Project significance
Students show an increasing interest in driving the sustainability agenda and an understanding that they need an education that empowers them with the professional skills to do so.
Education for Sustainability (EfS) – also known as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) – is a dynamic approach to learning designed to respond to this need.
Forward-looking universities have started to integrate EfS into courses, but marketing teams are beginning to make claims like ‘100% of courses have embedded sustainability’. With no agreed standards or benchmarking that signal what quality EfS learning actually looks like, this can amount to just entry level content, issues treated in silos, or EfS only featuring in optional modules – bypassing core learning.
From a student perspective, claims to embed sustainability into courses need to be meaningful or they could be perceived as ‘greenwash’ – even if this is not the intention.
From the perspective of educators, who often have limited time to build knowledge of EfS practice, simple touchstones can help them embed EfS effectively and identify how it can align with other educational priorities such as equality, diversity and inclusion.
Project aims
- Support students to ask powerful questions about the depth of sustainability learning in their course experience and to support their future careers.
- Equip academic teams with inclusive and easy-to-grasp principles for getting to the heart of good curriculum design in sustainability.
- Hear the voices of students on their concerns over curriculum greenwash as sustainability becomes more mainstream in universities.
- Drive up quality for sustainability learning to help bring EfS practice out of the margins and position it as central to the future of university course experiences.
- Create a blueprint framework for starting to build quality in EfS, that takes a view on what matters from beyond just one type of course and informed by students.
What is the purpose of EfS?
The project methodology and aims were reviewed by the University of Gloucestershire Research Ethics Committee, to ensure protection of student participants and institutions involved in the inquiry.
Project activities
The project used student co-creation approaches and built on a set of simple principles and rating criteria developed by the University of Gloucestershire to measure and monitor EfS across a broad course portfolio.
The following core activities were designed to test and refine these principles, and co-create tools that empower students to ask powerful questions about the depth of sustainability learning in their courses.
- A student-led review of how UK universities approach and measure EfS.
- Creation of speed-training tools to empower students to rate EfS learning in their courses.
- Engagement activities with project partners and the QAA Student Strategic Advisory Committee to test the training tools and refine the rating principles.
- Creation of a final blueprint of quality principles for EfS in Higher Education courses.
Project landscape
Read more about the setting and significance of this project.
Project process
Explore the quality principles and training tools tested.
Project outputs and resources
View and use our final outputs to support quality course re-design for EfS.