Ranking Green Universities from MCDM Perspective: MABAC with Gini Coefficient-based Weighting Method

Abstract

The concept of the green university has emerged due to concerns about sustainable development and the use of natural resources. Various organizations rank green or non-green universities under several criteria. The results obtained in these rankings make it possible to compare the performances of similar universities. In this study, we aim to look at the ranking of green universities from the perspective of multi-criteria decision-making. For this purpose, according to the UI GreenMetric 2021 report, 35 green universities in Europe are ranked using the multi-attributive border approximation area comparison method with Gini coefficient-based weighting method. As a result of the weight calculation with the Gini coefficient-based weighting method, it is found out that the setting and infrastructure criterion is the most important criterion, whereas the least important criterion is waste. The performance scores of green universities are obtained by using the calculated criteria weights and the Multi-Attributive Border Approximation area Comparison method. Consequently, the correlation between the original ranking and the ranking obtained by the proposed methodology used in this study has been found as 0.8151. These results show that multi-criteria decision-making methods can be used to rank green universities. As a result of the findings obtained in this study, underperformed universities in the ranking may find the opportunity to compare themselves with similar green universities. Furthermore, non-green universities may be motivated to implement green policies.