Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) empowers people to change the ways in which they engage with and work towards a more sustainable future. It works to build on the defined meaning of sustainable development shown below:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987

The diagram below shows the range of opportunities Education for Sustainable Development can create, and the potential impact that can be achieved through its delivery, for example, creating new teaching and learning opportunities, and enhancing the skills and knowledge on subjects relating to all aspects of sustainability (social, economic, and environmental).

Teaching and learning opportunities can take the form of Informal and Formal approaches. A list of options for the two approaches is shown below:

Informal

• Project based learning
• Organised responses to (inter)national campaigns (e.g. Climate Week, Plastic Free July)
• Collaboration between different classrooms and departments
• Debates on issues surrounding sustainability

Formal

• Project based that encourages critical thinking, ethical practices and consumption, and self-reflection
• Co-learning activities that encourages learners to discover what influences behaviour and attitudes towards sustainability; how to enable change in values and attitudes; practical elements that require independent learning; and finally self-reflection.
• Learning through external partnerships e.g. working with the John Muir Trust, The Orchard Project
• Assessing practices within your own department, for example:

Estates – opportunities to adopt circular economy (reuse/ recycle/ reduce)

Science – energy and chemicals being used; sustainability of experimental procedures; disposal of items.

A number of resources are available to learn more about the teaching and learning opportunities provided by Education for Sustainable Development. A small selection of these are provided below, but further information can be accessed through the NUS and UNESCO sites at https://sustainability.nus.org.uk/responsible-futures and https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-sustainable-development respectively.

Available resources

• Higher Education Academy
• Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges (EAUC) ‘Sustainability Exchange’
• The Carbon Challenge: Education for Sustainable Development http://sustainabilityexchange.ac.uk/fe_esd_workbooks

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) empowers people to change the ways in which they engage with and work towards a more sustainable future. It works to build on the defined meaning of sustainable development shown below:

“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987

The diagram below shows the range of opportunities Education for Sustainable Development can create, and the potential impact that can be achieved through its delivery, for example, creating new teaching and learning opportunities, and enhancing the skills and knowledge on subjects relating to all aspects of sustainability (social, economic, and environmental).

Below is a list of simple steps you can take to try and reduce your own waste generation from day to day.

You don’t have to do everything, and it may not seem as much, but anything you can do will mean that one less thing will end up going to landfill.

If you’re still looking for ideas and further inspiration on what you can do, here are a few sites to help along the way:

Think you’ve got what it takes to reduce your use of single-use plastics?

The Plastic Challenge is something you can take on whenever you like, and for as long as you like. An easy way to start is to stop buying a single-use plastic item that you use regularly for a week, and let us know how got on after the week has finished – what were the challenges? Was it easier than you thought? Did you find an alternative to the single-use plastic – we want to hear from you!

Below are the 4 easy steps you need to think about when taking on the Plastic Challenge.