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Education for Sustainable Development

Students and staff holding Sustainable Development Goals cubes

Many definitions exist for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), or Education for Sustainability (EfS) as it is also known, for example:

“Education for Sustainable Development empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity. It is about lifelong learning and is an integral part of quality education” (UNESCO, 2021).

“Education for Sustainable Development is the process of equipping students with the knowledge and understanding, skills and attributes needed to work and live in a way that safeguards environmental, social, and economic wellbeing, both in the present and for future generations” (QAA, 2014).

We see the purpose of ESD being that learners are supported to develop the knowledge, skills, values and behaviours necessary to be empowered and equipped to take action to support sustainability, and tackle and cope with the environmental, social and economic challenges we face today and in the future.

Successful Education for Sustainable Development can be achieved by incorporating the following three key elements into programme curricula

1. Learning outcomes and course content related to sustainable development

A holistic understanding of sustainability within the context of the subject should be covered, with subject-specific knowledge and skills interconnected with sustainability. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a useful starting framework to structure the integration of sustainable development in education, helping to explore the breadth and interconnectedness of sustainability, and start understanding where disciplines relate to sustainability. It is recognised that the SDGs have faults and are not perfect, but generally, what they seek to achieve is necessary for a positive future for life on earth. We encourage critical engagement with the SDGs and ensuring that a holistic view of sustainable development is covered in a programme, remembering that it incorporates environmental, social and economic factors and challenges and how they are interconnected.

2. Developing competencies for sustainability

​​As well as the relevant knowledge, it is also important to develop wider competencies that will help learners to tackle and cope with sustainability challenges. Therefore, learning outcomes should be aligned with key competencies for sustainable development. There are a number of sustainability competency frameworks, including:

Competencies within these frameworks include critical thinking, systems thinking, collaboration and self-awareness.

3. Using transformative pedagogical approaches and learning environments

ESD asks for an action-orientated, transformative pedagogy, which supports self-directed learning, participation and collaboration, problem-orientation, inter-and trans disciplinarity and the linking of formal and informal learning. These pedagogical methods could include:

  • Use of case studies.
  • Stimulus activities (art, poems, dance, music, newspaper articles etc.)
  • Simulation.
  • Experiential project work.
  • Problem-based and enquiry-based learning.
  • Inter-/trans-disciplinary learning approaches.
  • Group based work and collaborative learning.
  • Play-based/playful learning approaches.

Decolonising the curriculum and other Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) priorities are important elements of ESD, including ensuring that we explore sustainable development through a decolonial and justice driven lens and that ESD work does not perpetuate colonialist approaches.

Due to the many definitions and models of ESD, we are consulting with students and staff to develop an institutional definition of quality and meaningful ESD, to contribute to a framework for good practice. If you would like to get involved, contact sustainability@salford.ac.uk.

Why is Education for Sustainable Development important?

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is important for many reasons and there are many benefits of incorporating ESD into programme curricula, for example:

  • There is an urgent need to respond to the environmental and social challenges we are facing as a planet such as the climate crisis, global biodiversity loss, and inequalities in wealth and health, and ESD is crucial for supporting meaningful responses.
  • As SOS-UK research has shown, students want to learn about sustainability; 82% would like to see sustainable development actively incorporated and promoted through all courses. 
  • ESD supports subjects to meet industry needs, improving the employability of graduates. There is a ‘green’ skills gap already and all sectors are increasingly demanding sustainability skills. Competencies gained through ESD are also essential for all elements of the changing world of work. University of Salford is a member of the Greater Manchester Civic University Board, which has set up a Green Skills Working Group, to address the skills gap in the city region.
  • QAA updated Subject Benchmark Statements now include consideration of how practice within disciplines addresses Education for Sustainable Development, and many professional accreditation frameworks are also driving ESD engagement across many subjects.
  • Further opportunities for research and collaboration can be realised, identifying solutions to issues that advance the sustainability agenda, including through further Living Labs. 

University Strategy

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aligns with the University Strategy, as ESD tackles real-world learning, challenges, solutions and experiences, and ESD is vital for preparing students for life.

“By pioneering exceptional industry partnerships, we will lead the way in real world experiences preparing students for life.” University of Salford Vision

The University Of Salford Strategy identifies environmental sustainability as a key pillar to ‘support the move towards carbon net zero through innovation, course development and highly skilled graduates.’ The University’s other Strategy pillars also incorporate elements of sustainable development.

As a higher education provider, we have a responsibility and opportunity to ensure that students acquire the knowledge, skills, values and attributes necessary to respond to global challenges and shape a sustainable future.

