Executive summary. Decarbonisation is a powerful opportunity for business schools to lead by example and strengthen their long-term relevance. By rethinking operations—from energy use and buildings to travel and procurement—schools can cut emissions while improving efficiency, resilience, and credibility. Initiatives such as the AERO network show how collaboration, shared methodologies, and transparency can turn climate ambition into action. Far from being a constraint, decarbonisation is framed as a driver of innovation, cost savings, and competitive advantage, aligning institutional values with the expectations of future students, faculty, and society.
Key takeaways
- Effective decarbonisation requires executive-level accountability, transparent reporting, and budgets aligned with ambition.
- Decarbonisation initiatives can deliver near-term cost savings while strengthening institutional resilience.
- The AERO network provides a collaborative platform for business schools to share and accelerate credible decarbonisation efforts.
Decarbonising Business Schools: Cutting Carbon, Not Corners
Heating and cooling, catering, commuting, and business trips all leave a heavy footprint. Real decarbonisation means rewiring how business schools operate — from campus basements to airport terminals. Because embedding sustainability in research and teaching is only part of the puzzle.
Business Schools and Their Emissions
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remain a critical yet often underexplored aspect of business schools’ sustainability agendas. Considerable progress has been made in integrating sustainability into teaching, research, and strategy. However, reducing the schools’ emissions continues to pose significant challenges.
We Preach on Sustainability, But Oftentimes We Do Not Walk the Talk, especially on the environmental dimensions of ESG. Business schools know how to draw up strategic roadmaps, install governance, manage transformation, and shape future leaders. These same capabilities can be leveraged to advance institutional decarbonisation and model sustainable management in practice.
While some institutions have already taken meaningful steps, broader and more coordinated efforts will be essential to align academic leadership with the global climate agenda.
Decarbonisation is not a side issue. It is financially attractive in the long term, a reputational safeguard, and, because of the visible and material effects of climate warming, an increasing necessity. Business school emissions lurk not only in heating systems and electricity bills but also in mobility, catering contracts, and supply chains. The job is not to write another policy — it is to think differently, creatively, and dare to innovate. Because, as the saying goes, where there’s a will, there’s a way.
The upside is clear. Efficient buildings save money. Schools that are less reliant on fossil fuels weather energy shocks better. Transparent climate strategies boost reputations and attract students and staff who care about values as well as rankings. In other words, decarbonisation is not only about carbon — it is also about credibility, viability and competitiveness.
The AERO Network
In February 2025, top European business schools gathered in Brussels and founded the network AERO – ‘air’ in Esperanto and an acronym for Alliance for Environmental Response in Business Schools.
AERO is an international alliance of business schools, combining peer exchange of a network with thought leadership of a think tank, to lead the global decarbonisation of management education. It aims to exchange, share, promote, and advocate decarbonisation of business schools. While other sustainability-related networks of business schools focus on research and education, AERO’s edge is in the carbon footprint.
The founding members of AERO are eight sustainability-minded business schools: ESADE, ESSEC, Kozminski University, University of St Gallen, SDA Bocconi School of Management, Stockholm School of Economics, Vlerick Business School, and WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management.
Members meet three times per year – two online and one physically – the annual leadership is rotatory, and the secretariat is in Brussels. The members share tips and tricks, best practices, and also learn from failed initiatives. In addition, they publish papers on topics material to decarbonise business schools. In 2025, AERO published two papers focused on Scope 3 emissions. They are publicly available on its website (www.aero-network.eu).
Pioneering School-tailored Methods for Scope 3 Emissions
The Greenhouse Gas Protocol splits emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 covers what happens directly on site—boilers, vehicles, and anything else the school owns. Scope 2 accounts for purchased energy, heating, and cooling. Scope 3 is the catch-all: procurement, catering, waste, and, above all, mobility. Scope 3 covers 15 categories across the value chain — eight upstream (supply chain) and seven downstream (linked to product use and end-of-life). For most schools, Scope 3 dwarfs everything else, accounting for about 70% to 90% of all emissions.
The first step is measurement as without numbers, pledges are hot air. Schools need to know how much energy they consume, how much of it comes from renewables, how many people commute, how many flights are booked each year, and what suppliers actually deliver.
