Chiang Mai University has a university Climate Action Plan, and in 2025 it shared that plan with local government and local community groups in northern Thailand, as a part of its work towards Sustainable Development Goal 13 (Climate Action).
The university’s Climate Action Plan. The plan is CMU’s strategic framework for measuring, planning, and reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and related climatic impact. Its target is to make CMU a Carbon Neutral University by 2032, measured against a business-as-usual (BAU) baseline from 2019, with progress tracked each year through the university indicator KPI2 (a 75% cut against BAU). At the 2025 CMU Executive Seminar on 24 May 2025, Vice President Assoc.Prof.Prasert Rerkiangkrai asked every faculty and office to take part. On 6 October 2025, the university published the plan in five parts, which it now runs as five themes:
1. Measuring: Theme 1, Measurement, Reporting and Verification: Collecting data and setting a baseline under THO's Carbon Footprint for Organization (CFO) method, studying options to cut emissions, a strategy and roadmap to a net-zero target, amd yearly DFO monotoring and reporting through a university platform led by ERDI-CMU.
2. Reducing: Theme 2, GHG Mitigation: rooftop, floting and agrivoltaic solar and solar water heaters; electric vehicles and LED lighting; refurbished air conditioning, smart boilers and chillers; smart buildings, wastewater treatment, biogass and waste management; a smart grid with battery storage; and low-carbon design for new buildings.
3. Removing: Theme 3, GHG Removal, Capture and Storage; restoring more than 4,000 rai of forest at the Hariphunchai Education Center as a carbon sink, assessing carbon credits on university land, a prototype carbon capture, utillisation and storage (CCUS) system, smart grid agriculture, and carbon credits from community forest projects.
4. Adapting: Theme 4, Climate Adaptation and Resilience: engagement with partners; the Academic Center for Water Management Support; disaster early warning systems; clean air rooms in child development centers and urban communities; prototype plastic and biochar roads; prototype biochar kilns for highland areas; and food waste management with the municipality, all carried out with communities and local authorities.
5. Sharing: Theme 5, Education, Research and Community Outreach: a directory of carbon experts, public communication, training for staff, a training center for TGO-accredited cources, carbon content in university courses, a Carbon Neutral Student Club and carbon-neutral events, which help others measure and cut their own emissions.
The plan is public on the CMU Net Zero website,run by the Energy Research and Development Institute, Nakornping (ERDI-CMU), where the page "CMU Pathway to Carbon Neutrality" (last updated 1 December 2025) sets out the five themes and the year-by-year pathway to 2032.
Shared with local government. The Measuring part of the plan is shared directly with local government. CMU's Office of Academic Service (UNISERV) and its Research Unit for Ebergy Management and Eco-Economy (3E) built the CMLCC : Chiang Mai Carbon City platform with the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Natural Resources and Environment. Government agencies and local adminstrative organisations use it to record their greenhouse gas emissions and report reduction results to the province. At the Chiang Mai Provincial Climate Change Working Group meeting on 29 July 2025, chaired by Deputy Governor Mr.Siwakorn Buapong, the province reported that the working group had received hands-on training from CMU, that eight agencies had applied to TGO's Low Emission Support Scheme (LESS), and that in 2026 it will keep advising agencies on their emissions data through the platform. The towards a 30% cut in emissions. Two Theme 4 projects are carried out with local goverment: food waste management with Mae Hia Town Municipality, and clean-air rooms in child development centers run by local administrative organisations. The adaptation part of the plan is carried into provincial planning too: on 5 October 2025, CMU research teams brought their findings to a agreed an Area-Based Action Plan for haze surveillance, prevention and response across the eight upper northern provinces.
Shares with local governments and community groups across Chaing Mai. Part 4 of the plan, Adapting, commits CMU to work with communities and local authorities on climate impacts. Between August and November 2025 CMU's School of Public Policy put this into practice through CLEAR-CM, a project funded by NRCT. With the Chiang Mai Provincial Office of Natural Resources and Environment, it held six consultation forums with 129 local administrative organisations, communities and civil society groups to plan how the province manage wildfire smoke, and closed with a public hearing. The five-year strategy they agreed includes low-carbon urban development as one of its six areas, and the province adopted it as the basis of its pollution action plan for 2026-2028.
Sources:
- ERDI-CMU, "ERDI-CMU joins in driving CMU's action plan towards a Cabon Neutral University," CMU Net Zero, 1 October 2025.
- Chiang Mai Provincial Public Relations Office, "Chiang Mai tourism sectors supports Chiang Mai Low Carbon City" , 29 July 2025.
- Daily News, "Upper Northern Region: Chiangmai Low Carbon City", 3 August 2025.
- ERDI-CMU, "CMU Pathway to Carbon Neutrality," CMU Net Zero website, updated 1 Decebber 2025.
- National Research Council of Thailand, "NRCT leads researchers in talks with the Chiang Mai Governor to prepare for PM2.5", 7 October 2025.
- School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University, "CLEAR-CM: Moving Chaing Mai to Sustainable PM2.5 planning", project website, 2026.