OUR MISSION

Foster education and actions for sustainable development.  

OUR VISION

Sustainable development fully integrated into education and learning in the United States and internationally. 

OUR ACTIVITIES

We focuses on initiatives that:

• -empower and assist the most vulnerable populations,

• -help prevent the worst impacts of climate change,

• -change societal norms to produce a more sustainable future for present and future generations.
   

The US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (USP) acts as a convener, catalyst, and communicator working across all sectors of society in the US and internationally. We identify mainstream organizations and associations of organizations that are in unique and important positions to help create a more sustainable future, and we help them create their sustainability initiatives, policies, and professional development. We connect these organizations to take the initiatives to scale within and across societal sectors. The following represents some of our efforts.

Education

The Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) is composed of 10 United Nations agencies, higher education networks for sustainability, and nonprofits working within this arena. The USP co-facilitates two of the HESI action groups: Education for Green Jobs, and the SDG Publishers Compact Fellows.

The Education for Green Jobs initiative:
-hosted multiple virtual Solutions Summits for educators, employers, and other stakeholders
-distributed a co-authored, global guidance document
-created international virtual communities of over 4000 people, and
-catalyzed a series of Solution Summits and developed a toolkit as part of the -Clean Energy Ministerial’s Empowering People Initiative. Over 100 countries participated in this series.

Future activities include Solution Summits for educational accreditation bodies, academic societies and curricular decision makers focused on sustainability education and workforce development, clean energy literacy and green skilling.

The SDG Publishers Compact Fellows has helped researchers, authors and publishers:
-focus on the Sustainable Development Goals
-make academic publishing more equitable and accessible
-close the gap between practitioners and researchers to inform research agendas and co-create research
-distribute research results via plain language summaries for practitioners and policymakers
-include implications for practitioners and policymakers within the abstracts
-use a rubric to assess sustainability in educational materials.

The group also co-chairs a taskforce exploring better measures for quality research, such as measuring outcomes instead of proxy measures like citations for rating, rankings, and assessments. See our recommended action tips and additional resources.

USP also facilitates the Higher Education Associations Sustainability Consortium and the Disciplinary Associations Network for Sustainability. Both of these networks are 20 years old and work on integrating sustainability into higher education. While these two networks are focused on the US, USP has become more inclusive of other countries and their higher education associations.

Sustainability in Cities and Communities

The USP works closely with ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability. To create sustainability solutions, particularly for under-resourced communities, USP has been working on increasing financing and human capacity and access to expertise for local governments to implement climate and, more broadly, sustainability solutions.

Empowering Youth to Hold Institutions Accountable for a Sustainable Future 

The youth sector of the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development has grown substantially over the past few years and is running three major initiatives:

• -advocating for the implementation of climate solutions and equitable support for climate adaptation while holding corporations and governments accountable for their inadequate climate and environmental justice actions (see https://www.changethechamber.org/)

• -responding to the extremist attacks on sustainability investing

• -providing materials for young adults on how to become an environmental change maker, address, mental health issues regarding climate change and improve relationships and emotional intelligence

OUR GOALS

1. Convene
2. Catalyse
3. Communicate
4.   Collaborate

• for education for sustainable development (ESD) working across multiple sectors of society.
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