ISF Cambodia’s mission is to help lift children out of poverty with a mix of education, healthcare, and access to sport. But that is not our only strategy to help create a better world. We are also committed to improving our community through environmental protection. In 2020, we decided to up our green game by implementing an array of policies to reduce plastic use and improve waste management at our properties.

Highlights

• ISF switched to reusable tote bags for our monthly food parcels.
• Vendors provide natural packaging for catered meals at football events.
• We approved a new Plastic Reduction Policy that outlines comprehensive waste management and plastic reduction plans at our campuses.

Our journey to increased sustainability began in August of 2019 when we held a plastic reduction workshop with Sarah from Plastic Free SEA. The lessons we learned spurred us into taking action to reduce our reliance on plastics. Led by our dynamic operations manager, Seiha Kong, we began many sustainability projects at our two campuses. By the end of that year, we got new colour-coded, labelled recycling bins, ensuring all waste was organised and disposed of responsibly.

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In January 2020, we kicked off the year by implementing a less wasteful way to deliver monthly food parcels to our students’ families. Before, each family received single-use plastic bags for each item in the parcel. Now, we give them a reusable tote bag to carry their food. The parcels include a 20kg bag of rice, large bottles of soy and fish sauce, salt, sugar, and cooking oil. When families pick up their parcel from ISF, they must bring their tote for the smaller items. By switching to this approach, we prevent over 1,000 single-use plastic bags from reaching unofficial dump sites and waterways each month.

To ensure our staff understood the importance of responsible consumption, we held sustainability workshops covering the effects of plastic pollution on health and the environment. Our students also attend their own version of these workshops on a monthly basis to encourage them to contribute to a cleaner future. And the bicycles we distribute to them promote green travel. We helped staff to achieve their sustainability goals by providing reusable water bottles and cloth bags and hung signs on walls and rubbish bins to encourage students and staff to change their habits whilst they are separating waste.

We have also made significant changes to the way we run events at ISF Sports Ground, our football pitch. The Football Programme team discouraged food sellers from giving plastic bags with purchases at our events. They installed water stations and encouraged players and staff to bring reusable bottles instead of buying bottled water.. Like at our campuses, we also put up plastic reduction signs in Khmer and English for players and spectators to see. ISF also worked with caterers who provided natural packaging for meal deliveries. So at our 2020 events, children enjoyed lunches wrapped in lotus leaves, served with eco-friendly bamboo spoons and forks.

At the end of 2020, we approved a new Plastic Reduction Policy. This means that we will work more closely with suppliers to reduce the amount of plastic they deliver supplies with. Students and staff will be forbidden from bringing single-use plastics on campus. We will also arrange rubbish bins for easier pickups by the city’s garbage collectors. By implementing these new policies and building upon our successes from the previous year, ISF plans to make 2021 even more green than the last