Galvanizing Education for Sustainable Development Practice Through the Greening Education Partnership: Steering Green Schools Towards 2030 and Beyond

The Greening Education Partnership (GEP) has emerged as an actionable initiative with four strategic pillars each having its measurable indicators. An outcome of the UN Secretary General’s Transformative Education Summit, GEP sets ambitious targets for countries to be achieved by 2030. It has potential to fast pace the global educational agenda towards the integration of sustainability and climate literacy. This aligns well with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4.7. Despite widespread international support, the implementation of education for sustainable development (ESD) has significant challenges. These include fragmented policy, insufficient political will and diverse socioeconomic challenges. This article presents a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of GEP and critically examines GEP and opportunities it presents to scale up ESD. Drawing insights from the Foundation for Environmental Education’s (FEE) Eco-Schools programme, this article discusses necessary areas to enable the whole-school approach that integrates sustainability across curricula, pedagogy and community engagement, emphasizing local relevance and inclusivity. The varying readiness and resource availability across countries pose significant challenges to achieving the ambitious goals. The analysis identifies critical success factors, including sustained government commitment, resource mobilization, strategic actions to scale up the learning and experiences of stakeholders to enable transformative educational outcomes.