This article is based upon a longer concept paper commissioned by UNESCO in preparation for the World Conference on ESD, and entitled "Winning the Future We Want--the pivotal role of education and learning". Neither this article nor the original paper necessarily represents UNESCO'S views. The brief for this paper was to make a…

This paper explores how ESD activities may be viewed on a continuum from "causal" approaches, seeking to cause change in others, to "enabling" orientations where efforts are made to enable people to implement the principles of ESD and respond to the environmental challenges they face from their own context. An enabling…

With the progress of the DESD, increasing numbers of researchers have been developing indicators to effectively measure the implementation of ESD in formal, informal and non-formal education. This paper aims to measure the implementation of ESD in secondary school curricula in three countries carrying the fingerprints of a developed (Germany),…

The article presents experience from a joint Czech-Kazakh project based on experiential education. The goal of the project was to develop trust and cooperation between various stakeholders to promote effective public participation in local sustainable development issues in Kazakhstan. The article describes the methodology of the programme and its…

Incidences of disaster and climate change impacts are rising globally. Disaster risk reduction and climate change education are two educational responses to present and anticipated increases in the severity and frequency of hazards. They share significant complementarities and potential synergies, the latter as yet largely unexploited. Three…

This article highlights the role of sustainability appraisal for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Traditional HEI appraisal systems lack a way to assess the integration of sustainability principles reflecting societal needs with the consequences of research, education and management of HEIs. Two appraisal systems are discussed. The Austrian…

In February 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe had claimed 3,300 lives and infected 66,000 people--greater than the toll of that disease in the whole of Africa in most years. How is it possible that a disease such as cholera can have such a devastating effect in modern times? How should one…

Between the Inter-governmental Conference on Environmental Education at Tbilisi in 1977 and the Fourth International Conference on Environmental Education at Ahmedabad in 2007, our conception of the challenge posed by the global crises of climate change, environmental destruction, social disintegration, poverty, natural resources exhaustion and…

Forging Inclusive Solutions describes the aims, methodology and outcomes of Inclusive Leadership Adventures, an experiential education curriculum for exploring the Earth Charter. Experiential education builds meaningful relationships, skills, awareness and an inclusive community based on the Earth Charter principles. When we meet people where they…

Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth has provided the conditions essential to life's evolution. The resilience of the community of life and the well-being of humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere…

This descriptive report outlines an innovative project in which Earth Charter International is actively involved. The project aims to develop approaches, indicators and tools for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to be able to measure values-based aspects and impacts of their work at the project level. Many CSOs have an intuitive feeling that…

For ten years now the Earth Charter has been inspiring global citizens to engage in conversations and actions that benefit everybody. This article describes e-GLO, the Earth Charter Global Learning Opportunity, the Earth Charter International's semester-long, online leadership course inspired by the Earth Charter. It is developed and implemented…

In this article, the author argues for a more critical form of education for sustainable development (ESD) linked to global citizenship education. He does so by reference to the limitations of the "green new deals" being carried out as part of fiscal stimulus packages, the alternatives proposed by ecosocialists, and the partly conflicting and…

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is the latest and thickest manifestation of the "closing circle" of policy-driven environmental education. Characterised by definitional haziness, a tendency to blur rather than lay bare inconsistencies and incompatibilities, and a cozy but ill-considered association with the globalisation agenda, the…

This article deliberates the possibilities for Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) to become "experiments" in social learning. The purpose of the article is to advance the broader research agenda of RCEs through reflection on the empirical research agenda of one RCE, Makana RCE in South Africa. As such it opens questions on how we might see RCE's…