From Kitab Kuning to KPI: Auditing the Datafication of Eco-Piety in Indonesia’s Ekopesantren Movement and Its Uneven Alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55927/modern.v5i5.69Keywords:
Sustainable Development Goals; Pesantren; Islamic Education; Environment; Audit Culture; DataficationAbstract
Purpose: Indonesia’s “eco-pesantren” (ekopesantren) movement has, since 2021, been promoted by a university-led consortium as a faith-based vehicle for environmental sustainability, culminating in a 2024 award cycle covering 50 pesantren and approximately 76,000 students, and a 2025 reference within the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Al-Mizan Covenant for the Earth. Existing scholarship has described the pedagogical content of individual eco-pesantren but has not examined the movement’s own operating logic: the translation of Islamic environmental ethics into a scored, “web-tracked” system of ten program categories. This study addresses that gap. Design/methodology/approach: Using qualitative document analysis and netnography of publicly available institutional, legal-religious, and media texts (11 primary documents, 2011–2026), triangulated with Indonesia’s national pesantren statistics and the existing academic literature, the study applies directed content analysis informed by audit-culture theory and datafication theory to map the movement’s ten operational categories onto specific Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets
References
Balai Pendidikan Pondok Pesantren Pabelan. (2023, August 8). Ekopesantren di Pondok Pabelan: Pendidikan Islam ramah lingkungan. https://pabelan.or.id/ekopesantren/
Bintang Kejora, M. T., Komariah, A., Herawan, E., & Sudarsyah, A. (2025). Ekopesantren: An ecology-based education model with local wisdom supports the Sustainable Development Goal's. Al-Ishlah: Jurnal Pendidikan, 17(1), 291–306. https://doi.org/10.35445/alishlah.v17i1.6246
Databoks/Katadata. (2025, September 23). 42,000 pesantren in Indonesia for 2024/2025, concentrated in Java. Databoks. https://databoks.katadata.co.id/en/education/statistics/68e38957916b1/42000-pesantren-in-indonesia-for-20242025-concentrated-in-java
Foundation for Environmental Education. (n.d.). Eco-Schools programme. Retrieved September 2026, from https://www.ecoschools.global/
goodnewsfromindonesia.id. (2025, September 27). Ini, Ponpes Sunan Pandanaran Yogyakarta raih penghargaan dan punya 15 cabang. https://www.goodnewsfromindonesia.id/2025/09/27/ini-ponpes-sunan-pandanaran-yogyakarta-raih-penghargaan-dan-punya-15-cabang
Hsieh, H.-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277–1288. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732305276687
Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2019, October 4). Eighth ICEM adopts Rabat Declaration on the Promotion of Cultural and Religious Roles in the Protection of the Environment and Achieving Sustainable Development. ICESCO. https://icesco.org/en/2019/10/04/eighth-icem-adopts-rabat-declaration-on-the-promotion-of-cultural-and-religious-roles-in-the-protection-of-the-environment-and-achieving-sustainable-development/
jatim.viva.co.id. (n.d.). Pondok Pesantren Rahmatan Lil Alamin Nganjuk raih penghargaan Eco Pesantren tingkat provinsi. https://jatim.viva.co.id/kabar/6986-pesantren-rahmatan-lil-alamin-nganjuk-raih-penghargaan-eco-pesantren-tingkat-provinsi
Khalid, F. (2019). Signs on the earth: Islam, modernity and the climate crisis. Kube Publishing.
Khotijah, L. N., & Mushawir. (2024). Kemandirian Pondok Pesantren Sunan Pandanaran Yogyakarta dan relevansi dengan Education for Sustainable Development. Journal of Innovation Research and Knowledge, 4(6), 3637–3648. https://doi.org/10.53625/jirk.v4i6.8875
Kozinets, R. V. (2010). Netnography: Doing ethnographic research online. Sage Publications.
Majelis Ulama Indonesia. (2011). Fatwa MUI Nomor 22 Tahun 2011 tentang pertambangan ramah lingkungan [Fatwa on environmentally friendly mining]. MUI.
Majelis Ulama Indonesia. (2014a). Fatwa MUI Nomor 4 Tahun 2014 tentang pelestarian satwa langka untuk keseimbangan ekosistem [Fatwa on the preservation of endangered species for ecosystem balance]. MUI.
Majelis Ulama Indonesia. (2014b). Fatwa MUI Nomor 41 Tahun 2014 tentang pengelolaan sampah untuk mencegah kerusakan lingkungan [Fatwa on waste management to prevent environmental damage]. MUI.
Mangunjaya, F. M., & McKay, J. E. (2012). Reviving an Islamic approach for environmental conservation in Indonesia. Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology, 16(3), 286–305.
rm.id. (2024, June 15). Pusat Pengajian Islam Universitas Nasional gelar Ekopesantren Award 2024. https://rm.id/baca-berita/education/224424/pusat-pengajian-islam-universitas-nasional-gelar-ekopesantren-award-2024
Strathern, M. (Ed.). (2000). Audit cultures: Anthropological studies in accountability, ethics and the academy. Routledge.
Universitas Nasional. (2024, June 17). Tutup rangkaian program Ekopesantren, PPI UNAS berikan penghargaan kepada 13 ponpes. MPR UNAS. https://mpr.unas.ac.id/tutup-rangkaian-program-ekopesantren-ppi-unas-berikan-penghargaan-kepada-13-ponpes/
United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development (A/RES/70/1). United Nations.
United Nations Environment Programme. (n.d.). Al-Mizan: A covenant for the Earth. Retrieved September 2026, from https://www.unep.org/al-mizan-covenant-earth
van Dijck, J. (2014). Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance & Society, 12(2), 197–208. https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v12i2.4776
Widodo, C. D. (2026). Eco-pesantren in Indonesia: A faith-based sustainability education model integrating Islamic environmental ethics and institutional practices. Studia Ecologiae et Bioethicae, 24(3), 41–55. https://doi.org/10.21697/seb.5894





















