The ISCN and its members commit to continuous improvement through learning and innovation on all aspects of sustainability on campus. Key goals in this respect are summarized in the ISCN-GULF Charter, which will be complemented by documents on suggested guidelines and topics for target agreements.
The Charter was developed to support Universities in target setting and reporting about sustainable campus development goals and performance. Organizations endorsing the Charter commit to set their own, concrete targets against three common Charter principles, and to report transparently and regularly on their progress against those targets.
Development and endorsement of the Charter was shared between the ISCN and GULF, the Global Universities Leaders Forum convened by the World Economic Forum (WEF), which currently consists of 25 heads of leading universities from 9 different countries (GULF). At the WEF Forum in Davos in January 2010, the Charter was for the first time presented to the public, and opened for endorsement by interested organizations. Current signatories of the Charter include:
The Americas: Brown University, Columbia University, Georgetown University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Monterrey Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University
Europe: EPFL, ETH Zurich, INSEAD, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford
Asia: Indian Institute of Technology, Keio University, National University of Singapore, Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Tokyo
ISCN Reporting Guidelines (under review)
Charter signing: process, commitments, and benefits
To ensure the full strategic commitment of organizations that want to join the ISCN-GULF Charter, signing of the Charter by the president, vice-chancellor or rector is required. Joining the Charter includes the commitment to produce short Charter Progress Reports annually, and to pay a Charter membership fee that contributes to the costs of the ISCN-Secretariat and its ISCN-GULF Charter program. Charter membership entitles endorsing organizations to be listed as recognized Charter members on the ISCN website, to distribute their Charter reports to their peers via this website, and to be featured in annual GULF reports on Charter progress made available at the World Economic Forum.
Article appeared in Weltexpress about the ISCN Conference 2009 in Lausanne(German)
The ISCN/GULF Conference Summary 2009 is now available for download.
