Since its establishment in 2003, the Japan Council on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD-J) has paid close attention to informal learning processes in community-based efforts to promote local sustainable development. ESD-J carried out two projects to collect information on and visualise community-based ESD practice: the "Asia Good ESD Practice Project (AGEPP)" (2006-2008), covering the Asian region, and the "ESD x Biodiversity Project" (2009-2011) at the national level. This article presents key elements of community-based ESD, derived from the observed cases of ESD in practice documented through these two projects. (Contains 9 figures, 1 box, and 3 online resources.)