Education for Sustainable Development

Sustainability education (SE), Education for Sustainability (EfS), and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are interchangeable terms describing the practice of teaching for sustainability. ESD is the term most used internationally and by the United Nations.Agenda 21 was the first international document that identified education as an essential tool for achieving sustainable development and highlighted areas of action for education.

Groundwork has been laid for sustainability education worldwide. Recent changes in service learning, a focus on literacies and skills, standards that support interdisciplinary thinking, and the role of systems thinking have all increased the visibility of the movement. Various approaches to ESD encourage people to understand the complexities of, and synergies between, the issues threatening planetary sustainability and understand and assess their own values and those of the society in which they live in the context of sustainability. ESD seeks to engage people in negotiating a sustainable future, making decisions and acting on them. While it is generally agreed on that sustainability education must be customized for individual learners, according to Tilbury and Wortman, the following skills are essential to ESD:

In recognition of the importance of ESD, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2005-2014 the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD).UNESCO leads the Decade and has developed an International Implementation Scheme for the Decade. The goals of the decade are to provide an opportunity for refining and promoting the vision of, and transition to, sustainable development – through all forms of education, public awareness and training; and to give an enhanced profile to the important role of education and learning in sustainable development. Education for sustainability is the practice of learning how to achieve global and local sustainable communities.

The objectives of the DESD are to:

The U.S. Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (USPESD) consists of individuals, organizations and institutions in the United States dedicated to education for sustainable development (ESD). It acts as a convener, catalyst, and communicator working across all sectors of American society.

The U.S. Partnership was conceived at a November 2003 "Open Space" gathering held in Washington, DC that included almost 100 participants from a diverse range of sectors including K-12 and higher education, science and research organizations, conservation and environmental NGOs, faith communities, living institutions, youth advocacy organizations, government agencies and others. Convened by the National Council on Science and the Environment and University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, the group met to respond to the call by the UN General Assembly for a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005 through 2014) and to consider specifically:

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