Steven MCDONALD

Abstract: International mobility delivers real developmental value — and carries a real environmental and ethical footprint. This session helps practitioners hold both truths at once and design programs that are demonstrably more sustainable, not just rhetorically so. It introduces the recognised competencies in education for sustainable development and the SDG learning-objectives framework, then applies them to the concrete choices program teams make: destination and routing, duration and frequency, host-community benefit, supply-chain decisions, and how sustainability outcomes are evidenced rather than assumed. The panel weighs the published tension between the carbon cost of student mobility and its learning gains, and explores models — "fewer, deeper, longer," regional and intra-Asia routing, and genuine community partnership — that improve the balance. Insights are drawn from a portfolio of SDG-aligned experiential programs across the Asia-Pacific, examined from the collaborative-provider and institutional perspectives and balanced with sector evidence and other cases, with no single institution positioned as exemplar. Participants leave with a practical set of criteria to assess and strengthen the sustainability and ethics of their own mobility offerings, and language to defend those choices to leadership and students. Sustainability here is treated as a design discipline and an ethic of care toward host communities and the planet. Learning objectives: - Describe the key sustainability competencies relevant to global program design. - Explain the environmental and ethical tensions inherent in international mobility. - Apply an SDG-aligned lens to a short-term program concept. - Compare program models on their sustainability and community-benefit trade-offs. - Evaluate sustainability claims in mobility programs against recognised frameworks. Target audience: Partnerships and mobility staff; program designers; sustainability and SDG leads; faculty and providers interested in education for sustainable development, ethical host-community engagement and the footprint of student mobility