Climate Change and our unsustainable lifestyles are a threat to future generations. How we deal with this effectively will be defined by how well the current and future generations are educated on solutions and handling of the crises.

Aditya Pundir
Country Manager, The Climate Project Foundation

This conference will provide an opportunity for the sharing of global best practices and experiences in sustainability education, and in stimulating thinking on ways and approaches to achieve Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goals amongst each participant and each participating organisation. It will, I hope, consequently also stimulate the development

Dr. Ajay Mathur
Director General, TERI

Sustainable Development cannot be attained without education. Few would dispute that the number of learners accessing education has increased significantly over the last few decades and yet we are experiencing the highest levels of unsustainable development. Many educators share my concern that, currently, education is not fit for purpose. We need education to be transformative and education systems to be transformed. This Conference provides an opportunity to rethink education and redefine learning. It will help develop the partnerships, pathways and inspiration needed to attain SDG 4 and move us closer to a fairer and more sustainable world.

Prof Daniella Tilbury
Commissioner for Sustainable Development

The Foundation for Environmental Education is happy to partner with the International Conference on Sustainability Education. FEE, represent 98 members across 76 countries and is recognised by UNESCO as a world leader within the fields of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). FEE’s strength comes from its members who share the conviction for a sustainable world and execute the five ESD programmes with great efficiency. FEE helps communities realise the benefits of sustainable living through the solution and positive action based approaches. FEE believes in the power of change through its programmes that are creating a cadre of educated and environmentally conscious people equipped to lead a sustainable life. The three youth-focused educational programmes, Eco-Schools, Learning about Forests (LEAF) and Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE), use a solution based pedagogical approach to empower young people to create a more environmentally conscious world based on feelings of involvement, ownership and protection. The Green Key and Blue Flag initiatives are recognised across the world for their promotion of sustainable resource management and business practices.

FEE is working towards strengthening the ESD network in the Asia Pacific region and the conference creates an opportunity to bring the Global Experience and the work being done in the region through its members. The experiences would contribute in the discourse around education for sustainable development goals, help spread and influence education systems and hopefully synergise more partnerships and opportunities in the region. We also, look forward to engaging with the outcomes of the Conference.

Daniel Schaffer
CEO, Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), Copenhagen, Denmark

Education is the benchmark for everything which is sustainable. Our ability to build skills and knowledge for the unique challenges faced on earth today; such as adaptation to climate change, water scarcity, increasing prevalence of natural disasters and a changing global economy; can only be achieved through sustainable and participatory education. In the English language, the same letters which spell “EARTH” spell “HEART’, learning to live in harmony with one another will come from understanding of ourselves and one another. Working with compassion, fear melts away into flow, enabling us to change behavior at local level through both formal and informal education from the earliest age, will lead to a world of peace and abundance of resources. It is my hope that the ICSE will lead the way to sustainability and preparedness.

Donna Goodman
Founder and Executive Director of the Earth Child Institute (ECI)

No one should be left behind. That is the core message of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Agenda recognizes the importance of education as a driver of human development, with Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasizing that we must ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.

Target 4.7 of the SDGs notes that learners must acquire the skills needed to promote sustainable development through forms of education that focus on sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, the promotion of a culture of peace, global citizenship and the appreciation of cultural diversity. We are proud that UNESCO’s leadership in the field of education has placed us at the forefront of global efforts to achieve SDG 4.

UNESCO is delighted to partner with the Mobius Foundation to co-organize an International Conference on Sustainability Education in New Delhi on 9–10 September 2019. We believe that the conference will be instrumental in building momentum and interest for the uptake of sustainability education, and will help a new generation make sustainable development a reality.

Eric Falt
Director and UNESCO Representative

Earth Day Network strongly believes that innovative learning opportunities inspire students to be stewards for the environment. We thus support the development of area-specific, student-centric environmental curriculum, provisions for teacher-training workshops across disciplines, and the conducting of programs that provide the students hands-on experience of their immediate environment.

