Sustainable Development Goals

Commitment to SDGs
SDGs and THE
SDG contribution

Commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals tackle global challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. Massey University is strongly committed to the achievement of these goals and shows this in many ways.

Aotearoa Sustainability Declaration

Signed the Aotearoa Sustainability Declaration at the 2021 Aotearoa SDG Summit.

Master of Sustainable Development Goals

Launched Australasia’s first Master of Sustainable Development Goals in 2020.

Learn more about the Master of Sustainable Development Goals

Climate Action Plan

Aiming for Net Carbon Zero by 2030 in our Climate Action Plan.

Read the Climate Action Plan (PDF, 1.6 MB)

Green Impact programme

Actively participating in the Green Impact programme – an award-winning UN program promoting environmentally and socially sustainable practices.

Learn more about the Green Impact programme

Researching ways to advance the SDGs

Issue 4 of Massey’s biennial magazine Rangahau features over 30 academics and teams actively working on the goals.

Read about Massey academics who are progressing toward the SDGs

This multifaceted commitment highlights Massey's proactive role in addressing global challenges, aligning the university’s actions with the principles and objectives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Find out more about the UN Sustainable Development Goals

SDGs and Times Higher Education Impact Rankings

Massey University is actively integrating the SDGs into its research, learning and teaching, and sustainability strategies. These sustainability initiatives led to an Impact Ranking of 75th equal in the world and second in Aotearoa New Zealand in the 2024 Times Higher Education Impact Rankings. The Impact Rankings are based directly on SDGs across the 4 main areas:

research
stewardship
outreach
teaching

A high ranking is not an end in itself. Instead, we see it as 1 way of measuring how sustainable we are; how we incorporate sustainability into our teaching, research and university life, and showing it to people outside the university.

In 2024, Massey is ranked fifth equal in the world for SDG11 Sustainable Cities and Communities, 12th in the world for SDG15 Life on Land and 13th in the world for SDG2 Zero Hunger. We are also ranked in the top 100 in the world for a total of 11 SDGs, and had increases in ranking positions for 12 individual SDGs since last year. We are also ranked in the top 50 for SDG13 Climate Action (ranked 35th equal) and SDG5 Gender Equality (ranked 40th equal). These results were from assessing the university's achievements in the 2022 calendar year.

QS Sustainability rankings

Massey University is also ranked third equal in Aotearoa New Zealand and 81st equal globally in the QS 2023 Sustainability rankings. This is an increase of 44 places from the previous year which is especially noteworthy as the number of universities included in the 2023 ranking doubled, from 700 universities worldwide in the inaugural ranking in 2022, to 1403 last year.

The QS Sustainability rankings assess universities on their commitment to tackling the world's greatest environmental, social and governance challenges.