads in the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2025 and excels in all three key ESG performance categories

The need for green skills in today's job market has grown threefold since 2017 (QS 1Mentor)

The top growing green skill area is environmental science, conservation and climate change mitigation (QS 1Mentor)

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