early 710 million children are currently living in countries at the highest risk of suffering the impact of the climate crisis. More than 12,000 species are threatened with extinction. In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people faced water stress. And by 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20 percent if the global community fails to act now to slow down the effects of climate change.
Today, educators are using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to help students address deep scientific questions and tackle broad societal needs, such as biodiversity, food security, vaccine hesitancy, mosquito-borne diseases, and environmental justice. Complex socio-scientific problems and phenomena like those embedded in the SDGs cannot be explained or solved by looking at them through one perspective (environmental, social, economic, or ethical); nor can they be solved by one sector alone (public, private, or social).
Public and social sector organizations who promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in collaboration with industry partners focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals can work together across different disciplines and sectors to blend their knowledge, theories, and expertise to develop comprehensive solutions to today’s most pressing challenges.
By promoting “ESD for ESG,” we can conceptualize workplaces and societies unimagined.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is UNESCO’s education sector response to the urgent and dramatic challenges the planet faces. ESD is defined as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. Research syntheses across 18 countries show that ESD pedagogies promote the learning of skills, perspectives, and values necessary to foster sustainable societies.
The SDGs provide a common framework for ESD, with 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators. Yet only 7 percent of teacher education programs integrate ESD into their pedagogy and many educators have yet to fully integrate the SDGs into their curriculum.
Since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, progress in sustainable development corporate investment has been observed across several SDG sectors, including infrastructure, climate change mitigation, food and agriculture, health, telecommunications, and ecosystems and biodiversity; however, overall growth is falling short of requirements, including in education.
Investors want to put their money toward climate-focused, SDG-focused sustainable solutions that will impact communities directly. Industry refers to these impact investing solutions as “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)” goals. While definitions of ESG are “broad and varied,” the British Business Bank describes ESG as being a “collective term for a business’s impact on the environment and society as well as how robust and transparent its governance is in terms of company leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.”
A lot of attention is paid to the “environmental” and “social” aspects of ESG, but “governance” is also critical. The Global Asset Management Group argues that while there is confusion and frustration around ESG goals, and investors face challenges when evaluating sovereign ESG opportunities and risks (including accusations of greenwashing), crises often highlight the importance of ESG. Never have ESG goals been so influential in ensuring investments are going towards meaningful solutions, including ESD.
“ESD for ESG” can provide youth and the future workforce with the new skill sets required to reach a sustainable future.
For example, in 2021, General Motors (GM), a US Detroit-based company, announced it will take a science-based approach to becoming carbon neutral, balancing carbon dioxide emissions and removal effort; ensuring 40% of its vehicles will be battery powered by 2025; and eliminating gas-powered, light duty vehicle production by 2035. In 2022, GM heralded a new ESG pledge, inviting its global suppliers to join the company in a “commitment to carbon neutrality, the development of social responsibility programs, and implementation of sustainable procurement practice in their supply chain operations.” As part of this pledge, GM invested in the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC), an organization of the Smithsonian Institution, which, through the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, educates youth across the globe on the SDGs using ESD. Under the project, SSEC identified three public and social sector community partners who serve youth ages 8-17 in Egypt; provided professional development to their teachers on the topic of “Sustainable Communities!”; and disseminated free instructional resources to support student learning focused on what they can do in their local regions to address sustainability issues, including reducing their transportation carbon footprint. Student action projects will be showcased at COP27, then the cycle will repeat in 2023 using the topic “Clean Energy!”.
The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project is just one example of how ESD—supported by public-private-social sector partnerships—can be used to achieve ESG goals.
Today, we face unprecedented global challenges that invoke deep scientific questions and broad societal needs. The SDGs serve as a framework to achieve a sustainable future, yet many educators are not fully integrating SDGs into their curriculum and few companies surveyed align to these goals. Leveraging combined strengths of cross-sector partners can achieve a level of impact that could not be accomplished independently. Industry partners in collaboration with the public and social sector can help educate the next generation on the SDGs and pave the way for a more sustainable future—promoting “ESD for ESG.”
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ESD for ESG: Education for Sustainable Development
Photo by Midjourney.
September 23, 2022
Today, we face unprecedented global challenges. However, by promoting “ESD for ESG,” we can work together across different disciplines and sectors to blend their knowledge, theories, and expertise to develop comprehensive solutions, write Dr. Carol O’Donnell and Hina Baloch.
