The CANIE Accord
On 8 September 2022, AEF became a signatory to the CANIE Accord — the framework of the Climate Action Network for International Educators, now signed by more than 130 institutions worldwide. AEF was the first Italian educational institution to sign, and one of relatively few European providers to commit at that stage.
The Accord gives us a structured accountability framework across five commitment areas — Leadership & Influencing, Emissions Accounting & Reduction, Travel, Facilities & Operations, and Climate Education — at three levels of ambition: Basic, Better, and Best. We report our progress every year, and we report it honestly.
Progress 2022-2025
Commitments achieved per area
Over the first three years of implementation, AEF built a profile of 25 Basic, 24 Better, and 1 Best commitments — genuine institutional integration rather than a paper exercise
What this looks like in practice
Train travel has been the default for all AEF learning excursions since 2023, replacing coach travel; a sustainable-travel briefing opens every student orientation; partner meetings are mainly virtual. In 2026 AEF joined the Travel with CANIE campaign, supporting low-carbon participation at international education conferences.
An accredited Carbon Literacy Course for students and faculty since 2023; SDGs embedded across faculty syllabi; Sustainability Week every semester since 2025.
A Sustainability Action Group with a dedicated budget since 2023; climate action formally embedded in at least one staff role; digital-first marketing fully implemented; ethical, plant-based, locally sourced catering for all events. Almost our entire staff and faculty community commutes on foot, by bicycle, or by public transport.
Climate action sits at the centre of our 2022–2027 Strategic Plan. AEF was invited to ICASF 2025 (Abu Dhabi University), where it was presented as a leading case of the CANIE Accord’s impact in international education, and has accepted sessions at EAIE Glasgow and the Forum on Education Abroad EMEA Conference in Lisbon, both 2026.
A longitudinal study tracks student carbon footprints and attitudes before, during, and after their programme in Florence; travel surveys, programme records, and mobility data now feed a more accurate emissions picture.
2026: fewer commitments, sharper focus
After three years of implementation, we reviewed every commitment we made in 2022 — and we changed our mind about some of them.
Some were too broad to measure. Some sat beyond the realistic scope of an international education institution of our size. Keeping them on paper would have looked better than it would have worked. So ahead of the CANIE Accord 2.0 cycle we deliberately streamlined our portfolio — from 50 commitments to 34 — retiring the pledges we couldn’t measure or meaningfully act on, and reinforcing the areas where we’ve built genuine expertise and momentum: climate literacy and sustainability education, student engagement, local community partnerships, experiential learning, operational sustainability, and measurable institutional practice.
This is a choice for quality over quantity. We think a shorter list we can prove is worth more than a longer list we can’t.
We publish gaps as well as achievements. Our priority for 2026–2027 is establishing a formal greenhouse-gas emissions baseline across Scope 1, 2, and 3 — the most significant remaining gap in our CANIE compliance. Our longitudinal study is building the foundation for it. We would rather show the honest picture than overstate our position.