Karuna A. Singh
Country Director - India, Earth Day Network

The 2030 UN agenda for attaining sustainable development goals is a critical period of experimentation and learning for sustainability education. Education, formal and non-formal must seek out and encourage all types of learners to engage in real-life situations where individuals and communities consider enironmental, social and economic trajectories of change and make trade-offs and judgements that benefit their own as well as planetary wellbeing. Sustainability education must avoid the pitfalls of "all theory and no ptractice"; sustainability educational curricula that emphasize learning are a critical need both in formal and non-formal education sectors.

Dr. Natarajan Ishwaran
Editor in Chief, Environmental Development (Elsevier)

Let me begin by extending my warmest wishes at this trying time.

We are together facing the biggest global crisis since the Second World War. Earth is entering the dangerous zone of being unsustainable and humans are the ones to be blamed. If our children grow-up with the same uncaring, unconcerned attitude as we have, humanity as we know it will cease to exist. It becomes very important that we must also think about recovery and addressing the inequalities and fragilities the virus has so painfully exposed. The planet cannot support our current lifestyle. We must be aware of what lies ahead of us. I am confident that if we start to act positively in direction of sustainable way of living, the strong resilience power of planet earth will surely get to a balance state. Our blueprint remains the Sustainable Development Goals.

Education is key to the global integrated framework of sustainable development goals. International conference on Sustainability Education (ICSE) is an initiative to create youth as advocates of sustainability, at the age when they can be moulded into one. ICSE-2019 has been successfully able to set the tone of discussion and dialogues with clear objective of delivering outcome of awareness, education and catching the success stories related to environment concerns. To keep up with the momentum, 2nd ICSE-2020 was organised through virtual mode, where pandemic generated situation was kept in centre of discussion and topics like Sustainability Education and the New Normal and Sustainability Education and the Youth was discussed through several frames like New Education policy, Girl’s education and its linkage with sustainability etc.

We are now going to organise 3rd International Conference on Sustainability Education (ICSE) on 9-10 September 2021 through virtual platform. In line with UN decade (2021-2030) on Ecosystem Restoration, the first day of the ICSE 2021 will therefore focus on the theme “Education for Ecosystem Restoration”. The deliberations of the 2nd day will be devoted to the theme of “Climate Literacy.

I extend my sincere wishes for the success of this conference and believe that this conference will surely deliver the outcomes of education, awareness and insight building in direction of attaining sustainable future.

Thank you. Stay safe. Good health to you and your families. Let’s all take care of each other

Pradip Burman
Chairman of Mobius Foundation

The International Conference on Sustainability Education is aptly placed as 2020 will see five years of the Sustainable Development Goals. The conference would help set the ball rolling to reflect on Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG), especially in the context of Target 4.7. With 2019, The Eco-Schools programme is entering into its 25th year of engaging young people in taking positive actions that transform them for life. Eco-Schools is a programme that has developed from a European educational programme to a global model for Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development. Over the years the programme has grown to have an outreach of more than 52000 schools in 68 countries that engage 19 million students who are supported by 1.4 million teachers. The programme aims at providing every child with the opportunity to acquire the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary to shape a sustainable future by integrating priority sustainable development issues into teaching and learning.

The Young Reporters for Environment (YRE) programme aims to empower young people with skills to take a stand on environmental issues they feel strongly about and to give them a platform to articulate these issues through the media of writing, photography or video. The programme is active in 34 countries worldwide. The YRE programme brings students of all backgrounds together with a sense of common purpose and helps develop the skills of communication, taking initiative, teamwork, critical analysis, social responsibility and leadership. We will see some YRE students participating in the conference and reporting the proceedings and outcomes. The third education programme of FEE; Learning About Forests (LEAF), gives students learn to enjoy the outdoors, experience and observe nature. The positive outdoors experiences develop a positive attitude toward the environment and our forests. The programme is operational in 26 countries.

We look forward to sharing best practices from the programmes and contribute to supporting the efforts in ESDG.

