About IESG

As concerns about our changing climate grow, every sector – including higher education – is being called upon to find new ways to measure and mitigate their climate impact. At the same time, students and international education professionals, are increasingly concerned about the climate crisis.

International teams often don’t have the time, resources and expertise to identify what they can do to reduce their own emissions and build sustainable practices into their work. It’s often left to individuals to drive passion projects.

There are countless examples of great practice, but until now there has been no way of collecting them in one spot, and no common means of measurement, reporting and comparison of Scope 3 emissions.

That’s where we come in. We give you a framework for your action. Because we are international education professionals first, we give you the tools to make a difference as part of your day-to-day work, helping you visualise how the sum of your choices can make a difference.

Our key tool for this is the Climate Action Barometer (CAB), a survey developed by our core team of world class experts in sustainability and climate action, international education and comparative data.

Thanks to our work with universities all over the world, we know what climate-friendly initiatives and practices are out there, so we can provide detailed analysis and recommendations to help you match the best in the world.

We also share case studies and advice through our regular program of Good Practice Exchange (GPX) sessions, meaning you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to operate more sustainably.

We examine and compare what policies, practices and interventions you have in place around international education – covering everything from marketing and recruitment of international students, to study abroad and transnational education (TNE); all the intricate parts of global higher education that usually don’t find their way into university sustainability plans.

We also calculate the Scope 3 travel emissions generated by international student and staff mobility. Carbon accounting is just a small part of what we do, but we do think it's important to understand where emissions come from and to minimise them through thoughtful program design and policy where possible.

Our target is to help institutions make better, evidence-based decisions around climate action, and to learn from and share examples of great practice. We hope that through this work, participating institutions can demonstrate not just a commitment to climate action, but evidence of how that commitment is translated into action.

We also aim to show the comparative and cumulative impact of those changes over time.

Our strategy is to support international educators to show real climate leadership: to themselves, their students and their partners.

Environmental sustainability in global higher education is about much more than simply tallying aviation emissions. It is about the many other choices university practitioners have to make: how they prepare students to study abroad, how they engage and influence global partners and providers, how they communicate the importance of these issues, and whether their own words and actions amplify urgency, apathy, or denial.

What better way to do our part than to collaborate and share global insights, ideas and good practice across our vibrant sector.