LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABIITY

Learning for sustainability

Education and training can either reinforce our unsustainable trajectory or change it. And it is time to choose our path…

Teaching people to fit into collapsing systems will be a failure of education in the eyes of future generations. We now need change – at scale and at pace.

Education meets sustainability

Teaching about environmental issues will not be enough. People need to learn how to create change – gaining new skills not just more knowledge.

In classrooms and courses a shift has begun among frontline educators – but often in the margins, as pockets of new practice. Or as silo learning themes –  sitting alongside the dominant education on offer and distracting attention from the need to change that core learning.

Mainstreaming sustainability into education systems – as a learning process as well as new knowledge – is the shift we need.

Learning for sustainability

Making sustainability a guiding force in future education needs ambition. This is about shifting priorities in existing systems, not adding extras to them.

Imagining and creating new ways of living and working that respect our planetary boundaries and resources. But not at the expense of marginalized communities and those most threatened by environmental degradation.

That shift has many levels and moving parts. Building bridges for it across and beyond academia means treating the environment as linked to economics and culture. All subject experts can play their part in this change across specialisms.

This is about moving sustainability into the core purpose of learning and the mission of educators by reframing priorities in education.

I help learning organisations go beyond surface-level sustainability education, build change strategies, and increase the depth and impact of this work.

Contact me to talk through your needs around learning for sustainability – some potential areas where I could help are shown below.

CREDENTIALS

I held one of the first leadership roles in sustainability education at a UK university, delivering evidenced and distinctive results in curriculum redesign and as part of my leadership of a cross-cutting sustainability programme.

Over 20 years’ experience in education, training and evaluation has given me a rich bank of insights into what works for strategic change in education.

• Led the programme that embedded sustainability learning into 67.5% of a diverse course portfolio, recorded against meaningful quality criteria
• 8 UK and global awards for sustainability education projects – and supported many academic colleagues and teams to win recognition and awards
• Awarded a prestigious UK National Teaching Fellowship in 2017 for impactful sustainability learning in universities and across higher education
• Lead roles in pioneering research and publications to advance sustainability in teaching and learning, collaborating with experts in over 45 countries
• Director of the ‘anti-greenwash education’ project tackling transparency and standards by empowering students as quality assessors of sustainability
• Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Pentland Centre for Sustainable Business, Lancaster University