SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability isn't a section of our work.

It's the framework everything else is built inside.

Our commitments, our reports and data, our SDG and sector-framework alignment, our stories, and our recognition – published in full, verified every year.

What we dropped, and why

We stopped committing to "encourage regulators and accreditation bodies to include climate criteria in their standards" – we don't have a realistic channel of influence there, and we'd rather commit to things we can actually move.

The CANIE Accord – 39 commitments, and the ones we declined.

OUR COMMITMENTS

IOI was an early signatory of the CANIE Accord – the climate-action framework for international education in 2022. In 2025, we conducted a full review of our commitments against CANIE's complete menu of 70 possible actions, and published the results honestly: what we added, what we dropped, and why.

Total actions adopted

Articles covered

Public reporting

2022 COMMITMENT

All five (4–8)

Climate Action Plan only

2026 COMMITMENT

39 (+10 added, −1 dropped, 2 declined with stated reasons)

All five (4–8)

Climate Action Plan + Annual GHG Report, now a standing yearly commitment

What we declined to adopt

CANIE's menu includes a 25%-per-year emissions reduction target. Flights are roughly 94–95% of our footprint, and cutting that by 25% annually isn't achievable without abandoning the travel-based model itself. We marked it honestly as not applicable, and commit instead to full annual neutralization of all remaining emissions.

Carbon Negative, not Net-Zero

Older IOI materials refer to a "Net-Zero 2025 Strategy." We've retired that language. Under the SBTi Net-Zero Standard, net zero requires roughly 90% absolute emissions reduction – not realistic while flights remain core. Carbon Negative is a claim we can already prove, every year.

Full CANIE Accord signatory profile: canie.org

2024 at a glance

REPORTS & DATA

Gross emissions (all scopes)

Active offsetting (regenerative agriculture + local food)

Net emissions after active offsetting

Cumulative external offsets retired (Ecologi + ClimeCo)

Share of footprint from flights

Status

METRIC

2024 VALUE

690.6 tCO₂e

108.1 tCO₂e

582.5 tCO₂e

2,766 tCO₂e

≈94–95%

Carbon Negative – verified independently every year

2019–2021

Founding offsets via Ecologi

As part of our 2021 carbon neutral initiative we used Native's calculator to work out the flight-related footprint of our students, staff, volunteers and participants. Since 2019 we have offset and retired over 350 tonnes of Scope 3 emissions through Ecologi – every tonne certified to Gold Standard or the Verified Carbon Standard, with funding allocated on the Project Drawdown framework.

PERIOD

2019–2022

2022–2024

2025

Cumulative total

PARTNER

Ecologi

ClimeCo

–

2022–2024

Annual GHG Emissions & Mitigation Report (2025)

Climate Action Plan 2026

2024 DPNG External Evaluation (Cancillería)

ClimeCo Carbon Offset Certificate – 723 tCO₂e

ClimeCo Carbon Offset Certificate (2025) – 1,693 tCO₂e

CAR1863-5 Mexico Forest Restoration, Quintana Roo Summary

Download PDF

Ecologi Carbon Credit Certificate – 350 tCO₂e

As programs scaled, residual emissions grew. We partnered with ClimeCo and retired 723 tonnes of CO₂e through the VCS1133 Yacumama Forest Carbon Project, a third-party verified emission reduction initiative under the Verified Carbon Standard. The certificate is published below in full, with serial numbers.

That figure is what remained after our own conservation work – not our total emissions. Regenerative agriculture, mangrove restoration and cutting imported goods to the archipelago mitigated a significant share internally before a single external offset was purchased.

PROJECT

Multiple (Gold Standard / VCS / CCB)

VCS1133 – Yacumama Forest Carbon Project

Certificates

ClimeCo Certificate (723 tCO₂e)

ClimeCo Certificate 2025 (1,693 tCO₂e)

Download PDF

CAR1863-5 Mexico Forest Restoration — project summary

Download PDF

Ecologi Certificate (350 tCO₂e)

Download PDF

Every certificate is published in full – retirement volumes, project IDs and serial numbers exactly as issued.

Downloads

Annual GHG Emissions & Mitigation Report (2024)

2025

1,693 tCO₂e retired for the 2025 footprint

Our 2025 residual emissions were offset through ClimeCo's CAR1864 Bonos Aroma Del Mayab project – part of the CAR1863–65 Mexico Forest Restoration initiative in Quintana Roo, registered under the Climate Action Reserve and restoring 72,651 hectares of semi-evergreen rainforest with local ejido communities.