Dr. Pramod Kumar Sharma
Senior Director of Education, Foundation for Environmental Education, Copenhagen, Denmark

If education has to be ‘future-ready’ then it is imperative that it is ‘SDGs-ready’. The time for teaching the 'best practices’ would soon be part of the history because the future is for ‘next-practices’. In the world of accelerated change where the technologies are characterised by quantum-jumps, learning ABCD means acquiring Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Cloud-networking and Digital data transformation. That's precisely why we need ‘next-practices’ for the GenNext. These next practices will leverage the modern technologies to educate the future policy makers and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.

I am sure ICSE2019 would promote deployment of such educational practices to mould the minds and incubate the dreams of the youth in this very direction.

Rajendra Shende
Chairman of TERRE Policy Centre

As Nelson Mandela said, "Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world." The only way to build and sustain a more just and sustainable world, to achieve and sustain the SDGs for now and the future, is through education. Now is the time that we must come together, joining our hands and our hearts, to infuse our youngsters, the NEXT and the NOW generation, with awareness of their oneness with all of creation. Education must inculcate in them the knowledge of our inextricably linked existences and the huge ripple impact of all their choices, as well as with the tools they'll need to effect great change. This is the power of linking value based education with knowledge based systems for innovation in climate change and environmental protection. First they have to WANT to create a just and sustainable world and then they need to have the tools build it. I'm so impressed to see the effects of Dr. Ram Boojh and his team in bringing such a powerful group of leaders together. As Mahatma Gandhiji said, "We must be the change we want to see in the world." This conference will, I am sure, provide the impetus, the awareness and the tools to become that change!

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati
Secretary General of Global Interfaith WASH Alliance

"Welcome to the 3rd Edition of ICSE 2021!

International Conference on Sustainability Education (ICSE) is a flagship initiative of Mobius Foundation which was conceptualised in partnership with some of the world’s leading environment and sustainability organizations, educators and leaders.

The first ICSE was successfully organised on 9-10, September, 2019 in New Delhi. The conference received overwhelming response from over 750 attendees from over 40 countries which included sustainability educators, leaders, policy makers, teachers and practitioners from across the disciplines and professions. The proceedings of the conference not only echoed a common cause for betterment of environment in which we live in but also resulted in forming a network of sustainability professionals, educators, leaders, policy makers, teachers and practitioners from across the disciplines and professions with whom we are connected and interact on regular basis. This connect of common cause has been a driving force for all of us which keeps us looking forward to ICSE with great interest.

While, the global sustainability community along with us were looking forward to welcome the year 2020 as the remarkable year for environment and sustainability, the unprecedented COVID pandemic and lock down as its preventive measure caused huge social, economic and educational disruption apart from serious health impacts. Therefore, the second version of ICSE-2020 was organised in a modest way through virtual mode. The main topics of discussion for Day 1 and Day 2 were “sustainability education and the new normal” and “sustainability education and the youth” respectively. ICSE-2020 was able to keep the momentum and motivation to look forward for the future with much promise and possibilities.

Though we face the third wave of COVID in 2021, our point of encouragement and inspiration to carry forward the motives of ICSE remains the same which is undoubtedly the interest and determinations of our partners and participants of previous two versions of ICSE. We along with our partner organisations are now going to conduct 3rd edition of ICSE-2021 on September, 9 -10 2021 through State-of -the-Art virtual platform. Through this virtual platform we have tried our best to make very exciting experience for the participants wherein they will experience the physical feel of delivering Plenary lectures in an auditorium, panel discussions/ deliberations/poll events in 11 theme based dedicated parallel session halls, showcasing of products and contents through stalls within the exhibition halls, networking lounge, poster presentation area, chat rooms, selfie zone etc. This conference will cover two themes i.e Ecosystem Restoration and Climate Literacy under which 11 sub themes ranging from School education to Nature Connect will be covered through parallel sessions. These themes are aligned to Sustainable Development Goals.

I am confident that ICSE-2021 will be able to explore the pathways to address current and emerging sustainability challenges through education by empowering learners with new skills, values and attitudes that lead to more sustainable societies.

Dr. Ram Boojh
Convener, ICSE 2021
Chief Executive Officer, Mobius Foundation