Education for sustainable development has evolved from United Nations conferences that highlighted the importance of education in achieving sustainability. There is a difference between education about sustainable development, which is transmissive, and education for sustainable development, which is transformative and aims to promote sustainable behaviors and problem solving. Education for sustainable development seeks to integrate sustainability values across all aspects of learning and encourage system-level changes through interdisciplinary, participatory, and values-based approaches.

1. Introduction to Education for
Sustainable Development
Gregory Borne

2. Question
What is the difference between education about
sustainable development and education for
sustainable development. How does this
difference impact on the way education is delivered
and received?

3. Outline of the talk
Recap – Sustainability Science and
interdisciplinarity
Evolution of ESD. Importance of the United
Nations
What does ESD mean
Sustainable education, skills and
competencies
Discuss the exam question

4. Recap
Tuesday -Introduction to sustainability
science and inter-disciplinarity
Explored sustainable development as a
concept and some of the pro’s and cons
Wicked problems – complex, messy do not
fit into disciplinary boundaries
Disciplines and inter-disciplinarity
Sustainability Science

5. Evolution of Education for
Sustainable Development

6. Origins of Education for
Sustainable Development
Drivers from outside the education
system
United Nations has had a significant
impact
A number of conferences and events
each one building up a picture of what
needed to be achieved through
education

7. United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development
United Nations conference on Environment and
Development (Rio Earth Summit) 1992
Agenda 21 has been described as a blueprint for
sustainable development
Highlighted the importance of education for
sustainable development (1992)

8. Foundations of education for
Sustainable Development
40 Chapters covering 4 broad areas
Elements Issues
Social and economic Poverty, production and consumption, health, human
dimensions to development settlement, integrated decision-making
Conservation and Atmosphere, oceans and seas, land, forests,
Management of natural mountains, biological diversity, ecosystems,
Resources biotechnology, fresh water resources, toxic
chemicals, hazardous radioactive and solid waste
Strengthening role of major Youth, women, indigenous people, NGOs, local
groups authorities, trade unions, businesses, scientific and
technical communities, farmers
Means of implementation Finance, technology transfer, information, public
awareness, capacity building, education, legal
instruments, institutional frameworks

9. Agenda 21 Chapter 36
Promoting Education, Public
Awareness and Training

10. Chapter 36 Agenda 21
Connection between Sustainability Science and Education
The generation and application of knowledge, especially indigenous and local
knowledge, to the capacities of different environments and cultures, to achieve
sustained levels of development, taking into account interrelations at the
national, regional and international levels;
35.7. Countries, with the assistance of international organizations, where
required, should:
[…]
(h) Develop methods to link the findings of the established sciences with the
indigenous knowledge of different cultures. The methods should be tested using
pilot studies. They should be developed at the local level and should
concentrate on the links between the traditional knowledge of indigenous
groups and corresponding, current "advanced science", with particular focus on
disseminating and applying the results to environmental protection and
sustainable development.
[…]

12. ‘United Nations Decade of
‘Education for Sustainable Development’
(ESD) 2005-2014
UNESCO - ESD involves: “learning how to make decisions that
consider the long-term future of the economy, ecology & equity
of all communities”
“Every individual... has an obligation & an interest in changing
outlooks through education & by example, thereby helping to
end thoughtless or deliberate waste & destruction”. UN Secretary
General - Kofi Annan (2004, p1)

13. Goal of UN Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development 2005-14
… to integrate the values inherent in
sustainable development into all aspects of
learning in order to encourage changes in
behaviour that allow for a more sustainable and
just society for all. This involves learning the
values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a
sustainable future and for positive societal
transformation.
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=29008&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

14. Decade for Education for Sustainable Development
It seeks to break down traditional educational boundries
and promotes:
Interdisciplinary and holistic learning rather than
subject-based learning
Values-based learning
Critical thinking rather than memorizing and fact
accumulation
Multi-method approaches: word, art, drama,
debate, etc.
Participatory decision-making
Locally rather than nationally relevant
information.

