About EfS

A New Education?

'Education for sustainability provides a tool to assist and engage us in negotiating (a sustainable) future and deciding the consequences of our decisions. This means that education is more than the traditional practice of Environmental Education, which focuses on teaching and learning about, and 'in' the environment. Instead, education for sustainability seeks a transformative role for education, in which people are engaged in a new way of seeing, thinking, learning and working. People are not only able to explore the relationships between their lives, the environment, social systems and institutions, but also to become active participants and decision-makers in the change process.'

Educators require a new set of skills, such as envisioning, critical thinking and reflection, dialogue, and negotiation, collaboration and building partnerships.

Adapted from Tilbury, D and Wortamn, D (2004) Engaging people in sustainability, Gland: IUCN Commission on Education and Communication p.9.