A sustainability analysis of global listed education providers
Education is essential for sustainability and achieving the SDGs, even for listed private providers.
We look at the sustainability credentials of the global private listed companies in the education space.
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Listed education companies score highly in terms of sustainability.
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted most aspects of our lives, and the education of our children is no exception.
Just how this impact has been felt varies depending on the nature of the educational institution, the age of its students and its ability to offer online learning.
For early learning or childcare providers, operations during the pandemic varied by country and even state by state as various rules governed who was able to access the service.
Schools and higher education faced a similar conundrum, the main difference being the students age and ability to access education.
In this analysis, we wanted to determine the sustainability credentials of such a topical industry.
While admittedly most education providers are not listed companies, we thought the companies we analysed serve as a proxy for the education sector as a whole.
All of the eleven companies analysed scored above the Sustainable Platform database average (over 18,000+ companies listed globally), with a group average score of 89.
The leader in the group is Australian early learning provider G8 Education, with an SDG score of 94.
Following G8 are four companies with equal SDG scores of 93; Australian based companies 3P Learning Ltd, UCW Ltd and iCollege Ltd, and the largest private educational provider in China, New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.
Just behind is Australian based English and Maths tutoring company Kip McGrath Education Centre Ltd, 92.
Both US Chegg Inc and Chinese TAL Education Group have SDG scores of 88, followed by Australian tertiary education provider RedHill Education Limited at 87.
Finally, we have IDP Education Limited with a score of 87 and American for-profit Christian University Grand Canyon Education, Inc. with a score of 68.
Most of the companies analysed have a small controversial industry exposure to fossil fuels, mainly oil.
The sector's largest contribution to sustainability is unsurprisingly and overwhelmingly to the basic needs of knowledge, but also to a smaller degree to communication.
Top scorer, G8 Education, also contribute to energy, housing, waste and water needs.
*All SDG score and data are provided by Sustainable Platform based on data as at 25 September 2020.
Top contributing goals
Of all the 17 SDGs, the listed education providers analysed contribute most to these below goals:
SDG 4: Quality Education
SDG 5: Gender Equality
SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 16: Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
Find out more about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Sustainable Platform is a sustainability information service only to institutional investors and doesn’t provide general or personal financial advice.