15. Momentum
UN Decade for ESD (2005-15)
DIUS Sustainable Development Action Plan
HEFCE’s Strategic Review of SD in HE and SD Action Plan (‘09)
HEFCE’s Carbon Reduction Target and Strategy for HE (‘10)
HE Academy ESD Project - recognised as a priority
Sustainability CETLs and a growing number of leader HEIs
People and Planet ‘Green League’
Future Leaders Survey
Green Gown Awards (University of St Andrews)
Rise of Regional Centres of Expertise
Universities UK SD Group and Statement of Intent
Academy/SFC review of sustainability in the Scottish HEI sector

16. Scotland
UNDESD has had a direct impact on the Scottish
education system
‘Leaning for change: Scotland's action plan for the
second half of the UNDESD’
Learning for sustainable development is fully integrated into all
stages of the formal education system
There are lifelong opportunities to learn
The sustainable development message is understood and acted
upon
We share our skills, expertise and resources through strong
networks and partnerships

17. Relationship between real world
aspirations and practical
implementation

18. Professor Stephen Sterling makes a distinction between two
types of leaning/Education regarding sustainable development
Institutional learning – refers to the social and organizational
learning that the policy makers and providers themselves
undergo or experience: For example government education
departments, schools, universities and educational agencies
Designed Learning – is concerned with all educational
programmes
Sustainability requires learning within educational systems, not
just learning through educational systems

19. A ‘Sustainability Literate’ Person…
Would be expected to:
• understand the need for change to a sustainable way of
doing things, individually and collectively
• have sufficient knowledge and skills to decide and act in
a way that favours sustainable development
• be able to recognise and reward other people’s decisions
and actions that favour sustainable development
- Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability www.heps.org.uk
Forum for the Future

20. ‘Sustainability literacy’: the ability..
- to appreciate - to solve real-life - to think creatively
importance of problems in a non- and holistically and
environmental, reductionist manner make critical
social, economic and judgements
political contexts
- to develop high- - to identify, - to bridge the gap
level of self understand, evaluate between theory and
reflection, personal and adopt values practice
and professional conducive to
sustainability
- to participate - to initiate and AND, have a broad
creatively in inter- manage change and balance
discipinary teams foundation
knowledge of SD

21. Skills for Sustainable
Development
the ability to think about systems (both natural and social
systems);
the ability to think in time – to forecast, to think ahead, and to
plan;
the ability to think critically about value issues;
the ability to comprehend quantity, quality, and value;
the capacity to move from awareness to knowledge to action;
the ability to work cooperatively with other people;
the capacity to use various processes – knowing, inquiring,
acting,
judging, imagining, connecting, valuing, questioning and
choosing; and
the capacity to develop an aesthetic response to the
environment.

22. Barriers
Cited factors
Limited institutional
commitment Types of barriers
Crowded curriculum
Perceived irrelevance
Limited staff awareness and/or Paradigmatic/psychological
expertise Policy/purpose related
Limited commitment from
external stakeholders Structural
Perceived as separate and/or (governance, compartmentalisatio
too demanding n etc)
Resource/information deficiency

23. Transformative rather than
Transmissive learning
Sterling’s eight Key questions for Transformative learning
Holistic –How does this relate to that?
Critical- Why are things this way, in whose interests
Appreciative- what’s good and what already works here
Who and What is being heard, listened to and engaged
Systematic what are or might be the consequences of this
action?
Creative what innovation might be required
Ethical- How should this relate to that? What is wise action, how
can we work towards the inclusive well being of the whole
system – social economic and ecological
Practical- How do we take this forward with sustainability in
mind as our guiding principle

24. Is Education a Good Thing?
… the volume of education has increased and
continues to increase, yet so do pollution, exhaustion
of resources, and the dangers of ecological
catastrophe. If still more education is to save us, it
would have to be education of a different kind: an
education that takes us into the depth of things.
(Schumacher, 1997)

25. Students as ‘Active, Engaged, and Effective
Citizens’ are…
• Comfortable dealing with ambiguity
• Willing to take a risk to make a difference
• More interested in solving problems than taking
credit
• Both effective advocates and listeners
• Eager to imagine and implement daring
multifaceted solutions – together
- Lawrence Bacow, President of Tufts University, Rappaport A and Creighton S H
(2007) Degrees that matter. Massachusetts: MIT Press

26. Essential lessons
Education for sustainable development has been
implemented from above but is now being driven at all
levels
It is now having profound effects on education worldwide
Direct relationship between sustainability science and
education for sustainable development

27. Key Texts
SUSTAINABILITY EDUCATION
Perspectives and practice
across higher education