ESD is education and learning for sustainable development. Sustainable development refers to humanity’s physical and man-made environment and the development thereof. With the natural environment acting as boundary and basis for human activity, sustainable development encompasses how human communities interact among themselves and modify their social, economic and political institutions and mechanisms, while at the same time interacting with their environment.
There are a number of distinctive features that can guide the search for appropriate ESD practice. They have to do with the educational approaches and methods that will enable learners to actively engage with the three dimensions of sustainable development:
Ecology or natural capital
- The planet and its natural resources
Economy or manufactured capital
- The stock of humanity’s physical infrastructure
Social or cultural and human capital
- The stock of humanity’s knowledge and technology, and social, cultural and economic formations, arrangements and mechanisms
The E of education and learning
Central to ESD is the E of education and learning – the ways and the methods with which people understand their reality, come to grips with it and can act on it. ESD postulates that learning does not happen in isolation, but that it is a social act, inside and outside the classroom or seminar room. Learning is meaning making: Finding one´s place in an unfolding reality and making sense of it through reflexive action.
Learning and education include knowledge and understanding of scientific facts and processes, but they are also related to prior knowledge and understanding (e.g. cultural norms and indigenous or traditional knowledge). Learning and education recognize that local action and dynamics may have global consequences and vice versa.
ESD is not fixed. It is a continuously unfolding concept as well as practice. Through policy, research and practice at local, national, regional and international levels, ESD is moving into a promising direction, while gaining greater public and greater political recognition.
