Greening every school

A “green school” is defined as a learning institution that takes a whole-of-institution approach to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), in particular by addressing climate change through its teaching, facilities and operations, school governance and community partnerships. Green schools aim to promote knowledge and skills for the social, economic, cultural, and environmental aspects of sustainable development.­­

The whole-institution approach lies at the center of the ESD roadmap and is meant to lead the transformation of learning institutions to ensure that all learners are empowered with the necessary tools to make a ‘green’ transformation. Efforts should be made to move the culture of the learning institution towards collaboration, solidarity, sustainable practices and inclusion of all genders and backgrounds so that students can learn what they live and live what they learn.

As the UN lead agency on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), UNESCO is leading the global efforts together with governments, organizations, and individuals to promote transformative education and help tackle the planetary crisis. Through the new global framework entitled “Education for Sustainable Development: towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals” (ESD for 2030), UNESCO aims to equip learners of all ages so that they are climate-ready.

As part of UNESCO’s contribution to the Greening Education Partnership, workstreams have been undertaken through the Greening Schools pillar in order to develop the Quality Standard on Green Schools for a whole-school approach to climate change education. This work will consist in providing a concrete translation of key principles at the school level and be used as the basis of measuring global progress on the number of green schools, thus encouraging member states to integrate these guidelines into their own practices and efforts, ultimately ensuring that all schools are climate-ready by 2030.­

The Quality Standard on Green Schools aims to achieve the following objectives:

• Encourage schools to holistically integrate a whole-school approach to Education for Sustainable development within their systems by collecting good practices from existing green school accreditation schemes
• Define a quality minimum standard on what a green school looks like through a collaborative process
• Include a progressive approach allowing relevance for a diversity of contexts

Provide Member States with a green school standard, along with the list of school accreditation schemes globally, to accelerate the integration of a whole institution approach to ESD within education systems.

• Encourage schools to integrate a whole-of-institution approach to education for sustainable development and transform teaching and learning; school facilities and operation; school governance; and community engagement -with particular emphasis on school’s climate readiness.
• Support Member States to integrate green school schemes standards within their educational systems so that x% (the target number is to be defined based on an initial baseline mapping study of green school certification schemes) of schools (pre-university level) across the world are “greened” by 2030.

• July-August-September 2023
  1^st Consultation with members + pilot phase 1 with selected schools and countries
• November-December 2023
  2^nd Consultation review of draft with key stakeholders at COP28
• January-March 2024
  Final consultation with members + pilot phase 2 with selected schools countries
• June 2024
  Release of publication