The IES advocates for sustainable development and practice across the environmental sciences. This includes environmental impact management and social responsibility; in order to maintain sustainable operations as a business, we must do our part in monitoring our impact on society and the environment, and ethically validate our decisions and actions in all that we do. To ensure we do this, we audit our operations every two years to hold ourselves accountable, check progress and develop action plans towards the goal of a more sustainable operation. This year, in light of COVID-19 and the associated workplace and operating restrictions, we have elected to audit our operations earlier than our planned 2021 audit due to significant operational changes.

The 2020 environmental and sustainability audit follows the same science-based sustainability framework developed by The Natural Step (TNS), as stated in the 2019 audit. This allows us to undertake an evaluation of:

• The current state of the Institution’s operations;
• Our vision of where we aspire to be in terms of sustainability; and
• The steps required to achieve these goals.

To see how we have applied this systems approach to audit our operations, our 2020 environmental and sustainability audit results, and the steps we look to take moving forward, please click the link below.