- Lund University in Sweden ranked first in QS Sustainability Rankings 2026 for the first time
- University of Toronto dropped to second place after leading in 2024 and 2025
- UCL in the UK rose two positions to secure third place in the 2026 rankings
Lund University in Sweden has taken the top spot for the first time since the ranking was established in 2023. University of Toronto had been the best in the world in 2024 and 2025 and now drops to second place, followed by UCL in the UK, which has climbed two positions to third overall.
The following is the list of top 10 university as per QS World University Rankings: Sustainability 2026
- Lund University, Sweden
- University of Toronto, Canada
- UCL, London, United Kingdom
- The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
- The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom
- Imperial College London, United Kingdom
- The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Sydney, Australia
- McGill University, Montreal, Canada
- The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
This year, some 2,000 universities in 106 locations feature, up from around 1,750 in the previous edition. Overall, 240 universities from the US feature in the ranking, followed by China with 163, the UK with 109, India with 103 and France with 76. A total of eight locations see at least 10 institutions debut in the ranking this year, with Mainland China with the most with 49 debutants, followed by India with 26.
The QS World University Sustainability Rankings is an annual ranking produced by QS, a global higher education analytics firm, that evaluates universities based on their commitment to and performance in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) sustainability.
The ranking evaluates institutions on multiple impacts, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. Nearly 2,000 institutions worldwide were assessed in this edition. Lund University in Sweden topped the rankings with a perfect score of 100.
