AISHK and TASS: The Alliance for Sustainable Schools

In Term 3 2025 AISHK joined the Alliance for Sustainable Schools (TASS). TASS is an international network of schools committed to addressing some of the big-picture sustainability challenges found on school campuses such as transport, cafeteria food, uniforms, and education, and other relevant topics.

After electing 2 ambassadors, Jessica Stocks and Erin Chan, the ambassadors (and our 2025 Primary Environmental Committee Leaders) met with Mrs. Dunstan and Mrs Thomas in the board room to sign the Sustainable Schools Charter.

This charter is a pledge to uphold ethical, civic, and social obligations related to sustainability. In it, the school commits to: develop practices enabling students to becoming sustainability stewards; review the school’s policies and operations to reduce consumption and emissions; utilise sustainable design principles; support and establish facilities and programs to create a “living laboratory”; enhance operational efficiencies through target setting; incorporate opportunities to help students explore and understand the complex connections between environmental, social, and economic issues related to sustainability throughout the curriculum; establish collaborations with like-minded organisations; and share sustainability targets with community stakeholders.

Last year Jess and Erin met up online twice with other ambassadors from schools across Asia. There were schools from Dubai, Singapore, and Hong Kong in attendance. The topic for these meetings was about Enhancing Biodiversity in Schools. It was great to hear about the different levels of biodiversity found on each campus around Asia. Jess and Erin both remarked that some schools are very large, one even had a forest. They also noticed that the schools in Dubai have a very different kind of biodiversity than we do in Hong Kong because it’s mostly desert.

At the completion of their first meet-up the ambassadors were tasked with completing a “Biodiversity Audit” before their next meeting. With the help of the Primary Environmental Committee they completed this audit. This collected information included what animals (including birds and insects) are using our campus, and what plants are on campus (taking special note of how many native vs invasive species we have). To find out more about TASS please visit: https://tass-asia.org/

We are looking forward to working with TASS more in 2026.