The first paper of AERO is a survey on what business schools report in their Scope 3 emissions. The sample consists of more than 80 business schools in the 2024 and 2025 Master’s in Management and the Global MBA rankings of the Financial Times. Results show that most schools report on Scope 3 – 84% of the total – and the majority use the GHG Protocol. The top reported categories are mobility (of professors, staff, and students) and operations (waste, goods, and services). Arguably, these are the most material categories for a business school.
The second paper offers a clear, practical methodology for identifying, measuring, and reporting Scope 3 emissions, tailored specifically to business schools and grounded in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. The goal: to bring clarity, comparability, and credibility to Scope 3 reporting in the higher education sector. It provides step-by-step guidance that is accessible regardless of a school’s size, resources, or technological advancement. To support all levels of maturity, this paper is accompanied by a companion Excel file to facilitate implementation of the proposed framework.
Action After Measurement
Retrofitting buildings, improving insulation, upgrading lighting, and tightening heating and cooling systems quickly reduce emissions. Renewable energy contracts or on-site solar take schools further. Even switching out ageing diesel shuttles for electric vehicles adds up. These are not glamorous measures, but they are visible, practical, and relatively quick to implement. They cut costs as well as carbon, giving leadership something tangible to show early in the journey.
The hardest part is mobility. Business schools run on global mobility. Professors crisscross continents for conferences. Students sign up expecting international immersion. Executive programmes sell themselves on globe-spanning residences.
Each of these behaviours has a carbon cost and reducing them takes nerves. Travel policies can tighten business-class access and push regional trips toward trains instead of planes. Online collaboration is now robust enough that not every exchange needs to happen face-to-face. Programme design deserves scrutiny too: perhaps international exposure can be achieved with fewer and longer, more meaningful journeys rather than a carousel of continents. Procurement matters as well. Sourcing catering, choosing vegetarian menus, and insisting on greener supply chains reduce Scope 3 emissions.
These changes are rarely popular. But without them, decarbonisation is just talk. Oftentimes, these changes are believed to go against financial performance. Certainly, revenue is one of the main priorities for any business school. Decarbonisation, if well done, may increase revenues in the short term and decrease costs in the long term.
Neutrality with Integrity
Credits are used for offsetting the emissions once the business school has made the effort to reduce them. Put differently, credits are used for compensating the company’s emissions that cannot be avoided or removed. Therefore, credits cannot become a license for inaction.
In a forthcoming paper, AERO proposes a strategy for business schools to become carbon smart. It introduces a clear and practical methodology that combines reductions with offsetting. The framework guides schools step by step: setting boundaries, allocating emissions, developing reduction pathways, applying internal carbon pricing, and using proceeds for both decarbonisation and high-quality offsets. The message is straightforward: reduce first and offset what remains.
Incentives and Obstacles
No plan survives without governance. Someone has to own the targets, monitor progress, and report candidly. This role should not be assigned to a junior officer without authority. Ideally, decarbonisation needs a seat on the Executive Committee and on the Board of Directors.
Indeed, decarbonisation demands executive accountability. Deans and senior management must sign off on emission goals and embed them into strategy. Committees must have authority, not just advisory roles. Budgets must match ambition. And reporting must be regular, public, and ideally audited.
Mindset matters too. Seeing decarbonisation as a cost drags momentum; framing it as innovation changes the game. Cutting flights accelerates digital adoption. Green buildings make for healthier, more attractive campuses. Procurement shifts can spark new partnerships. A school that treats decarbonisation as an opportunity rather than a sacrifice is far more likely to succeed.
Objections are inevitable. Retrofits cost money. Students expect international experiences. Measurement can be complex. And pledges risk looking like greenwashing if delivery falters. But none of these obstacles is fatal. Energy investments often pay for themselves. Students increasingly demand genuine climate action. Data collection is hard, but ignoring emissions is no longer credible. The biggest risk is inertia—the belief that the right time to start is always tomorrow.
From Intention to Action
In the end, the decarbonisation of business schools is less about perfection than about progress. The challenges are real, but so are the opportunities to rethink operations, strengthen competitiveness, and lead by example. With collective will, transparent pathways, and a spirit of innovation, business schools can move from pledges to practice — demonstrating that education not only teaches responsibility but also lives it.
AERO is inclusive, and new members are welcome. For more information, visit the website www.aero-network.eu
David Veredas, Founding Chair of AERO, on behalf of the members of the network.
