Adding solar panels to the roof of a health centre in Tanzania (Photo: PRI's The World, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
As part of IIED’s commitment to transparency and working in an open and accountable way, we publish information about our actions on environmental responsibility.
The third environmental sustainability impact report (also below) outlines IIED’s progress on the five pillars of our environmental sustainability strategy to:
- Reduce our carbon emissions
- Promote ethical banking, pensions and procurement
- Establish eco-friendly office environments
- Show environmental leadership and campaigning, and
- Promote and support an environmentally-aware workforce.
However, this will be the last report in this format, with a new 2030 environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy being introduced in 2026 featuring a more holistic approach to our sustainability efforts, aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“In addition to onboarding our sustainability lead, we’ve continued to take steps to address our environmental footprint,” said executive director Tom Mitchell.
“We have extended our partnership with Greenly to complete a full emissions footprint of our organisation for the third year in a row… [and] will be moving forward with a 2023/24 baseline for our net zero emissions reduction trajectory.”
He added: “We report an increase in emissions for the third year in a row, largely driven by an increase in business travel and spending on services. Anticipating this, we hosted our first ever staff engagement workshops to co-create ways to better monitor our air travel, without compromising our ability to deliver our mission.
“At the same time as maintaining our commitment to environmental excellence, we focused on the development of our 2030 ESG strategy. This included the development of objectives and an accountability structure to monitor and report on progress, shared in this report.”
This summary transparently outlines our scope 1-3 emissions, encompassing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions associated with our operations and value chain.
Scope 1 emissions represent direct emissions from our controlled sources, which includes emissions from the generation of heating and cooling our offices.
Scope 2 emissions cover our indirect emissions resulting from the generation of purchased electricity, accounting for under 1% of our total emissions.
Scope 3 emissions include indirect emissions from our entire value chain, accounting for 99% of our total emissions. The majority of these emissions are attributed to our business travel with the remainder as a result of the purchasing of services and assets.
Work in 2024/25 included updating our procurement policy to include ethical and sustainable procurement criteria, including carbon reduction plans for key suppliers. And the institute collaborated with COTAP to offset 1,181 MT CO2e travel-related emissions, focused on global poverty alleviation and fighting inequality through certified forestry projects in Uganda, India, Fiji, and Indonesia.
While IIED’s biggest source of emissions is from business travel, the amount is lower than pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. IIED is committed to reducing its emissions in line with net zero and hosted staff engagement workshops to support setting an ambitious but realistic target to reduce air travel.
New ESG strategy
More than 30 stakeholders were consulted to inform IIED’s new 2030 strategy under the pillars of environment, social and governance.
Environment: implement sustainable practices into our own operations to reduce our environmental impact and to help address the urgent global climate and ecological emergency
Social: Support the health and wellbeing of IIED's employees, stakeholders and the broader community
Governance: Develop a governance culture that promotes transparency, accountability and inclusivity, actively encouraging open communication of decisions and participation in central governance bodies
Each pillar has been assigned a series of objectives (shown in the table below) and been aligned with specific SDGs, and the report also highlights the metrics by which we will measure progress.
Previous years
- Responsible operations and environmental sustainability 2024
- Responsible operations and environmental sustainability 2023
- Responsible operations and environmental sustainability 2022
- Responsible operations 2021
- Responsible operations 2020
- Responsible operations 2019
- Responsible operations 2018
- Responsible operations 2017
- Responsible operations 2016
- Responsible operations 2015
- Responsible operations 2014
