Green Initiatives

Sustainability Statement

CIS Abroad is dedicated to promoting and enacting sustainability initiatives. We believe that by doing our part in educating our participants and employees on green measures we can help keep the Earth around us clean. Therefore, we are delighted to announce that CIS Abroad has formed a sustainability committee known as “Green Flags.” We are joining many other organizations in the education abroad field who are working to prioritize sustainability and climate action in our operations and programming abroad. Learn more about it here.

Sustainability Built Into Local Life

CIS Abroad staff in Thailand responsibly and sustainably source all our excursions to ensure that they are good for the local people and the environment. All our partners for excursions have been extensively evaluated to ensure that they do not have a degrading impact on the local environment or local people. All partner organizations are run exclusively by local community members, and CIS Thailand staff make extensive efforts to ensure that we are paying fair prices and act in culturally and environmentally-friendly way when we are in the community. Without our local partners we cannot provide the amazing experiences that we are known for.

Living Green

Recycling

Living sustainably in Thailand can be hard. Recycling is not common in Thailand and many poor people make money by collecting recyclable materials to sell them. We recommend that you separate recyclable materials into a different trash bag from non-recyclables and food waste. Trash can separation varies between locations.

Shopping

The city's inhabitants often use reusable grocery bags as a simple but impactful way to reduce plastic waste and its negative impact on the environment.

Water Consumption

Taking shorter showers at home can help conserve water, an essential resource, without compromising personal hygiene. Plastic water bottles are a big source of trash and making use of the readily available water filtration machines it is easy to reduce your use of plastic and save money.

Electricity Usage

Much of the electricity produced in Thailand comes from natural gas, so reducing your electricity usage is an easy way to help the environment. AC is extremely high in energy usage, so try to keep the temperature to 25C at night and 27C in the day time.

Public Transportation

Buses and the train system in Bangkok offer great environmentally friendly ways to travel. The BTS sky train system is the world's first carbon neutral train system. While the MRT and other lines are increasingly switching to solar power, further increasing the environmental benefits of using them.

The Bangkok government has committed to replacing all the buses with electric ones in the next few years and the bus fleet is increasingly electric powered.

Green Campus

Mahidol and MUIC have both won awards and recognition of their green and sustainable campus and buildings. MUIC has further committed to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

You can find more information here:
https://muic.mahidol.ac.th/sdg/green-university/

Local Organizations

Thailand Environmental Institute

Trash Hero

Thailand has many small community-based tourism organizations, similar to our excursion in Mae Klong where we work directly with local community leaders. Please reach out to staff if you are interested in exploring more in this area.

Welcome to Thailand