The Learning and Skills Development Agency (LSDA), together with the British Council, provides the leadership for the UNEVOC centre in the United Kingdom (UK). LSDA is a strategic national agency whose mission is to improve the quality of post-16 education and training in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It does this by conducting research to inform and shape policy and practice, and through improvement and support programmes for organizations that deliver post-16 education and training. It brings policy-makers and practitioners closer together by making the links between policy and practice explicit and straightforward. It has taken the lead in the learning and skills sector in terms of sustainable development (SD) by managing projects for the Learning and Skills Council, commissioning research projects and contributing to the development of the national strategy for SD. In order to support the integration of SD in the mainstream vocational curriculum, a series of small projects was initiated with providers and employers in three vocational areas: agriculture, construction and food processing. The selection of providers was based on a survey of Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs). The approach to current work was based on the principle that this new concept and area of work for the sector will progress more effectively if it is rooted in the policy imperatives and practice that institutions and teaching practitioners are responding to in their day-to-day work. Because of this, the paper first considers the prevailing policy context for vocational education and training and then describes the research project that was designed to move this agenda forward. (Contains 2 notes and 7 online resources.)