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early 710 million children are currently living in countries at the highest risk of suffering the impact of the climate crisis. More than 12,000 species are threatened with extinction. In 2022, more than 2.3 billion people faced water stress. And by 2050, the risk of hunger and malnutrition could rise by 20 percent if the global community fails to act now to slow down the effects of climate change.
Today, educators are using the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to help students address deep scientific questions and tackle broad societal needs, such as biodiversity, food security, vaccine hesitancy, mosquito-borne diseases, and environmental justice. Complex socio-scientific problems and phenomena like those embedded in the SDGs cannot be explained or solved by looking at them through one perspective (environmental, social, economic, or ethical); nor can they be solved by one sector alone (public, private, or social).
Public and social sector organizations who promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in collaboration with industry partners focused on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals can work together across different disciplines and sectors to blend their knowledge, theories, and expertise to develop comprehensive solutions to today’s most pressing challenges.
By promoting “ESD for ESG,” we can conceptualize workplaces and societies unimagined.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is UNESCO’s education sector response to the urgent and dramatic challenges the planet faces. ESD is defined as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. Research syntheses across 18 countries show that ESD pedagogies promote the learning of skills, perspectives, and values necessary to foster sustainable societies.
The SDGs provide a common framework for ESD, with 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators. Yet only 7 percent of teacher education programs integrate ESD into their pedagogy and many educators have yet to fully integrate the SDGs into their curriculum.
Since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015, progress in sustainable development corporate investment has been observed across several SDG sectors, including infrastructure, climate change mitigation, food and agriculture, health, telecommunications, and ecosystems and biodiversity; however, overall growth is falling short of requirements, including in education.
Investors want to put their money toward climate-focused, SDG-focused sustainable solutions that will impact communities directly. Industry refers to these impact investing solutions as “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)” goals. While definitions of ESG are “broad and varied,” the British Business Bank describes ESG as being a “collective term for a business’s impact on the environment and society as well as how robust and transparent its governance is in terms of company leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls, and shareholder rights.”
A lot of attention is paid to the “environmental” and “social” aspects of ESG, but “governance” is also critical. The Global Asset Management Group argues that while there is confusion and frustration around ESG goals, and investors face challenges when evaluating sovereign ESG opportunities and risks (including accusations of greenwashing), crises often highlight the importance of ESG. Never have ESG goals been so influential in ensuring investments are going towards meaningful solutions, including ESD.
“ESD for ESG” can provide youth and the future workforce with the new skill sets required to reach a sustainable future.
For example, in 2021, General Motors (GM), a US Detroit-based company, announced it will take a science-based approach to becoming carbon neutral, balancing carbon dioxide emissions and removal effort; ensuring 40% of its vehicles will be battery powered by 2025; and eliminating gas-powered, light duty vehicle production by 2035. In 2022, GM heralded a new ESG pledge, inviting its global suppliers to join the company in a “commitment to carbon neutrality, the development of social responsibility programs, and implementation of sustainable procurement practice in their supply chain operations.” As part of this pledge, GM invested in the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC), an organization of the Smithsonian Institution, which, through the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, educates youth across the globe on the SDGs using ESD. Under the project, SSEC identified three public and social sector community partners who serve youth ages 8-17 in Egypt; provided professional development to their teachers on the topic of “Sustainable Communities!”; and disseminated free instructional resources to support student learning focused on what they can do in their local regions to address sustainability issues, including reducing their transportation carbon footprint. Student action projects will be showcased at COP27, then the cycle will repeat in 2023 using the topic “Clean Energy!”.
The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project is just one example of how ESD—supported by public-private-social sector partnerships—can be used to achieve ESG goals.
Today, we face unprecedented global challenges that invoke deep scientific questions and broad societal needs. The SDGs serve as a framework to achieve a sustainable future, yet many educators are not fully integrating SDGs into their curriculum and few companies surveyed align to these goals. Leveraging combined strengths of cross-sector partners can achieve a level of impact that could not be accomplished independently. Industry partners in collaboration with the public and social sector can help educate the next generation on the SDGs and pave the way for a more sustainable future—promoting “ESD for ESG.”
