Education
Here and Now! Education for Sustainable Consumption: Recommendations and Guidelines
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This publication provides recommendations and guidelines aimed at policy-makers and educators on how to best integrate and implement Education for Sustainable Consumption (ESC) in the formal education sector. It contains two main chapters: a) "Addressing the challenges" illustrates the importance of ESC to policy makers and its contribution in achieving major policy goals such as environmental protection and sustainable development strategies; b) "Optimizing opportunities" is targeted to educational authorities, teacher trainers and educators to include ESC in their curricula and teaching activities. This chapter contains a series of inspiring case studies and best practices from all over the world.Here and Now! has been jointly developed by UNEP and the Marrakech Process Task Force on ESC led by Italy, in collaboration with the United Nations Decade on Education for Sustainable Development and Hedmark University College in Norway.. United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005 – 2014. The Decade calls upon all countries to strengthen their contribution to sustainable development through a focus on education. The release of this Statement provides a significant contribution to this global objective.
CONTENTS
Presentation
I) Institutional guidelines, toolkits, reports and researches (at local, national and international level
II) Academic researches and survey
III) Academic publications
IV) Civil society initiatives, guidelines, publications and toolkits
V) Centres and networks (governmental, academic, non governmental)
VI) Courses, workshops, conferences (institutional, academic, non governmental)
VII) Web resources
Sustainable United Nations Unit
The Sustainable United Nations Unit houses a number of initiatives which have influence both within and beyond the UN system:
- The Sustainable United Nations facility works with all UN agencies to improve the sustainability performance of the UN system, and provides support to public sector organizations embarking on their own sustainability journeys.
- The Sustainable Public Procurement initiative works with governments across the world to make sure every penny of public money serves both people and planet.
- The Sustainable Buildings and Climate Initiative brings together leading organizations from the building sector to develop approaches to improve its overall performance.
- The Urban Environment team supports cities across the world to address key urban environmental issues and to integrate environment in their long-term strategic planning.
The Sustainable United Nations Unit sits within the Sustainable Consumption and Production Branch of UNEP's Division of Technology, Industry and Economics in Paris.
Follow the links above for more information, or contact us with any questions or queries.
The good practices collected in this first section involve activities proposed by institutional organisations at local, national and international level. The experience of the city of Kelowna in Canada is representative of the projects. Here they have adopted a “green calendar”, really an almanac that each month proposes sustainable initiatives and recommendations to raise awareness about and involve the citizens in the reduction of their environmental impact.
This example of the “sustainable city”, easily replicable in other contexts, could be a way to “regionalise” the economic production and commerce of a system, thus locally retaining any economic surplus and promoting the growth of the community, strengthening the rooting of the inhabitants to their area as they directly see the effects of their choices on goods and social relationships.
But the experiences promoted by institutions also regard formal education. This is the case of the “green schools” activated by the Ministry of Education in China (an experience that has spread from the Anglo-Saxon tradition to involve other countries and continents), or the “sustainable schools” promoted by the Department for Infants, Family and School of the city of London, that invites teachers to insert a sustainable curriculum within the formal curriculum already in place in their school.
The focal point for institutional organizations interested in education towards sustainable consumption appears at the intersection of three education types, formal, informal and non formal, with the objective of making subjects in social life, economics and politics into responsible actors..From this point of view, consumer education aims to project the consumer outside their merely private dimension and into an objectively public social and institutional sphere, where ideologies may be shared. Therefore the educational action aims to incorporate general interest in the private sphere and vice versa, promoting ethically sustained public participation processes and forms of intervention guided by the public relevance of the individual choice.
Partners
Partners in ESC can be many and varied. Politicians, researchers, headmasters, teachers and advocacy groups are a few examples. Developing contact with governmental organisations (such as consumer protection councils), civil society interest organisations (such as civic and environmental groups), and business organisations (such as chambers of commerce) can result in the acquiring of information, reference materials, opportunities for student’s to visit or to do internship, or these partners can assist in arranging debates, discussions, fieldtrips or site visits. Guest speakers can be invited from some of these organisations or students can interview them directly. Civil society organizations often also contribute to the envisioning of sustainable consumption goals, providing alternatives and information about consequence-analysis. Civil society organizations can raise the profile of issues which might otherwise be ignored.
Materials
To facilitate ESC the following resources can be useful. Send good practice cards, publications, materials, comments, news, requests for information, images and references etc.
to: scptaskforce.ras@minambiente.it