Welcome to a semester of learning, discovery, and responsibility

A structured two-day training that deepens your understanding of climate responsibility and your own impact. Attend both sessions, then submit a Carbon Action Plan — realistic, measurable commitments to reduce your personal carbon footprint.

If your Carbon Action Plan is approved, you become Carbon Literate — and receive official certification from The Carbon Literacy® Project, an internationally recognised standard in climate education. It’s a credential that acknowledges knowledge and real commitment, and it goes on your CV. To date, 79 students and staff have earned it. To our knowledge, this is the only internationally accredited carbon literacy certification embedded in a study abroad experience in Florence — and we deliver it entirely in-house, through our own certified facilitators. Understanding impact is essential. Taking responsibility is transformative.

Together with local administrations, AEF plants trees each semester. You’ll plant your own, and form a lifelong connection with the community that welcomed you. Between Spring 2023 and Spring 2026, AEF students planted 273 trees across seven planting seasons — from the Parco di San Bartolo a Cintoia in Florence to Lucignano, Castiglion Fibocchi, Castagneto Carducci, and Campiglia Marittima, with municipal representatives joining the ceremonies. Every planting is recorded in a register: location, species, date, expected carbon sequestration. Because what you plant should be documented, not just photographed.

Your chance to be inspired by guest experts, step outside your classroom through open lectures, take action locally alongside an environmental association working to protect Florence, become carbon literate through hands-on training, and share ideas as part of a growing green community. Held every semester since 2025, faculty from across the curriculum — art and art history, photography, literature, dance, history — each designs a session exploring sustainability through the lens of their own discipline, and you can attend a class outside your programme in place of a regular lesson. Recent editions have featured an upcycling workshop with local partner Zero Lab (crafting objects from recycled leather offcuts), guest lectures on overtourism, climate migration, and the sustainability of artificial intelligence, and a community clean-up with Angeli del Bello. One goal: to empower you to lead by example and become a true agent of change. Next edition: Fall 2026, 21–23 September.

The excursion dedicated specifically to sustainability. You’ll explore how a Tuscan community transformed what was once seen as an environmental “problem” into an opportunity for innovation, regeneration, and collective growth. Through observation, dialogue, and reflection, you’re invited to rethink what a challenge actually is. Peccioli is an experiential component of the Carbon Literacy Training.

For three days you’ll be part of a local community: living with a host family, helping teachers at the local school, joining cultural activities and traditions. You’ll engage with local identity while learning to appreciate and respect cultural diversity — and experience sustainability in all its dimensions: environmental, cultural, and social.

AEF’s Sustainability Action Group meets regularly to design, implement, and monitor our sustainability initiatives. You’re invited. Share your perspective, engage in dialogue with faculty and staff, and contribute to initiatives that haven’t been built yet. Sustainability is a shared process, and student voices shape institutional progress. This isn’t a symbolic invitation: student feedback from the SAG has directly reshaped our Carbon Literacy Course and our Sustainability Week.

During the semester we run focus groups to gather your reflections and feedback on the sustainability experience at AEF. Your feedback drives what we change next.