In our teaching and learning, one of our curriculum design principles is ‘Education for ethical behaviour’, which presents an approach to student education that seeks to balance human and economic well-being, knowledge, and competencies with cultural traditions, respect for other people, and for the earth and its natural resources. Education for ethical behaviour uses transdisciplinary educational methods and approaches to develop ethical thinking that is rooted in lifelong learning, respect for the natural resources of the planet; and a cosmopolitan outlook that incorporates cross-cultural competence and respect, and prepares students to be global citizens.

The principle requires programmes to be committed to producing ethically aware and socially responsible graduates who possess the relevant skills and values necessary to solve the complex problems of our age. Programmes should integrate relevant ethical issues, issues of sustainable development, and a wider commitment to social justice.

Academic colleagues are supported to embed Education for ethical behaviour and other principles into their curricula by the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC) and the Quality Management Office (QMO). The QMO is responsible for developing and maintaining a robust institutional regulatory framework for the management of academic quality and standards. This is achieved through a set of effective, flexible and streamlined policies and procedures, that incorporate the curriculum design principles.

The importance of ESD is reflected in our Education and Employability Strategy. Sustainability is relevant to all disciplines, and we want all of our students to see that they can make a positive difference in the world.

Responsible Futures

The University of Salford and University of Salford Students’ Union (USSU) are taking part in the SOS-UK Responsible Futures programme as a partnership. Responsible Futures is a supported change programme and accreditation framework to embed holistic sustainability through all aspects of the student learning experience.

It is run internationally by SOS-UK, and provides a framework comprised of criteria drawn from good practice across the sector, to support a whole institution approach to weave holistic sustainability through the formal, informal, and subliminal curriculum, with an emphasis on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD).

We joined the programme in September 2023 and are working through the framework, with a plan to go for initial accreditation in 2025, when we will be audited by team of trained students.

We have already made progress with some of the framework criteria, for example, we are a setting up an ESD Working Group, who will lead the development of an ESD strategy and action plan. The Working Group is chaired by the Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience.

We are also developing an ESD baseline through a student-led curriculum mapping exercise, where paid students review module specifications against the SDGs and other ESD criteria. This has already been completed for Salford Business School modules, and we are planning to do the same for our other Schools.

Responsible Futures logo
Education for Sustainable Development support for staff

Community of practice

University of Salford staff are invited to join the ESD Community of Practice. A range of useful resources are available including documents and links to recordings, and regular updates about ESD news and events are shared. It is a great place to learn more about ESD, ask for advice, share best practice and collaborate with colleagues from across the University.

Bespoke support

The ESD Officer is available to provide bespoke support to colleagues to help them raise awareness of ESD and embed ESD into their programmes. This includes:

  • ‘Introduction to ESD’ presentations.
  • More in-depth workshops to explore how disciplines align to sustainability.
  • 121 advice and support sessions.
  • Supporting development of new sustainability related course content or assessments.
  • ESD resources and guidance.

Contact Neva Mowl if you would like more information.

The wider Sustainability Office and Environmental Sustainability Team also are also able to support academic colleagues to introduce sustainability into their programmes through:

  • Guest lectures.
  • Provision of live briefs.
  • Supporting student projects.

Contact sustainability@salford.ac.uk to discuss your requirements.

Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC) work with colleagues across the University, striving for inspiring and exceptional learning experiences for all Salford students. They facilitate formal and informal continuing academic professional development opportunities, support and training for educational technologies, and support and guidance for pedagogic enquiry. Their mission is to lead the University community in innovative, digitally enabled and societally focused pedagogic practice and scholarship of education.

The ESD Officer has delivered sessions as part of the Festival of Learning & Teaching and LTEC Spotlights, including an online workshop about ESD and how it can support the green skills gap.

The wider LTEC resources and support are also useful for ESD practice, particularly in terms of transforming pedagogy.

Get inspired by research

Students, colleagues and the wider community are encouraged to get inspiration from the brilliant research that is going on at University of Salford in sustainability. Some examples are available on the Research page, and you can see it in action on our campus in our Living Lab, part of the Ignition Project.

External guidance

See the links below for some external guidance and resources on ESD:

More useful guidance can be found in the ESD Community of Practice.

SDG Teach In

Each year, SOS-UK run the SDG Teach In campaign through March, which aims to put the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and therefore sustainability, at the heart of all stages of education, and across all disciplines.

We encourage colleagues to get involved each year and pledge to embed the SDGs into their teaching.

Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME)

PRME's vision is to realise the Sustainable Development Goals through responsible management education and it’s vision is to transform business and management education and develop the responsible leaders of tomorrow. It now includes over 800 business schools worldwide

The University is proud to have adopted the PRME Principles reporting on progress since 2013. The Principles have played an important role in shaping, the Salford Business School’s strategies relating to teaching, learning, research and external engagement. The University of Salford vision is that: “by pioneering exceptional industry partnerships we will lead the way in real world experiences, preparing students for life.” 

