Advance HE has published new guides on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as part of a Collaborative Development Fund project. Project lead, and Professor of ESD at UWE Bristol, Georgina Gough, shares her reflections on opportunities and challenges for ESD in higher education.
The new set of ESD practice guides published by Advance HE as part of a Collaborative Development Fund project are intended to offer examples of activity already being undertaken in the UK higher and further education sectors to embed ESD into teaching, learning and assessment. These new guides complement guides published in 2021 with the intention to add variety to the guides already available.
The process for developing the call for submission involved a review of the existing guides to identify gaps in provision. The rubric for reviewing the existing suite of guides was centred on the Advance HE ESD Guidance (2021). Other key points of reference included Subject Benchmark Statements, the UNESCO ESD for 2030 priority action areas, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the criteria of SOS-UK’s Responsible Futures accreditation.
Responses to the call for new guides revealed that Living Lab type practice of ESD is relatively common in UK HE institutions. Similarly, extracurricular opportunities are often developed to provide students with the chance to engage with sustainable development.
