Sustainability

Our Mission

We have a unique opportunity to educate our students and our community about caring for the planet on which we all rely and which our children and grandchildren will inherit. We believe we must equip our students with a connection to people and the planet as well as the scientific evidence and critical thinking skills required to inform their own decisions, and be self-empowered toward positive impact.

We believe we have the power to create change through educating our students. We must set an example and inspire others, within and beyond our school boundaries. Our message is that we can all do something - just one small action such as switching off lights, advocating for animals, or reducing print materials, if repeated by many people, can have an enormous impact -- not just from that small action, but having the attitude that our actions matter!

Commitment to Sustainability

Sustainability is very much a part of our Dulwich Pudong DNA, imbedded throughout every aspect of our College.

Curriculum

Sustainability is a constant theme in our curriculum all year long. Whether that is DUCKS classes learning persuasive writing skills by writing letters community leaders advocating for reusable face masks or our JS science students researching how snacks contribute to plastic pollution and creating advocacy plans to to reduce that or our SS students tackling a number of sustainability issues through their CAS projects, it is safe to say that not a week goes by without sustainability coming up in our classrooms.

CCA Programme

Our CCA programme extends this engagement with sustainability holistically. For example, did you know every CCA in DUCKS is explicitly linked to a UN Sustainable Development Goal? And of course there are numerous CCAs in JS and SS which explicitly address sustainability issues and give students a chance to create their own CCAs around the issues which matter to them such as the Thrift Flip CCA in Senior School which advocates for issues regarding the fast fashion industry.

Overseeing and guiding all of this is a team of teachers with direct responsibility for driving the sustainability agenda led by our Director of Global Citizenship, Anthony Reich.

Senior School GC Prefect team

Our student leaders are no less involved in driving sustainability throughout the three schools.

On the Senior School level we have our Global Citizenship Prefect portfolio within which there is a Prefect for Sustainability. This team of student leaders is responsible for many fantastic sustainability initiatives throughout the year such as the Global Citizenship Journal and the One Voice Summit.

In addition there are:

• 8 GC Ambassadors from Senior School (Middle School)
• 4 GC Student leaders in Junior School

Friends of Dulwich EcoPanthers

Our parent community is no less active in supporting sustainability initiatives. Set up last year, the EcoPanthers is a group of Dulwich Parents who organise regular activities and share their innovations, tips, and best practices for sustainable living throughout the community.

Facilities

We have made incremental improvements in our College facilities to make them greener. In addition to more obvious projects like the organic garden on the main campus, there are a number of important behind the scenes projects which have taken place including

• Food waste recycling
• Movement sensitive lighting installation
• Energy efficient lightbulbs
• Water-efficient taps in washrooms and showers
• Replacement of old chillers with modern, more energy efficient chillers

Taken together these not so obvious improvements have reduced our energy consumption and made us more environmentally-friendly overall.

But we know that we are at the beginning of this journey and there is still a long way to go and we are very excited about what the near future will bring.

One of the tentpoles of the project will be a full carbon footprint mapping along with a plan to reduce and offset our carbon emissions so that we know every day we are contributing to the global goal of preserving the planet. The results of this project will be published during the 2022-2023 Academic Year.

"Sustainability is already deeply imbedded into the holistic education we provide at all levels," says DCSPD Director of Global Citizenship Anthony Reich. "Being able now to bring in the ESG Report will allow us to introduce a powerful new dimension through which we hope to achieve a whole new level of student engagement."

This process will provide our students with deep personal connection to and real-world examples of our mission to pioneer education for a sustainable future.

Says Shu Yong T, Sustainability Prefect, “I'm so glad to be at a school that strives to make a positive difference. Having it embedded within our curriculum, it's an incredible opportunity for us to contribute and promote beyond our academic learnings.”

ESG Report

On 22 April - Earth Day 2022 - Dulwich Pudong was proud to participate in a groundbreaking event: the launch of the first EiM group-wide Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Report.

The Report, which has been over a year in the making, for the first time publishes the key metrics which we believe are critical for measuring the social impact of our schools.

The Report identifies four pillars that encompass and guide who we are and who we aspire to be, as well as giving us clear metrics to define our progress along the way. They are:

Learning

Meaningful and relevant learning that nurtures students as global citizens.

Planet

Helping more and harming less, with sustainable and regenerative ideas and practices for the planet.

People

Working together as a rich and diverse community for the benefit of all.

Policy

Building the systems and strong organisational structure to support our collective ambition.

Learn more about the process and the people behind the ESG Report in this video:

As the founding College of the Dulwich International Group and one of the pilot schools driving the development of the group-wide ESG report, Dulwich Pudong is poised to take the next step by creating an ESG report specifically for our own College.

We have formed our own ESG Task Force which draws together a diverse, multifunctional team of our staff, students, and parents.

The creation of an ESG Report for our College also presents a uniquely valuable learning opportunity for our students. They will gain insights into the foundational concepts behind ESG, understand its significance for their current and future lives, and develop expertise in an increasingly important set of principles driving business globally.