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Our commitment to sustainability

Our mission is to make science open – so that scientists can collaborate better and innovate faster to deliver the solutions that enable healthy lives on a healthy planet.

As such, sustainability is a constant focus of everything we do, from providing a digital-first path for researchers to publish open access, to directly supporting environmental research ourselves through global initiatives such as the Frontiers Planet Prize.

As part of this mission, we’re prioritizing reducing our carbon footprint and integrating sustainability into our products, operations, and communities—making it not just an aspect of how we do business, but the foundation of it.

Frontiers’ company ethos is one of continuous improvement, challenging ourselves to do better. This report is an important benchmark in our mission.

Our carbon footprint

We partner with Plan A to collect, measure, and consolidate our emissions data. Plan A is certified by TÜV Rheinland and is Green House Gas Protocol compliant.

Our overall carbon footprint for 2023 measured 13,864 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

  • Scope 1 - As our business is operated from facilities we don't own (we rent offices and coworking spaces), our reporting scope does not include any material scope 1 emissions.

  • Scope 2 - 303 tCO2e - This corresponds to indirect emissions associated with purchased electricity and heating in our main offices.

  • Scope 3 - 13,561 tCO2e - Includes purchased goods and services, business travel, work from home, and emissions related to employee commuting. Emissions related to purchased goods and services have been calculated via spend-based factors for each supplier.

  • Purchased goods and services - 12,578.21 tCO2e

  • Employee commute and work from home - 503 tCO2e

  • Purchased electricity - 193 tCO2e

  • Business travel - 435.51 tCO2e

  • Purchased heat - 111 tCO2e

  • Waste generated in operations - 43 tCO2e

  • Fuel and energy-related activities - 1 tCO2e

We observed an 11% overall drop in emissions from the 2022 baseline (footprint of 15,599 tCO2e) to 2023 (footprint of 13,864 tCO2e).

By gathering emissions data from all our operations, we've established a comprehensive emissions baseline that enables us to monitor and reduce our carbon footprint.

Our commitment to the SDGs 

To demonstrate our commitment to the UN’s SDG Publishers Compact, in 2020 we became a signatory of the UN’s SDG Publishers Compact, recognizing that we have a crucial part to play in helping the publishing industry drive positive change on a larger scale. The UN Sustainable Development Goals provide a valuable framework for editorial priorities and objectives.

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Employee engagement 

We encourage our employees to volunteer to causes close to their heart and give them paid time off to do so. In 2023, we spent 1,656 hours volunteering for causes and organizations that support the SDGs and local communities. 

The Sustainability Network is a grassroots initiative created by Frontiers staff with the aim of championing community involvement in climate action initiatives, via educational events and operational sustainable practices. With members spread across the globe, the network held a series of talks led by expert speakers covering topics like digital waste, circular economy, and sustainable tourism and launched several challenges to engage employees and encourage sustainable practices.

Our portfolio of sustainability journals 

In 2017 we launched the sustainability portfolio, which includes 10 journals with 94 specific sections dedicated to various aspects of sustainability. In doing so, we’re helping speed up the solutions we need for sustainable development and help us live healthier, happier lives. These journals are:

Launched in 2023, our flagship journal, Frontiers in Science, publishes a select number of exceptional peer-reviewed lead articles from internationally renowned researchers whose work addresses key global challenges in human and planetary health. We've covered diverse topics such as:

  • This recent article, known as the 'zero emissions commitment' by Martin Siegert and Joeri Rogelj, explores global warming after achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The research found that we can cautiously expect global warming to stop as soon as the emissions stop and provide new insights directly relevant to the COP28 agenda. Openly accessible and supported with a suite of editorials and perspectives it puts these findings into a broad, understandable context.

  • The journal also explored the link between climate change and immune-mediated illnesses in this article 'Immune-mediated disease caused by climate change-associated environmental hazards: mitigation and adaptation' by Kari Nadeau . The authors are using their research, which shows that the lack of positive environmental exposures combined with increasing negative exposures is resulting in a dramatic rise in immune-mediated diseases like asthma and cancer, as an urgent call to action to safeguard a healthy future.

Frontiers for Young Minds 

In Frontiers for Young Minds, our journal for readers aged 8-15, our partnerships with several leading global science institutions help us share the top research on the future of our planet with our young readers.

  • We're working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on a second collection around climate change, featuring all the latest data and scenarios, while building on the first collection which provides all the core science needed for understanding the global crisis.

  • We've also recently partnered with the UNDP and KAUST in Saudi Arabia to launch our new SDGs Collection which will feature 17 articles, one on each of the SDGs, enabling young people to understand the implications of cutting-edge research findings.

  • We partner with the Frontiers Planet Prize team to publish a collection of young-reader adaptations of the groundbreaking sustainable solutions research articles by the National and International Champions who won the prize.

The Frontiers Planet Prize 

The winners of Frontiers Planet Prize 2024

Launched by the Frontiers Research Foundation on Earth Day 2022, the Frontiers Planet Prize is a global scientific competition that aims to mobilize scientists engaged in breakthrough research in planetary boundary science. The prize is adjudicated by an independently run Jury of 100, chaired by Professor Johan Rockström, and recognizes one National Champion per participating country and three International Champions in each annual edition.

Endorsed by the International Science Council, the prize is committed to accelerating the world’s most impactful scientific solutions. Now in its second edition, the Prize has engaged over 500 leading universities and research institutions across six continents and 20 national academies of science and together, collectively recognizing 23 National Champions.

Advancing our mission through our partnerships 

Strategic partnerships and alliances help drive our sustainability objectives, multiplying our impact and creating a significant effect on the world around us. In 2023, we joined forces with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) organizing two high-level panels on open and transformative science at the COP28 Blue Zone in Dubai. Here we launched the Frontiers Research Foundation's Open Science Charter urging the need for open science.

Together with the UN Climate Change Global Innovation Hub (UGIH) and its partners, we’ve developed an innovation project that uses the work of Frontiers Planet Prize winner Carlos Perez and focuses on conserving biodiversity with the support of the indigenous community in the Amazon basin. This was showcased at COP29 in Azerbaijan in November 2024.