Our goal is to prepare students for the careers of tomorrow and ensure they have the knowledge, skills, attributes and confidence to succeed in the workplace. A critical element of this strategy is the need to ensure all our students have an understanding of contemporary business models. Here, Salford Business School is playing an increasing role across the University in seeking to lead the University’s and students’ understanding in this regard. Explicitly, this focuses on ensuring that students develop an understanding of what is best-practice authentic, collaborative and co-created business, management and leadership. As a result we are placing the principles of developing practice that is ethically grounded and socially responsible at our core. Our commitment to the Principles for Responsible Management Education supports this.

The connected, critical and action oriented managers and leaders we seek to develop will be at the forefront of business and society in the future, and it important - now more than ever - that these graduates are underpinned by a proper understanding of ethical, sustainable and socially responsible business practices.

UN Principles for Responsible Management Education
University of Salford Sharing Information on Progress (SIP) Reports
Sustainability in our curriculum

School of Science, Engineering and Environment

Staff within the School of Science, Engineering and Environment have developed collaborative learning projects involving MSc students from the environment, health, safety and wildlife disciplines working on real world sustainability projects with private, public and third sector organisations. Students either work in teams on professional practice projects or as individuals on practice-based dissertations.

They develop a range of real-world skills that are essential for the sustainability professional including negotiating terms of reference with clients, project planning, collecting and analysing data relevant to the project aims, reflecting on performance and writing reports. Throughout the project students keep a ‘reflective learning journal’ to provide insight into the learning process and to inform action planning for future learning and partnership working.

Since 2009 this programme of work-based learning has resulted in over 100 team and individual projects involving around 60 different organisations and over 100 individual contacts. Projects range from assessing the feasibility of implementing sustainable technologies and management measures in business through evaluating health programmes delivered by partner organisations to assessing baseline ecological conditions at key sites. 

 Some examples of projects are: 

  • Students worked with a local authority to examine local issues of sustainable food production and consumption. The project assessed the value of ‘food miles’ as an indicator of sustainability and undertook community engagement on the awareness of food sustainability issues to inform the local authority strategic framework.
  • Students worked with a multinational manufacturing company examining sustainable technologies. The project assessed the feasibility of applying rainwater harvesting technology within a carpet tile manufacturing company by determining the economic and environmental benefits. A proposed rainwater harvesting system was developed informing company policy on water management on site.
  • Students worked with a large bulk chemicals manufacturing company to develop competency management systems for workers in high hazard industries. This work provided the basis for a system that the company later implemented at their plant in the North West of England.

The MSc programme has also worked with the Environmental Sustainability Team to support the development and maintenance of the Environment and Energy Management System through students supporting internal audits and specific projects such as energy conservation, pollution prevention and waste reduction.

School of Arts, Media and Creative Technology

We recognise that the environmental impact of the fashion industry is enormous. Level 4 students in Fashion Image Making and Styling (FIMS) worked on a 6-week environmental brief CARING SHARING, set in tandem with the University of Salford’s Environmental Sustainability Team and linking with an Extinction Rebellion take over day. The work was then exhibited as part of Go Green Salford.

The 60 students collaborated together in small groups of 8-10 and were challenged with ethical environmental consciousness at the core and progressing sustainable solutions to fashion industry waste creating responses with a zero-waste anchor.

The Environmental Sustainability Team underpinned the brief with facts and statistics and FIMS were inspired by major influencers from Greta Thunberg, Collina Strada, More or Less magazine amongst others. Working with major industry game changers Matty Bovan and Cecily Ophelia, the students mobilized and acted sustainably to create a showcase in the atrium of the New Adelphi building of collaborative responses drawing upon the urgent need to address the ongoing climate crisis. They created new discourses and rhetoric around the ecological disaster asking others to act now before its too late.

The exhibition ran for a month and showcased everything from trainers with the soles carved into patterns to spread the message, to patchwork blankets made from boiler suits from oil rigs, to engaging with local green Politicians to write speeches on youth voices, to soundtracks, to hand dyeing all our wardrobe, to making luxury sculptural dresses out of plastic waste, to re-creating the iconic LV Louis Vuitton logo as a green party collaboration. One group took it to the next level, contacting a local school made mini magazines and taught schoolchildren how to reconnect to core skills, such as sewing, dying, spreading the environmental message beyond our wildest realms – this group has been asked back to do more with the children. The group said it was the best day of their lives-young people helping young people is super empowering and inspiring -these will be the future industry game changers. 

FIMS also participated in a XR takeover day with the students helping run a non profit clothing swap shop offering styling advise, restyling and face painting sessions and running a mini photo studio to record new looks as they happened – this was a truly exciting day resulting in widening participation with FIMS now being given the chance to run more swap shops on a regular basis for the University.

