UK to Lead the Way in Climate and Sustainability Education

21st April 2022

The Department of Education have launched a Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy for the education and children’s services systems today. This Strategy impacts all education providers, including colleges and universities in England. The overarching aim is for the UK education sector to lead the world in sustainability and climate change by 2030.  

We welcome this Strategy and feel it gives a great direction and support for universities and colleges in helping them to achieve their own net-zero targets. The Strategy covers 5 Action Areas:

• Climate Education;
• Green Skills and Careers;
• Education Estates and Digital Infrastructure;
• Operations and Supply Chains;
• International

We welcome the focus on skills and careers and greater support for teacher training and measures to improve the biodiversity and resilience of the education estate.

Iain Patton, CEO, EAUC said: “We have been delighted to be a central part on helping to shape this Strategy, ensuring that colleges and universities will get the training and support they will need to deliver the aims of the Strategy. Colleges and universities have a wealth of expertise and knowledge which can be shared with the wider education sector to make more advances and we are pleased this has been harnessed in the Strategy. As critical institutions in teaching and preparing our young people for a changing climate has never been so important and it is time the education sector takes actions. We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Education and key partners to ensure the Strategy is turned into reality.”

EAUC will be represented by our Deputy Chair, John French and Student Climate Commissioner, Manveer Gill, at the Launch Event taking place later today at the Natural History Museum.

EAUC have been part of the consultation process since the launch of the draft Strategy at COP26 in November 2021. We have had staff or members of our Board on each of the thematic groups as well as the overall strategic group. We also had 3 of our student Climate Commissioners involved in the Youth Panel. EAUC will remain to be part of the strategic group to help the Department on delivery of the Strategy and we hope to have workshops in the coming months with the Department and our members so institutions can learn more about the Strategy and what this means for you and your institution.

EAUC are already confirmed as the partner to deliver a carbon emissions reporting framework as part of the Queen’s Jubilee Challenge (see page 32 of the Strategy). We are already working on this with our Working Group and we will be working with the 21 institutions taking part in the Queen’s Jubilee Challenge to test the Framework in June. We will then be undertaking a sector wide consultation in September, working closely with partners such as UUK, AUDE, AoC, BUFDG etc., and we will have the final Framework ready for launch in January 2023. Following this work, we will then be working on delivering a Science-Based Target Framework for the sector in 2023. We look forward to continuing working with our members on this important development for the sector.

You can read the full Strategy here
You can read the Department of Education’s Press Release here