Purchased 30 December 2025 and retired 4 February 2026 – credits are bought against the reporting year and retired once the year's footprint is finalised, which is why the retirement date falls in the following year. This is explained in full in our 2025 GHG report. ClimeCo matched the purchase tonne for tonne.

Cumulative external offset record

TCO₂E OFFSET

Unlike most CANIE self-reporting, IOI's Isabela programs are evaluated every year by an external body, filed directly with Ecuador's Ministry of Foreign Affairs under our formal cooperation agreement with the Ecuadorian government.

YEAR

2018

2019

2022

2024 (H1)

2024

2025

RESULT

Scaling up — 723 tCO₂e offset via ClimeCo

CAR1864 v2021 – Bonos Aroma Del Mayab (Mexico Forest Restoration, Quintana Roo)

–

350

723

1,693

2,766

CERTIFICATE

25 July 2022 · ID d3baf01

Compliance date 10 July 2026

Purchased 30 Dec 2025 · retired 4 Feb 2026 · serials CAR-1-MX-1864-42-2085-QR-2021-8428-18113 to 19805

–

Independently evaluated, not self-reported

ABG evaluation: 100% of planned objectives met

ABG evaluation: 88.6% executed – 2 activities suspended for disclosed external reasons

DPNG: 200 volunteers · 6,315 volunteer hours logged

ABG evaluation: 100% of planned objectives met

DPNG external evaluation (Cancillería): 100% technical execution · zero incidents · certified no risk of non-compliance

$258,671 USD annual program, formally mapped to Ecuador's National Development Plan and 6 UN SDGs

Voluntary $15/week carbon contribution

From 2025, participants can choose to contribute $15 per week toward IOI's offsetting work – priced to be accessible, entirely optional. If a participant doesn't contribute, IOI still fully covers the cost. This isn't a fee. It's an invitation to be part of the solution, and documentation of the specific project funded is provided to anyone who takes part.

Tackling the 800lb gorilla: offsetting flights

We first minimise our emissions, then mitigate as many as possible internally and sustainably, and only then offset the remainder externally – while we keep growing our own inset capacity.

Download PDF

SDG ALIGNMENT & SECTOR FRAMEWORKS

Documented in our official filings.
Not a marketing claim.

Our 2025 DPNG project agreement formally maps program activities to six UN Sustainable Development Goals, against Ecuador's own National Development Plan.

The Forum's Guidelines for Advancing the SDGs through Education Abroad

IOI doesn't just cite these guidelines – our own Sustainability & Strategic Partnerships Director, Daniel Ponce-Taylor, served on the Forum on Education Abroad's SDG Working Group (2020–2024), the committee that wrote them.

SDG 2 – Zero Hunger

SDG 3 – Good Health & Well-Being

SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities & Communities

SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption & Production

SDG 14 – Life Below Water

SDG 15 – Life on Land

SDG

Regenerative agriculture & local food production (also our active carbon-offsetting mechanism)

ABG animal health campaigns; community health elements of the Isabela program

Host-family program, community infrastructure, CGREG partnership

Import-reduction impact of local food production

Marine iguana and sea turtle nesting protection with DPNG

Forest nursery, giant tortoise breeding, invasive species control

HOW OUR OWN FILINGS DOCUMENT IT

The Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism

IOI is a signatory of the Glasgow Declaration, committing to halve tourism-related emissions by 2030 and reach net zero as soon as possible before 2050 – reported against in our annual Climate Action Plan rather than kept as a standalone pledge page.

One mature record,
one honest early-stage story.

STORIES & IMPACT

TULANE PILOT, MARCH 2025

Would recommend course experience to a friend

Would recommend the program to a friend/peer

Felt more equipped to engage across cultural difference

RESULT

100%

90%

70%

Plan to study abroad again at Tulane

70%

Isabela – a mature track record

15+ years, multiple independently-evaluated partnerships with DPNG, ABG and CGREG, and a volunteer contribution that has grown year on year – from 6,315 hours logged in 2022 to 9,828 in the first half of 2024 alone.

"I think that the program could benefit from deeper analysis of the local Garífuna community and its relationship with the military, Honduran government, and conservation entities… I am looking forward to seeing the development in the future, and will be sure to recommend it."

MELISSA · TULANE UNIVERSITY