A number of level 4 and level 6 FIMS students were also actively involved in Go Green Salford 2021 by creating content and leading events on topics such as slow fashion, upcycling, second hand clothes and digital fashion. Materials from these were later used in coursework projects by some of them. In April 2021, the Environmental Sustainability Team were also invited by FIMS to take part in a discussion panel during their sustainable fashion digital symposium, "Skywoman Falling".

FIMS staff take their responsibility so seriously as a staff team embedding and encouraging students to have good ethics. At the heart of the curriculum this module proves what young people can do if given the support. 'We would not be doing our jobs if we let them continue blindly on ignoring all the evidence when the fashion industry is desperate for next level thinkers and solutions that are creative and original. We are equipping each and every one with the tools they need to help make the changes needed in the industry and beyond with facts and solutions. Sustainability is a journey not a destination and we are fully committed to this path we are on as a staff team with our amazing student cohort -as one ethical caring family. Tomorrows employees and game changers not afraid to stand up for issues believed in passionately helping others understand the situation we are faced with but in positive and dynamic ways – joining forces for change having the confidence to speak up and care, because we care.'

Salford Business School

Recognising that sustainability is just good business the Salford Business School has supported the Business Ethics and Sustainability (BE&S) module team to empower and inspire our next generation business leaders to make lasting environmental, social and economic benefit.

The BE&S module within the Salford Business School (SBS) is a super module for level 6, and reaches around 350 students every academic year, our future business leaders. The module has been delivered in SBS in various appearances for a number of years and it has been recently redesigned to be a real-world student learning experience by partnering with the Social Enterprise Visits Initiative (SEVI) and the UoS Sustainability team. The delivery of teaching has a combination of pedagogical approaches including workshops, guest talks and field trips to social enterprises with a keen focus on skills and knowledge that is vital for professional practice and employability.

The key partnership is with the UoS Sustainability Team, not only delivering lectures that provided the foundation on how UoS is trying to be more sustainable and what the main challenges are, but also meaningfully engaging with the students to help develop the University Sustainability Strategy. Taking the principle of students as partners wider than just teaching and learning but in development of a University wide strategy and tackling some of the sustainability issues on campus. Through a group assessment students have to critically assess how the UoS is addressing one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and identify the main strengths and weaknesses of how the UoS is tackling the SDG. Based on their analysis they present recommendations and a project plan, which would assist the UoS in tackling the selected SDG in the future. Furthermore, students have to investigate and select one charity in Manchester or Salford area that they would like to support and incorporate in their presentation. The best presentation had a chance to win a monetary price that would be donated to the selected charity. The winners of The Best Sustainability Project Idea are announced at the end of every semester where students meet with their charities and pass on their donation.

The UoS ST is a relatively small team with limited resources for engagement. The partnership through BEST enables ongoing dialogue with students that would not otherwise be possible. This also presented the opportunity to deliver information on environmental management at the University such as waste and recycling and provided a barometer of awareness to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes. 

Student projects

Within the Environmental Sustainability Team we encourage students to get involved with sustainability on campus through the generation of live briefs for projects. These have been integrated into the curriculum, support research/assignments or as extra-curricular opportunities. Some examples of previous student projects are listed below:

  • Biodiversity and habitat surveys on campus
  • Development of a tree trail on campus
  • Development of a sustainable procurement guide
  • Using creative tools and art to engage with sustainability
  • Review of food waste management
  • Waste audits
  • Energy and water audits
  • Environmental audits of university buildings
  • Exploring the value of green spaces on campus
  • How to increase recycling on campus
  • How to encourage behaviour change to reduce energy use in student accommodation
  • Cycle parking review
  • Review of green roof management and opportunities
  • Development of a sustainability campus trail

The Environmental Sustainability Team have also funded and supported a number of student-led projects, including the Salford Swap Shop, Salford Climate Cafe, as well as several wildlife and sustainable art workshops.

We are very happy to speak to students and academic colleagues to explore opportunities that support our aims and academic development. If you have an idea for a project that we can help fund or support, please get in touch.

Students can learn from each other, learn from the University and provide recommendations for how the University could be more sustainable...

Romas Malevicius Lecturer in Sustainability and Ethics

Widening Participation and Outreach

At Salford we are committed to breaking down traditional barriers to Higher Education, ensuring that our student cohort reflects the diversity in society. We work to inspire, engage and enable those who would not traditionally consider higher education to fulfill their potential by raising their awareness, challenging barriers and providing opportunities to explore Higher Education.

Read more about our work on widening participation and outreach.

We deliver a wide range of activities and initiatives targeted from secondary school age to post-16 as well as bespoke activities for care experienced students, students with caring responsibilities, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students, disabled young people and others.

Sanctuary seekers

Applying and studying at university can be a challenge for any student, but for those who are seeking sanctuary or been granted refugee status in the UK, there can be many legal and emotional challenges as well. We work in partnership with local and national organisations to ensure that we can offer effective support for you.

Find out more about the support we offer for sanctuary seekers.