The University of Minnesota achieved its highest rankings for sustainability to date at the end of June, ultimately landing as the fifth-best in the nation, according to the 2025 Times Higher Ed Sustainability Impact Rankings.
University research, planning and community outreach helped boost their rankings, and work relating to clean water, food security and health initiatives helped the University stand out from its American peers.
The rankings, which evaluated over 2,000 universities from 130 countries and regions this year, placed the University in the top 10% of higher education institutions worldwide, according to the Office for Sustainability.
The sustainability ranking assessed universities’ progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For these goals, the University ranked among the top five in three additional SDGs, securing top positions in climate action, zero hunger and partnerships for goals.
In 2020, the University listed advancing the SDGs as a part of MPact 2025, its systemwide strategic plan.
The rankings, first created in 2019, remain the only global performance metric to assess universities’ progress towards achieving the United Nations’ SDGs.
The same year, the University established the UMN Sustainable Development Goals Initiative, which supports ongoing research and academics surrounding the meeting of sustainable development goals.
The University submitted multiple campuses for review this year, one of the few institutions to do so worldwide, according to a press release by the Sustainable Development Goals Initiative. The final submission included data from each University campus, as well as a variety of statewide research and outreach initiatives.
“As one of the nation’s premier research universities, the University of Minnesota is leading the way to building a sustainable future — for Minnesota, our nation and the world,” President Rebecca Cunningham said in a press release announcing the rankings.
Cunningham added that the climate action and clean water rankings reaffirm the University’s values and dedication to critical sustainability work.
This is the fourth year in a row the University has participated in the sustainability impact ranking, according to Shane Stennes, the systemwide chief sustainability officer for the University.
Since first participating, the University has ranked in the top ten in the U.S. for each of the four goals it has submitted data for, even as the number of institutions ranked globally has grown, according to past years’ rankings.
Stennes said the improvement in ranking over the years and the recent high rankings in clean water and health are a reflection of the University’s continued efforts to improve sustainability across research, curriculum, campus operations and communities.
“It showcases that there has been a long consistent effort across the institution to really drive forward work in a number of categories,” Stennes said. “These two just happen to be ones where we are starting to see that materialize.”
Stennes said the University’s strong water research and programming, supported by its Water Council alongside the Water Resource Center, helped to begin addressing clean water concerns.
Stennes added the University’s mental health support services for employees and collaboration with healthcare providers across Minnesota were included in the ranking submission. The recent establishment of CentraCare Regional Campus in Saint Cloud, set to begin instruction this coming fall, was also highlighted.
Stennes said the commitments outlined in the strategic plan have been used to measure sustainability progress broadly and have positively contributed to the University’s higher rankings in recent years.
“There is a nice intersection between the sustainable development goals, which are outcomes that I think all of us kind of resonate with,” Stennes said. “We want to be working to prevent hunger, we want to be working to prevent poverty, we want to be working to address climate change and its impacts.”