DfE Climate & Sustainability Strategy: Consultation response
At the end of 2021, the Department for Education (DfE) published a draft strategy on sustainability and climate change, which set out ambitions for promoting sustainability through education alongside the Department's own commitments to organisational sustainability.
The Community for Environmental Disciplines in Higher Education (CEDHE) wrote an authoritative response to the consultation, setting out how the Department could improve the deliverability of the strategy through a 'situated learning' approach.
Note that, at the time, CEDHE was called the Committee of Heads of Environmental Sciences (CHES). CEDHE is the education Community of the IES and runs the world's largest accreditation programme for environmental degrees.
Executive summary
- Whilst broadly positive, the draft strategy was not yet ambitious enough to deliver transformative change and secure a sustainable future.
- The strategy should provide explicit targets and tangible science-driven actions to support its commitment to science, evidence, and data.
- Ambiguous details around implementation could limit the deliverability of the strategy.
- The strategy needs to acknowledge wider workforce issues, beyond formal education, taking a 'whole system' approach and using Carbon Literacy and situated learning to support action.
- CEDHE and the IES offered recommendations across five key themes: (1) aspirations and values; (2) evidence and data; (3) implementation; (4) skills across the workforce; and (5) embedding climate citizenship.
For more information on our recommendations and which were accepted by the Government, read our response to the final strategy.
More policy on education
Where to find out more
- If you want to stay up-to-date with the latest developments, make sure you are subscribed to Essential Environment.
- For more information about Education for Sustainable Development and how policy can support it, read our recommendations on environmental education to the UK Government.
- Take a step towards developing your own policy skills through our training on ‘Understanding environmental policy’ and 'Influencing and Engaging with policy'.
- For local authorities working in air quality, see our Environmental Policy Implementation Community.
If you want to support the work of the IES, you can become an affiliate, or if you’re a professional in the environmental sector working with science, consider joining the IES.
Header image credit: © siraanamwong | Adobe Stock
