CAB Focus
Climate insights for Education Abroad
and Transnational Education teams.
Targeted strategies for climate
conscious teams.
Climate action is gaining momentum in international education. From sustainability rankings and climate action commitments, institutions across the globe have access to a range of tools to help measure and mitigate their climate impact.
Now, individual Education Abroad and Transnational Education (TNE) teams can lead the way on climate action.
CAB Focus offers the same globally comparable insights and benchmarks on sustainability policies, practices and emissions as the Climate Action Barometer. While the latter takes a holistic view of an institution’s internationalisation activity, CAB Focus empowers individual teams to hone in on their specific area and take action sooner, rather than later.
CAB Focus
for Education Abroad.
About
At its heart, education abroad is about enhancing global awareness. Although our work is a force for good, we can’t afford to turn a blind eye to its negative impact on the climate and sustainability.
Is your team keen to reduce its climate impact, but struggling to know where to start? Are you looking to embed sustainability into your program design and empower your students to make more climate-friendly choices?
Just as COVID-19 forced us to reimagine education abroad in a world without travel, climate change offers an opportunity to rethink the design and delivery of our programs for a healthier planet.
Want to know more about how you can measure and mitigate the climate impact of your Education Abroad team? Get in touch!
CAB Focus
for Transnational Education.
About
Many universities face a major challenge; how to balance their sustainability ambitions and carbon reduction targets with maintaining a strong international program. Transnational Education (TNE) is increasingly seen as part of the potential toolkit to tackle this dilemma.
Increasing student access to the benefits of a global education, without the cost and emissions associated with international travel, can only be a good thing… but it’s certainly not a panacea.
Whether it’s part of a deliberate strategy to balance international growth with reducing emissions, or simply a happy by-product, TNE affords education providers with various opportunities to expand their global reach at a lower cost to the planet.
CAB Focus is the perfect tool to help assess and reduce the climate impact of different TNE delivery modes and models.
Want to know more about how you can measure and mitigate the climate impact of your Transnational Education team? Get in touch!
Why join
CAB Focus?
Lead the way
on climate action
Join a leading group of education providers and gain international recognition for your leadership in climate action. Help drive the metrics for measuring and mitigating the global impact of climate change in Education Abroad or TNE.
Gain the data and insights for positive change
Access data and insights to inform your decision-making and identify priority areas for climate action. Gain tips and tools to incorporate sustainability into your messaging and recruitment, enhancing your competitive advantage with students.
Make your commitment tangible and trackable
Demonstrate more than just a commitment to sustainability – demonstrate your institution’s commitment to measuring, comparing and tracking progress against your peers, nationally and globally, over time.
Be the change that your students want to see
Contribute meaningfully to your institution’s sustainability goals, respond to growing student concerns and do your part to lessen international education’s impact of climate change.
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What elements of international education does the CAB cover?We take a broad view of international education because we understand that no two institutions prioritise the same services or structure their international teams in the same way. The CAB measures climate action across seven core components: Global staff engagement Student sentiment and engagement International marketing and recruitment Education abroad Transnational education, global campuses Sectoral engagement and collaboration Emissions reduction and travel policy.
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What’s involved in the data collection process?The questions in the Climate Action Barometer do not involve surveying students, you will be able to answer many of the CAB questions using information you already hold within the International Office or global team. For some questions you will need to ask your sustainability, central data office or HR team to assist. This should not be too onerous a task for them, as they will in many cases be able to answer yes or no or to provide data that already exists. In our analysis and reporting process, all data is reported anonymously and conforms fully with data protection legislation. We collect the data for this Survey on a secure platform which uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption (also known as HTTPS) for all transmitted data.
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Who is best placed within an institution to coordinate the data collection?The majority of the questions relate directly to practices and policies within the International/Global function of an institution, so the International or Global team would be best placed to coordinate the process. If you already participate in an international operations benchmarking exercise, such as the AUIDF BIO report (Australia) or the International Education Benchmark (global), the staff member responsible for coordinating that would be a good candidate.
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What is the expected time commitment of my international team if we sign up?We estimate it should take approximately 1 day (8.25 hours) of an international team member’s time, spread over a period of 4 to 6 weeks to gather the information for the survey. The time taken to complete the travel data component varies considerably depending on the quality of the data you have available.
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We already contribute to other sustainability-related surveys and campaigns. How does the CAB fit in and what are the benefits of taking part?We are very cognisant of the workloads at institutions, especially in international and sustainability teams. That’s why we have been careful to design the survey so that it complements rather than duplicates existing commitments. The CAB gives international teams a clearer understanding of how they can contribute to overall university climate ambitions. This is particularly important for reducing Scope 3 emissions as we know that international business travel, flights emissions for study abroad and for incoming students can amount to a significant proportion of a university’s overall footprint. Taking part in the Barometer should therefore support a university’s broader commitment to campaigns such as the Education Race to Zero, and should not duplicate data collection for other existing frameworks, like AASHE Stars.
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What is the expected time commitment of my sustainability team if we sign up?The workload for staff in the sustainability team will not be onerous as much of the data collation will be undertaken by the international team. We estimate that, depending on the structure of your institution, it will take no more than half a day of Sustainability team time, spread over a period of 4 to 6 weeks.