Schools and Universities both like league tables. Whether it's down to the performance of their students compared to other educational institutions or a league table of how many cups of Fair-Trade coffee each teacher drinks in one meeting, they love them!

Therefore when People and Planet released the Green League in the June issue of The Times Higher Education Supplement, it is no surprise that the powers that be at Portsmouth would be the first to get a copy.

The University of Portsmouth were very successful, coming eighth in the country for their ‘greenness’. This meant that the University scored a ‘First,’ in degree terms.

There are several criterion to take into consideration when calculating how ‘green’ our Universities are.

Most importantly, the Universities need to have an Environmental Manager employed. The University of Portsmouth employed their Environmental Manager last academic year, with Ian McCormack starting work here last May.

Secondly, an Environmental Policy is taken into consideration, and although there was one put into place a few years back, it has now come under review. It appears that a brand new policy that deals more with the environmental problems that we face in our world today will be in place some time within this academic year.

The other points taken into account are whether an environmental audit had been performed: whether there is recycling in halls, the amount of carbon emissions per head and whether the University has Fair-Trade status - all of which tick the correct boxes when we, the University of Portsmouth, is considered.

This was a big issue among the powers at Portsmouth, with the Vice-Chancellor, John Craven, even mentioning it in his speech at the start of the VIP Awards last June.

In his speech he thanked the students from Portsmouth People and Planet for their work over the last three years in helping Portsmouth achieve such a high position in the Green League.

Without this group, the University would have not have had a Fair-Trade status, an Environmental Policy and an Environmental Manager in place at the time the League was published.

However, despite the high position Portsmouth has, it does not mean that the University can relax in trying to justify its environmental credentials.

One of the most shocking aspects of the Green League was the low amount of recycling that the University partook in, which stood at twenty-seven percent of all waste. Added to this we have an absurdly high level of carbon emissions per head at the University; 722 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide per person.

Portsmouth is also well behind other Universities in the country at using ‘Green Electricity’; at the time of the Green League this amount stood at zero percent.

All these issues will have to be dealt with; not just to move Portsmouth up in the league, but more importantly, to help reduce the cost that the degrees we are studying for are having on the environment and world around us.

Despite Portsmouth’s high performance in the league, if scientists are to be believed (that we need an eighty percent cut in carbon emissions by 2050 in the UK), then it's obvious that less time should be spent on applauding our efforts so far and more time directly dealing with the issues at hand.

The consequences, we are told, will be devastating for our planet and the human race. However, at least it appears that we are moving in the right direction, and with momentum!