Education for sustainable development

What’s new

• Resources from UKCLE event Environmental justice in legal education

The essential and growing role of legal education in achieving sustainability – paper by Professor John Dernbach (University of Widener Law School), on which his keynote was based. An audio slidecast of the keynote is also available.

Environmental justice in Spanish environmental law – paper presented by Jordi Jaria i Manzano and Maria Marqués i Banqué (Universitat Rovira i Virgili)

• UKCLE consultant for ESD appointed – Jane Holder (University College London) is working with us during 2009-10 on ESD issues

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The UK government’s 2005 sustainable development strategy requires the education sector to promote the concept of sustainability literacy, and the funding councils similarly require higher education institutions to demonstrate sustainability in all their activities, including the design and delivery of curricula. The Higher Education Academy has been given a particular remit to work with individuals, departments and institutions to develop sustainability literacy as a graduate attribute.

The term ‘sustainable development’ gained currency after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and is generally agreed to encapsulate the idea of ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. For the purposes of work undertaken by UKCLE, sustainability literacy is taken to be the outcome of education for sustainable development (ESD). Someone who is sustainability literate is able to take account of social, economic and environmental considerations in making decisions, taking action and informing and influencing others accordingly.

Overview

UKCLE’s involvement in education for sustainable development began with the project Developing global citizens through legal education (2006-08), funded through the Higher Education Academy’s Education for Sustainable Development Project. This work was focused on exploring the concept of sustainability literacy within legal education and included the development of a consultation paper and a workshop to gather the views of law teachers in the UK. The final stage of the project was a survey – see the survey findings.

Beyond this project we have sponsored a symposium on the sustainable university held on 19 September 2008 at University College London. This symposium produced a report a number of good practice examples. Colleagues from the University of Plymouth School of Law have also authored a series of case studies on how they are integrating sustainability literacy into the curriculum.

UKCLE is trying to abide by principles of sustainability and has adopted a sustainability policy to inform both curriculum related work with the legal education community and UKCLE practices and activities.

External resources

• Coalition for the International Court of the Environment – the aim of the ICE would be the promotion, development, determination and enforcement of environmental law at the international level

Generic resources

Policy documents

• UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-14 – has the goal of integrating the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning; UNESCO’s mid term review conference resulted in the Bonn Declaration (April 2009)
• Securing the future: delivering UK sustainable development – UK government strategy (2005)
• HEFCE statement on sustainable development in higher education (2008)
• First steps towards sustainability – Northern Ireland Government strategy (2006)
• Learning for our future – Scottish Government action plan (2006)
• Education for sustainable development and global citizenship – Welsh Assembly Government Strategy for Action (2006)

Projects and organisations

• Centre for Sustainable Futures, University of Plymouth
• EUAC – The Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges
• Forum for the Future – a charity committed to sustainable development
• HEEPI – Higher Education Environmental Performance Improvement project, set up by HEFCE
• StudentForce for Sustainability – a national charity that focuses on young people working and learning to boost their employability, as well as the sustainability of communities and employers.

Find out more

For the latest on ESD in higher education see the Academy’s Sustainability site, which includes an e-newsletter, a sustainability events calendar and details of work across the disciplines. The Academy has also compiled a report on Education for sustainable development in Scotland (2008), and Education for sustainable development: review of a curriculum audit in Wales (2009).

Last Modified: 4 November 2010